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My great grandfather was born in the 1850’s. As a kid, he shook hands with Abraham Lincoln. This account was retold in a local newspaper clipping that I have from the 1940’s. My family were Republicans on both sides. They were conservatives. My great great grandfather founded a Methodist Church in 1850’s as well. In my father’s last years, he realized the Methodist Church had left him, and I took him to a new church home, and this made him very happy. My father lived along enough to vote for Bush in 2000. I voted for Bush in 2004. But alas, this year I cannot and will not vote for the Republican Presidential candidate nor will I vote for the Democratic candidate. I can say with some degree of certainty, that on my father’s side of the family this is the first time a male has not voted Republican for the Presidency since the Republican Party was founded. We have a choice, we can fashion ourselves to the times or we can stand firm on principle and move on from what was foundational to our family’s forefathers. I am at peace with this decision. And someday, in my eternal peace, I know I will rest with ancestors in a cemetery plot where my stone awaits me, as does my ancestors who date of birth on their stones go back as far as 1815.

Don't give up so easy. John McCain is an older man. He was a POW for many years in his youth. His ancestors did not live long lives. Even now John's memory is slipping. He's forgotten his promise about getting the border under control FIRST. Many of us think this is a sign of impending cardiovascular failure in major blood vessels in his brain.

There's a doggone good chance that you'll find the Republicans needing to select a candidate at the convention.

See you at the polls!

Interesting that they were R's on both sides.

My father's side was recruited into the Republicans by way of Marc Hanna's ethnic Republican clubs, which were the tool he and McKinley had used in 1896 to beat the Democratic/Populist merged party. They prospered during the Depression, and as a result they supported Landon, Wilkie and Dewey against the New Dealers.

My mother's side failed to prosper even during the 1920's, and they suffered during the Depression. They viewed FDR as their savior, and even today the descendants are all staunch Democrats.

In the time of president lincoln, the democrats were the conservatives not the republicans. The republicans were the “tax and spend big government” party. So your boast of ancestors voting republican since the party’s inception is silly.

My mother died in 2007 at the age of 102. The local paper in the MS town where my relatives live, did an article about her several years ago. The article mentioned that she remembered when the Titanic sank and that she and her dad went to church to pray for the survivors. We had never heard that story before. She lived an amazing life but was ready to go home.