The Democrats and Republicans are nominally separate, or something like that. From the barometer here, all liberals are Democrats and all conservatives are Republicans. During the primaries, I got a massive (150k, mostly graphics though) e-mail from the numbnuts running against Elizabeth Dole for the Republican nomination ranting about how she's "too liberal", yada yada yada... I wrote back asking if that made Nelson Rockefeller a Democrat (even Dennis Miller acknowledges him as one of the last great liberal Republicans) and never got a response.

Me, I'm a registered Green. I'm fiscally conservative, believe the US needs more guns (to paraphrase Heinlein, a well-armed society is a polite society), push toward sustainable living (we compost, use CFL lighting, etc.), and mostly want the government to back the fuck out of my family's life unless it intends to give us our Earned Income Credits that Bush's tax relief rip-off screwed us out of. (There's something inherently wrong with not making enough to qualify for a paltry $300 "refund", but having to pay it back anyway and nullifying nearly $2000 in EIC refund pisses me off. Even that $300 would have helped us a lot.)

The annoying part is that the only government assistance we've ever received was 10 months of WIC after my milk dried up (I have around 4% body fat, hit a high of 6% at 8 mos. pregnant) and we couldn't afford enough formula to satisfy the officer that is Laurel's pediatrician. Oh well, at least my student loans are almost paid off and I won't be returning to the BS that is higher education until I can either afford it in toto or sell out and play the race card (soy 'xicana, although I pass for white as long as I don't lapse into Spanish) for a free ride.

Getting better. This year the Green Party ran 545 candidates in 40 states; with 69 elected, the current Green officeholder count is now at 172 nationwide.

Locally, western NC Greens got the first Green elected in the state: Gray Newman, who won one of the two seats for Soil and Water District Commissioner in Mecklenburg County (Charlotte area).

More Green Party election results here.