It is interesting to me because I have been part of several groups through the years that ranged from ultra conservative to ultra liberal. Don't actually see myself as belonging to any of them, other than human being and secular humanist. Used to vote Republican. Al Gore was the first democrat I voted for.
Back a few years before Gore's run, I voted for a Republican County Commissioner. He was the only Republican I have ever voted for. He was extremely conservative, and had some pretty distasteful viewpoints, but the Democrat he ran against was even more conservative, and not very bright either. I could never understand why that Democratic smaltz ran as a Democrat, but at the time, the county was strongly blue collar democratic, and I suspect he decided to be a Democrat was the only way of winning an election. And having lost his job, he really needed another with a source of income, so he would do whatever was necessary to find employment.
At first he was well received by the local Democrats, although I never understood why. I think it was a case where people identified so strongly with a party that they lose focus of anything beyond their sense of victory at the election box. That Democrat made it through at least two terms and won by significant margins. But then the mill closed down, and the mine closed down, and the blue collar workers left the county to find new jobs. In a small town, two such events have a powerful effect on demographics, and the political make up shifted from strongly Democrat to overwhelmingly Republican.
Now the Democratic County Commissioner, just switched parties giving some explanation about morality as I remember. This did not sit well with the remaining Democrats, who wanted their candidate to continue whatever shit he was doing under the Democrat product label. The Republicans weren't all that impressed with him either, and probably viewed him as less than sincere about party affiliations, so he lost the next election. It didn't help that he was under investigation for misappropriating county funds, either. Although, it just amounted to helping himself to mostly nickels and dimes, probably small potatoes as embezzlements go, but it didn't work very well as a campaign strategy.