Coming Out Republican
A Political Origin Story
A Primer
The story I’m about to tell is from 35 years ago, when I was a young college student. It’s relevant to how I was raised and how I got started in politics. By the time I left politics in 2015, I had stopped caring entirely about party labels and began to care more about policy. We’ll explore it more with a review of Federalist 10 coming soon.
The Story
I have to confess. I was a Democrat. It was a brief period when I was young.
The decision to leave the party set me on the road to politics. Ironically, the man who put me on the path of Republican politics has always been an unapologetic Democrat. Coming out as a Republican to him turned out to be harder than I expected.
Party Loyalty at Home
My childhood home was a chapter of the Democratic National Committee. Every four years, we would gather in front of the television for four straight days of indoctrination by the mother ship during the Democratic National Convention. Every election cycle was dominated by who needed votes or the consequences that would follow if this Democrat or that one lost. It was more important than the Olympics in our house.
People who believe that adults can easily brainwash children have never raised teenagers. I started running with a bad crowd, Young Republicans, getting myself into debates about the free market, U.S. foreign policy, and even admiring tax cuts. I was a fan of President Ronald Reagan, but I couldn’t talk about that at home.
The 1984 Heresy
My father joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1959 and proudly served under his commander-in-chief, John F. Kennedy, on a helicopter transport carrier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was the ideal Democratic voter: supported the status quo candidate, voted faithfully in every election, and was a tireless champion of the party’s nominees.
To demonstrate that point, I recall the 1984 Democratic Primary where Colorado Senator Gary Hart challenged former Vice President Walter Mondale. Mondale was the party’s man; it was "his turn." Like many young voters of the day, my sister chose the more exciting Hart, who four years later would achieve a level of scandal that is all too familiar now.
In 1984, the idea of supporting anyone but Mondale was heresy in our house, and my sister’s rebellion played through to the Democratic Convention. As my sister and father debated which candidate was better, I blurted out, “What difference does it make? Reagan’s going to win.”
The chilling silence and stare made all too clear that I’d said those words out loud. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my father said, and we left it at that.
November came soon enough, and my amateur prognostication was overwhelmingly correct.
Voting for the First Time
My first opportunity to vote was in 1988, when I registered as a Democrat. For reasons I’ll never understand, I cast my first vote for former Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt in the primary. By the 1988 general election, I voted for Libertarian candidate Ron Paul. It wasn't the last time I voted for Ron Paul or the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee.
The Switch
By 1990, I was a young college student volunteering for my first campaign for the First District of Maryland. The 1988 election had proven difficult for the incumbent Democrat, so seven Republican candidates ran in the 1990 election. I volunteered for a local state House member who seemed like a decent guy, working at a grocery store when he wasn’t representing the people in Annapolis.
In those days, volunteers stuffed envelopes, licked stamps, waved signs, all the usual stuff to get your candidate elected. One night, I was leaving, and the Campaign Manager stopped me because he’d noticed I wasn’t on the precinct list in my hometown.
“Oh, I’m a Democrat, so I’m probably not on the list.”
He looked at me for a second and said, “Hey, you’re a nice guy, and I’m sure you’re on the team, but don’t you think you should be registered to vote in the primary? I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression.”
He pulled out a registration form and handed it to me. “It’s totally up to you, but I can’t spend time explaining having you on the team if you’re going to stay a Democrat.”
Before he’d even finished the sentence, I’d started and almost finished filling out the form. I thought, “What did I care?” I honestly didn’t see a future in the Democratic Party, and I agreed with this candidate.
So, I handed the registration form back to the Campaign Manager and told him he could send it in, and I’d be back the next day. Simple and easy, right? Not really.
The Episode
About two weeks later, I came home from college one day. My father and grandmother greeted me to have a serious chat. My father sat on one end of the dining room table, and my grandmother sat on the other. My dad asked me to sit down. It seemed like one of those conversations where someone was in the hospital or dead.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
My father pulled a card out and handed it to me. “You got this in the mail today.”
It was my voter registration card.
“Okay. Where’s Mom? Everyone’s okay, right?”
I was waiting for something terrible to happen.
“There’s a mistake on there, and I thought you ought to know so you can fix it.”
I looked at the card. Name, address, everything checked out.
“Looks right to me.”
“Can’t be.” My father is not known for shouting, but clearly, he was not happy. “That says you’re a Republican, and I know that’s not right.”
“Oh, that. I switched parties because…”
Those were my last words for about 45 minutes. My grandmother was a mild-mannered woman. She gave me the nickname “The Politician” after I’d gone into politics, and she called me that until the day she died. She was proud of me for going off to college, the first one in our family, but she wasn’t going to listen to nonsense.
So she and my father staged what I can only call an intervention to bring me back to my senses. Someone had talked me into it; any explanation they could think of that I could not possibly mean registering as a Republican, and I needed to fix it. I listened, but I was in and staying.
I left the conversation unpersuaded and determined to move ahead. I got more active in the College Republicans, and when I left college, I decided Washington would be my first job.
The Aftermath
My father and I spent the better part of the next decade arguing, not debating, politics. As I graduated from college and moved to Washington, DC, to work on Capitol Hill, the back-and-forth never stopped.
After Thanksgiving Dinner of 2000, while the Bush-Gore election hung in the balance, the arguing reached its peak. My mother banned political talk during special occasions from that point forward.
Once my father became a local elected official and had to work with people from all parties, I became his son, the Republican. And I was no longer "mistaken." Instead, I’d been raised to "think for myself."
I had to give the old man credit. He had spin.
My father was right. I was fiercely independent. But the switch happened because, after I was exposed to ideas, I challenged them and formed my own opinions. That discovery made me understand the power of ideas and inspired me to be part of shaping policy.
Those who don’t live in a world of politics may not see the difference between the operatives and the policy people, but there is a vast difference. Operatives know how to make campaigns run smoothly, work effectively, and even succeed. To me, the real power in politics is the policy. The "why" we fight for what we believe in. Those are the leaders.
Thanks to my parents and an awkward coming out, I became a policy guy who worked in politics. It’s also how I ended up working for a quirky Congressman from South Carolina and ultimately, a Governor.
But more on that later.