This makes me happy:

By Hans Johnson
A trend of local, below-the-radar party-switches is undercutting Republicans as they face the sternest challenge in a decade to one-party control of Congress and several state legislatures. Such party-switching by elected officials often indicates that the label they are shedding has lost appeal and foreshadows poor performance at the polls.
Some recent switchers are exiting GOP ranks with a bang. Distorted priorities, the federal deficit and the Iraq war are common themes in their announcements. And in a direct swipe at the far-right ideology that has become a governing credo in the Bush years, they cite intolerance in the party as the chief reason for leaving.

“The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing,” Oklahoma state Senator Nancy Riley told the Associated Press in August, when she became a Democrat. Riley represents a district in suburban Tulsa and has served as minority whip in a chamber that her former party was looking to take over in the fall election. She announced her defection after years of what she described as “abhorrent” treatment by Republican leaders who suffer a “lack of compassion for people.”

In central South Carolina, county prosecutor Barney Giese also switched parties. The law-enforcement pro is the son of Warren Giese, a longtime GOP state senator and revered football coach. His announcement upset Republican leaders, struggling to maintain one-party control in a state that Democrats added to their roster of early primary battlegrounds for the 2008 nomination.

“My relationship with some of the leaders of the Republican Party is damaged,” Giese told The State, a Columbia newspaper. “No one gets elected without bipartisan support. … My conflict with them started with me being independent.”

On the other coast, Rodney Tom, a state representative in Washington, didn’t mince words when he left the GOP this spring. “I realized that the far right has complete control of the party,” he told the Seattle Times in announcing his switch.

Now running for state Senate as a Democrat, he represents a district of suburbs that was once lopsidedly Republican. But Tom says voters there generally back abortion rights, nondiscrimination for gay people, balanced budgets and investment in state infrastructure, such as transportation projects. That has soured them on today’s conservatives. “For me to be effective for my constituents,” he added, “I need to be a Democrat.”

Tom’s switch underscores a shift in allegiances away from the GOP among well-educated, upper-middle class voters based in part on the strident antigay and antiabortion stands of Republicans.

I'd like to believe this is an underreported trend; certainly the moderate conservatives I know have expressed disgust for Bush and Rove's party for some time now. We'll see just how many moderates say no to extremism this fall.