The decision by the Arizona Democratic Party to skip the Arizona presidential primary this year—while understandable and quite fiscally responsible—sure isn’t helping the party’s registration numbers.

Earlier this week, I, Jimmy Boegle, became a registered Republican, so I can vote in the presidential primary later this month. The same goes for most of the rest of the Tucson Weekly editorial staff. God help us.

I still don’t know who will get my vote—but you can read all about the contenders in our very special Project White House 2012 package online.

When I posted the news of my new party affiliation on Facebook, the reaction to the news that I—a fairly liberal-minded dude—was now a member of the GOP was varied.

“I don’t even know you anymore,” said a good college friend. “You’re dead to me. :)” said a colleague.

Meanwhile, James DiGiovanna—the former and future-if-I-can-ever-talk-him-back-in-to-it Weekly film reviewer—may have best summed up the matter.

“Well, like most Republicans, you’re a gay, white man. So there’s that,” James noted.

Ha! We kid, we kid, my Republican comrades.

In genuine seriousness, several commenters took me to task for joining the Republican ranks, saying that what I was doing was truly wrong—that I was consorting with the enemy, if you will.

A couple of responses to those people: First, it’s true that there are good Republicans out there. They’re drowned out these days by the xenophobes and homophobes and class-warfare proponents, yes, but they’re out there.

Second, not all Democrats or independents are all that great—far from it. I could name names if you’d like.

The moral of this story: It’s almost never a good idea to paint with an overbroad brush.

This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2012.

5 replies on “Editor’s Note”

  1. Jim, I’ve often thought exactly the same thing – the reason the Republican party has been taken over by – well, by who has taken it over – is that the rest of us wouldn’t be a party to it. Yet, I haven’t had the nerve to do what you did. Though I did declare Republican for the primary when Ev Meacham was up; I wanted to vote against him TWICE.

    Please keep us informed of the impact, both positive and negative.

  2. You may like the action in the Republican primary and that is fine. Have you ever noticed how many people are registering Independent? Their ranks are swelling because people who would normally register Republican are totally turned off by what the GOP is doing to ruin Arizona. They aren’t really with the Democrats but are ashamed of Governor finger, the greatest story teller since P T Barnum and the Pearce-Arpaio brand of Republicans in the Legislature.

  3. No matter how you register it doesn’t matter, actually going into the voting booth and touching the ballot will be disgusting. It doesn’t matter much which name you pick, it is all voting for the same big companies that have a strangle hold on our country from buying off the politicians.
    The best idea is to get rid of corporate contributions and lobbyists and take back out country. But is that possible? Changing parties won’t do anything to accomplish that. Obama knows what needs to be done, he knows he should keep his promises and he has kept some of them, but his owners keep him in check.

  4. Well, I’m pretty sure that the votes of you and the rest of the editorial staff will not stay Republican in the general election. I think Rush Limbaugh encouraged this kind of fun during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Comments are closed.