I knew I didn't fit the Republican mold as soon as I was old enough to read a newspaper. Looking at myself at age 12, I realize I probably espoused a strange mishmash of views, some radical, some conservative, most probably too idealistic to be practical. I was the only student in my sixth grade class who refused to wear an "I Like Ike" button. I supported that lonesome loser with the hole in his shoe, Adlai Stevenson. By the time I was in high school, I took to heart the lessons we learned in government class, lessons about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech, press, and religion, etc., etc. Thank you, Velma Thomas, the pudgy, gray-haired government teacher, who would often leave the room during tests so the less able students could cheat on the tests, pass the required course, and graduate high school.

As a young Democrat, I wasn't active in the Party. My first child was born in 1959 and two others followed quickly, so there wasn't time for party politics. But I never missed an election and I followed political news like the junkie I later became. I was a returning college student in the late '60s and took part in as many anti-war marches as I could.

It was when I moved back to Kansas and started teaching high school that I really became involved in party politics, working for Democratic candidates and working with the NEA-PAC to get the best education candidates elected to office. By and large, those candidates were Democrats, so it was easy to campaign for them.

When I moved to Wichita, I became a precinct committeewoman. By that time, my parents had changed their party affiliation, thanks to George H.W. Bush, so my dad and I no longer had the political arguments that used to take place at every time we got together, and I was no longer the family weirdo, a label I'd worn most of my life.

I have enjoyed my committeewoman duties. I've walked for my state representative and senator candidates, who always win, because I live in one of the few heavily Democratic districts in the state. I do phone banking, I have written letters for Democratic candidates, and I serve as secretary of the 4th District Democrats. There's no end of activities for a committed volunteer.

Yet when I see what has happened on the national scene and even here in Kansas with the Democrats, I lose heart. No viable Democrat has come forward to challenge Sam Brownback's bid for Kansas governor. In fact, the only viable candidate I see on the horizon for any top office is Raj Goyle, a candidate I intend to support as much as I can.

Nationally, the Democrats seem to have wasted their leadership opportunities. Health care reform is a weak shadow of what it could have been if not for people like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Of course, Lieberman doesn't wear the D label any longer, but he has influence beyond what he should have with the Democrats in the Senate. Nelson, I'm sad to say, is one of the "new" Democrats who should really be a Republican, given his stands on choice and other issues that have always been important to me and kept me in the Party. In the last few years, I've refused to send any money to the DNC because I don't want my money supporting anti-choice, anti-gay candidates.

However, I find being active in the Sedgwick County Democratic Party is quite satisfying. It is here that I find the people who hang on to the left of center principles that first drew me to the Party. My wonderful state representative, Delia Garcia, and my equally wonderful state senator, Oletha Faust-Goudeau, both work for the good of the constituents they represent--and they listen to me and my concerns. My conversations with local Democrats, either at fundraising gatherings, at the monthly Warren Moore luncheons or at the state meetings, reaffirm my belief that staying in the Party is better than leaving.

One of my friends, a pro-choice, liberal woman, still goes to the Southern Baptist Church, where she feels free to express her liberal opinions. I have asked her from time to time why she continues to go to that church, a church I had to leave before I reached adulthood because of its unyielding ideology. Her response? "How can I change the church if I'm not a member of it?" I doubt that her one-woman crusade will change her church in her lifetime, but that's exactly how I feel about the political party I first joined when I was 21. I can't have any influence on the Democratic Party from the outside. From the inside, I can make my opinions heard and work for the candidates who hold my views. Besides, the Party's parties are so much fun.