Flora family politics

I got an email today from my cousin Eric. We exchange emails on conservative subjects frequently and today’s missive had him wondering how our Grandfather Irvin Flora became a Democrat, as did our fathers.

Here’s what I wrote in reply:

I think my dad's politics, and probably our grandfather's as well, grew out of an impulse to root for the underdog, to look out for the little guy.

One of dad's first jobs was working for the Federal Land Bank, which was a subsidiary of FDR's Farm Credit Administration. I think that's what he did after leaving the Carroll County Treasurer's office when Grandpa Flora's term as treasurer ended and before he became an insurance agent.

I don't remember him talking that much about FDR, but he really identified with Harry Truman. He took us on a family trip to Washington, D.C. around 1950 or '51 and I think the fact that Truman was in the White House was a factor. Truman was a farm boy like our fathers and, even though he was a Missouri Democrat Machine candidate, he rose above machine politics.

I'm pretty sure my dad and his father would not recognize what the Democrat Party has become. I was raised in a Democrat household and considered myself a Democrat of varying levels of enthusiasm until the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. It wasn't until then that I realized the Democrat Party had been taken over by and was pandering to a constituency that I couldn't identify with and that I had more in common with the GOP.

Even so, Nixon certainly didn't inspire me, neither did Ford or Carter. I bitterly regret that I didn't fully appreciate Reagan when he was in office and I worried about George Bush's judgment when he picked Dan Quayle as his running mate. Quayle was well-known to those of us at The Indianapolis News, since our managing editor, who was also the Adjutant General of Indiana and head of the Indiana National Guard, pulled strings to get Quayle - a relative of the publisher - a safe berth in the Guard during Vietnam.

Bill Clinton's style revolted me and, although it was painful to listen to George W. Bush speak because his mannerisms invited ridicule by people who thought they were smarter than he, I recognized that he was and is a genuinely good man.

In contrast, Obama hates the America we love and his presidency is all about race and revenge.

I liked Mitt Romney, but felt he was too nice and too kind for the savage race he found himself in. That said, I fully believe the Democrats stole the 2012 election through widespread and well organized voter fraud. It the votes had been counted honestly, I have no doubt that Romney would have won.

That's my worst fear going forward - that the Democrat network of voter fraud is so well coordinated and financed, especially in key states and precincts, that they can thwart the will of the people. With the mainstream media refusing to expose them, it may not matter how people actually vote.