Pete McCloskey

Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, lifelong Republican, Marine veteran, and former Congressman, left the GOP in April 2007 and registered with the Democratic Party, saying he is "disgusted with the 'succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.'"

McCloskey served as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives 1967-1983 from a San Mateo County congressional district. "He was a brief presidential hopeful when he ran on an anti-war platform against Richard Nixon in 1972." 

In 2006, McCloskey "again found himself in the media spotlight last year when he left his rural Northern California farm in Rumsey, rented a house in Lodi and ran in the primary against Richard Pombo, a conservative, seven-term Republican incumbent who later lost the general election to the novice Pleasanton Democrat Jerry McNerney." 

On April 16, 2007, the Contra Costa Times reported McCloskey as having left the Republican party and re-registered as a Democrat, declaring, "I say a pox on them [Republicans] and their values."