I was certain that I'd quickly find a posting on this site that would echo or presage my own position, and K. Riley has done that. The Republican Party and its tactics over the past two decades have driven politics to a new low, and prevented the gains on public policy that we can and should make: Specifically: health insurance reform, credit regulation, abortion prevention, crime prevention and punishment, equal rights (on all fronts), and poverty. All of these are related, and all come back to Catholic social teaching. The Sermon on the Mount and the Good Samaritan encapsulate the reasons I'm a Catholic Democrat. Some positions taken by the state and national leadership are anathema to me, but in the main, the Democrats are a good fit. The Republicans are so many Pharisees.