Diane Bell’s U-T Shout Out Re: Rider Becomes a GOPer

From today’s Diane Bell column in the U-T…

Changing times: After 35 years as an outspoken Libertarian leader here, Richard Rider has switched parties. Rider ceremoniously registered as a Republican in front of 600 local GOP dinner attendees after impersonators of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton stunned the partisan crowd with the news that someone would be shifting parties.

“I’ll be a libertarian Republican like Fred Schnaubelt (former S.D. City Councilman),” insists Rider. His decision was spurred on by an upcoming change in state election law that will curtail third parties’ chances of making it to the general election ballot. San Diego Libertarian stalwart Bradley J. Fikes clearly lamented Rider’s defection. “E(t) tu, Richard?” wrote Fikes in the San Diego Rostra blog.
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Here is the Rostra report of Rider’s change, along with Fikes’ “lament.”