Another person abandoned by the Democrats

Ronald Reagan famously said "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, it left me."

I'm seeing this sentiment a lot, most recently in a friend of mine. He's gay, he's Wiccan, he's Democratic – until he changes his registration.

I suspect the Democratic Party has left most of its members; it just takes a major shock to get any given person to notice.

Wizbang has posted a letter from someone who finally had to pay attention to having been deserted by his party.

To the readers of Wizbang:
I write this to you as a lifelong Democrat, as someone who has always stood with the Democratic party and all it has stood for. Ever since I could legally vote, I have cast my ballot for the Democratic nominee -- Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton (twice!), Al Gore, and John Kerry. I even managed to persuade my parents to vote for Walter Mondale when I was too young to vote myself.
This year, I found myself filled with hope and promise for the future. Barack Obama was, to me, represented the greatest chance for our nation to finally fulfill its promise and lead the world to a better, brighter, fairer, more just age. I argued endlessly with those who would not or could not see this, trying to show them what I had learned.
Now I find I deeply regret my actions, and hope that those I had argued with so vehemently will forgive me.
I find that Barack Obama is not the man I thought he was.
When I first started believing in Barack Obama, I thought he stood for so many of the things I believed in. But since then, he has betrayed nearly every single progressive belief I hold.
....
The final straw, for me, was his response to the current financial meltdown we're experiencing. At a time when we need bold leadership and decisive action, Senator Obama said he favored a "wait and see" approach before saying what he would do.
Pardon me, Senator, but it was the "wait and see" approach by many of the Republicans who held Congress for so long that let the current disaster keep growing and building until it all started to unravel in the last few weeks. Sure, a few Republicans like John McCain did make some doom and gloom pronouncements over things, but they were just wildly guessing about the ultimate impact of such decent, humane, common-sense programs as Bill Clinton's expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were right to fight off those greedy, mean-spirited attempts to rein it in and keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from going too far.
As a lifelong Democrat, sickens me to say this, but I find I can't vote for Barack Obama this November. I'm going to hold my nose and vote for McCain-Palin, and hope that this sends the message to the leaders of my party: we want REAL change, from a candidate we believe in.