Goldwater Democrat(s)

The New York Times' Raymond Hernandez profiles a Democrat who had gone under the radar until his opponent, Tom Reynolds, was embroiled in the Mark Foley scandal. Yes, some of the Democrats who might sweep in next month are conservatives. Davis is a little something esle.

Mr. Davis is prone to overstatement. He has warned about "Red China," for example, and suggested he would take a bat to anyone who sent his sons sexually explicit e-mail messages like those a congressman sent to young male pages.

He defies liberal orthodoxies. He has said he wants to "seal" the nation's borders and has held memberships in conservative groups like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
…
Politically, Mr. Davis is hard to define, though he has a strong libertarian streak, supporting, for example, both abortion rights and gun rights.

He says that he was a Republican for 50 years, first as a Goldwater Republican, then as a Reagan Republican. But he says he became disillusioned with the party because it did not share his disdain for free trade and the multinational corporations that reap its benefits. (He is also critical of Democrats in the free-trade camp.)

The "fair trade" crap is rote for Democratic candidates this year, actually. The support for Cato is, well, not.