Bush & Dole democrats

[Stranger in a strange land]

Party ID doesn't mean much in terms of ideology, or voting behavior really, in the Upper South and Appalachia. Yeah, I don't get why they don't switch parties either. If you never vote for your party's candidate at the federal level, you should declare as an independent.

The nature of the Democratic Party is part of it also. Unlike the Republicans, who are organized around a semi-coherent ideology, the Democrats are a coalition of diverse groups who have different, and sometimes contradictory, interests and goals.