I've thought of going third party, but I hate to waste my vote. I'd rather work within one of the parties to pull it in a sane direction.

I was a Democrat until 1996. Republican since. I'm not very religious, but agree, generally, with several of the stance of the 'religious right,' but for non-religious reasons. I take heat for telling my GOP friends that the Iraq War was a mistake, started for reasons that turned out to be not true (though I do believe Bush honestly thought he was doing the right thing.) I tell them the next generation of Republicans have to acknowledge the war should not have been started, but now must be won. I tell them that if a President Gore invaded a country 'by mistake,' we'd be beside ourselves with righteous anger.

There isn't much Bush did of note that was traditionally Republican. So I don't feel the need to defend him.

I was a journalst for 10 years, my years as a Democrat. The reason I can't let comments like "Republicans just hate educated people" go without challenge is that it reflects, to a degree, people repeating mainstream news/entertainment media conventional wisdom. They just don't have their ideas challenged by the mainstream media as much as the Right does. As long as they avoid Fox News and talk radio, they can go months without having their thinking challenged.

More info than you needed, but...