Dear Grand Old Party,

I just wanted to send you this letter and talk to you about why I walked out on you all those years ago. When I was younger, you were all I could think about. I met you when I was eight, when a cowboy with swagger walked into the room and got elected president. I remember when that cowboy was shot and we were all afraid we had lost another beloved president. I remember when he recovered and we all saw him return to the vibrant man we all came to love. I remember watching as that cowboy demolished what was thought to be a worthy challenger in one of the greatest beat-downs in presidential electoral history. These eight years were truly the best of times. Then something happened between us, the cowboy went back to his ranch and was replaced by an old man.

I was sixteen when George Herbert Walker Bush took office. I still considered myself a growing Republican but something happened those next four years. The party I grew up with, the one that had produced the cowboy of my youth started to feel like a bunch of old men that no longer cared about me. It was in 1992, when I turned 20, that I engaged in my first infidelity. A young, vibrant man from Arkansas and his friend, a man from my own back yard turned my head and I voted Democrat in the first presidential election that I was able to engage in. He had turned my head when he appeared on my generation's night show, the "Arsenio Hall Show," playing a saxophone no less. While George Bush was courting the public on Jay Leno and David Letterman, Bill Clinton was busy talking to the cool kids. While Reagan had been a cowboy, Clinton was James Dean, come to save us from the boredom of the crypt keeper. So, I cheated on you. It felt great too. The economy surged and the country felt alive for the next eight years.

Then James Dean returned to his home and I found myself wavering on who to choose. I was pulled in both directions by another cowboy and the friend from my back yard. I wanted to be loyal to my friend, but a tough talking cowboy had me wondering if I had chosen poorly eight years before. It was agonizing choosing between the two but in the end I sided with my friend. It was at this point, and over the next four years that our relationship changed forever. First, you stole that election from my friend. Nine justices helped you do it, but you stole that election. I was shocked, and hurt, that you would do that to such an honorable man as my friend. I was just in the process of healing from that heinous theft when the unthinkable happened, 19 men hijacked four jets and changed our country forever. I can still recall seeing those buildings fall and wondering why almost 3,000 innocent people had to die. It was the next morning when the cowboy took the megaphone at the rubble and declared that those that had caused this carnage would be punished. It was that morning that I came to grips with the theft of the election because I was proud of the tough talk of my president. Little could I have known that those words would be the last good thing he would do in his presidency.

It was three years later that you would do something that would change our relationship forever. During the 2004 election, you did something so incomprehensible to me, something that hurt me to my core. You had to gall and audacity to attack John Kerry's military service. You see, you knew me well and should have known that I served in the military. John Kerry was a flawed candidate in many ways. He lacked passion, and seemed a little standoffish at times. There were many, many reasons not to elect him as our president when he ran against the tough talking cowboy. With all of his faults, Kerry was an honorable man, a man that had served his country and seen combat in the Vietnam conflict. The cowboy that had dodged any significant combat saw fit to attack the military service of an honorable man. I am sorry, but that was just wrong. It was that moment when I lost all respect for you, and that moment that I turned away from you for good. It was then that I also learned that your tough talk was just that, all talk.

So, here we are, I felt that I needed to talk to you about why I no longer have feelings for you. I had to share with you why I left and why I won't be coming back. You lost my support, but more importantly, you lost my respect. The moment that you decided to attack an honorable man for his service to his country, that was the moment that I stopped caring about you and started wanting you out of my life. You made your bed, and I no longer want to be anywhere near it.