Former speechwriter and Democrat Wendy Button explains for the Daily Beast why she has decided to reregister as an Independent this year, and to vote for Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin in the election for president.

As becomes clear from reading her column, Button’s view is that the Democratic Party has left her. It has changed, she argues, and not for the better.

Where the Democratic Party was once proud to say it represented Middle Class America, Button writes, it has now turned into a party of the elite which hates the middle class. A symbol of this was the way Democrats went after Joe Wurzelbacher when he had the guts to ask Barack Obama a question about his tax policies.

For his courage, Wurzelbacher was destroyed.

And then there was the overt sexist campaign against Hillary Clinton. This too turned Button, quite a feminist, off. She saw that Clinton was destroyed purely based on sexism. Whenever the sexism card could be used, it was used. Not only by the Obama campaign, but mostly by his friends and allies in the media.

If Obama and other Democrats truly supported emancipation for women, Button argues, they should have condemned these sexist attacks.

Then there were the attacks against Palin. According to Button, these attacks too were often highly sexist, and dishonest. Dishonesty is always part of politics, and has always been part of it, but when it came to Palin, Democrats and their allies went overboard. They employed more dishonest tactics than ever used before, all in an attempt to destroy a woman simply because she would appeal to middle class white women.

Lastly, the issue that truly drove Button, seemingly a fiscal moderate, into the hands of the Republican ticket was the promise of Democrats such as Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and of course Barack Obama to raise taxes on businesses, and later others in order to pay for tremendously expansive new programs. As Button rightfully puts it, it is unwise to raise taxes during times of crisis. If you take money away from those who earn it, they will have less to spend, meaning that the economy will suffer more in the long run, for demand will go down, resulting in production going down as well. Less production means fewer jobs.

It is interesting that the Democratic Party is increasingly positioning itself as a Social Democratic party, which is to a large degree a novelty for America. Even the policies of most liberal presidents in American history were aimed at ’spreading opportunity,’ as Senator John McCain called it yesterday while campaigning in Ohio. The new Democratic Party, however, is not interested in spreading ‘opportunity,’ but in ’spreading wealth.’

Some moderate Democrats are clearly unhappy with that shift, and are ready and willing to turn to the Republican Party for fiscal policies that make more sense, and that continue the age-old tradition of equality of opportunity rather than of outcome in the U.S.