North Carolina candidate for Congress leaves GOP to become Democrat due to "fear and hate mongering" within his party.

Courtesy of News Observer:  

A Republican congressional candidate is renouncing his party and switching his affiliation to Democrat. 

Jason Thigpen, who is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones in the 3rd Congressional District, wrote a blistering assessment of his former party, saying his shift was precipitated by the tea party push for a government shutdown. 

“I simply cannot stand with a party where its most extreme element promote hate and division amongst people,” Thigpen said in a statement posted to his campaign website Thursday. “Nothing about my platform has, nor will it change. The government shutdown was simply the straw that broke the camels back. I guess being an American just isn’t good enough anymore and I refuse to be part of an extremist movement in the GOP that only appears to thrive on fear and hate mongering of anyone and everyone who doesn’t walk their line.” 

Thigpen is a six-year Army veteran who received a Purple Heart, according to his website. He graduated from UNC-Wilmington in May and started a nonprofit group called Student Veterans Advocacy Group. The 36-year-old lives in Holly Ridge with his wife and four children. 

His statement is not the first time he’s bucked the Republican Party. Earlier this year, he earned a headline in the Fayetteville Observer for calling the GOP-drafted law to require a voter ID at the polls discriminatory and saying it would suppress the right to vote. At the time, he described himself as a “true Republican.” 

"You can paint a turd and sell it as art, but it's still a turd,” he said at the time. 

Good point.

There are strong indications that Mr. Thigpen may soon have company joining his exodus.

Courtesy of  the Wall Street Journal:

October was clearly a cruel month for both President Barack Obama and the Republicans, both of whom saw their images slump to new lows in Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling. 

But hidden within the data is a more disturbing reality for the Republican Party. Put simply, Democrats are largely content with their own party, while distaste among Republicans for the GOP has grown exponentially this year. 

The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, offers a stark window into widening divisions within the GOP over strategy and what kind of leaders Republicans want going forward. The Democratic Party, by comparison, is a picture of unity.

And the funny part is that the Teabagggers have convinced themselves that the key to the party's long term success is to become even MORE partisan and radical.

Methinks that the GOP civil war is definitely going to be a bloody one.