Recent events of nominal to no daily importance, have made me feel a need to make something about myself crystal clear... just for the sake of doing it.
I am a socially liberal to libertine, economically pro-labor progressive Democrat. ...And damned proud of it!!
I vote for Democrats.
I donate time, energy, skills and other resources to fielding and supporting my party's candidates, busting myths perpetuated about my party, raising funds for my party and our candidates and serving my party.
If I don't like one of my party's sitting politicians, I see it as a need for us to field a better candidate for that seat in our next primary, not as a reason to vote against everything I am by voting for a conservative.
I chose the Democratic party because it was and remains the best fit for who I already was and who I am, on my own... I don't bend to fit a party mold and I don't bend the party to fit me.
I won't support or vote for any candidate running on any conservative party's ticket and I won't support or vote for any conservative running on my party's ticket. I am not a conservative.
I will not vote for anyone who is too dishonest, too stupid or too wussy to run on the ticket of a party well-suited to his/her politics.
I will not support or vote for any single-issue, narrow-focus or axe-to-grind candidate.
I WILL support and vote for broad-focus liberal/progressive independents and liberal/progressive candidates running on the tickets of parties that are well suited to their politics when my party has failed to field a broad focus liberal/progressive candidate for that seat.
If there is no candidate suitable to my requirements in a candidate -- I abstain from voting in that race.
...And here's a fun fact for those of you who buy into the nauseating spin that the heartland is a wholesome conservative utopia while the west coast and upper north east are raunchy liberal hellholes -- this secular, liberal, progressive Democrat was born, bred and still resides in a small, rural county in America's heartland.