As an individual, what would it take for you to change you philosophy to something else?
Would it be some new data, a new insight, or something else? What would it be?
For me it was a slow examining of how I felt on a variety of issues when Palin first hit the scene. I loved her, I thought she was awesome. I always claimed to be Republican and sided with it blindly, purely for lack of political interest. She seemed like a gem. I was actually quite proud for short while after her acceptance speech, I was energized - it was awesome.
So when she came out I wanted to know more, my interest grew. Up until that point politics in my world was something my parent's never discussed in front of us kids and I always considered it to be a mature-adult thing and hardly considered myself a mature-adult.
I suddenly had interests and questions: What exactly did the Republican Party stand for, what was their platform and goal for office and the future of our country?
I started reading and paying more attention to the news and so on. The more I read, though, and the more I watched - the less I agreed with things they valued or favored and approved of.
My growing political knowledge led to me learning more and then realizing I didn't really support who I claimed to support.
But my changing stance didn't really swing me Democrat, either - I'm floating in the middle. Often times I agree with Democrats on certain issue but other times I solely agree with Republicans . .. and the Green Party and so on, so forth.
So I spent quite a long time actually learning more about 3rd parties. Who were they, who was running, who could I support without a psychological and personal tussle.
I've yet to decide - but I do support 3rd party candidates for various things. This next election, if the Tea-Party keeps it up and Obama keeps pissing me off - I'll likely vote Libertarian or Green. Though they seem like complete opposites of each other they still reflect my mix-up more ideally than the Reps or Dems.
Because no one seemed to be on my page at that time I spent a long time actually reading all the parties political platforms and started to compile in a table of all the things they said they supported, agreed with, disagreed with and were actively against.
One of these days I intend to finish it. Overall - I despise the 2-party system and would like to actually change everyone's views that "a 3rd party vote is a wasted vote"