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Like many editorialists, I am an unaffiliated voter. But it has nothing to do with my job.

I have not toed anyone's party line since 1984. That's the year I told the Democrats goodbye and good riddance.


I lived in Forsyth County at the time and found the local Democrats (how do I put this gently?) smug, insufferable and hypocritical. They ran the county as if they owned it and their attitude toward Winston-Salem's substantial — and politically powerful — black community was especially galling.


They would designate surrogates in the black community (usually prominent ministers) and regale them with status and recognition. That meant they got to sit at head tables at luncheons and banquets and got to be part of the pomp and circumstance when someone important came to town.


Those ministers in turn would do the Democrats' bidding, mobilizing voters and poll workers to push the right candidates. It was a microcosm, as I saw it, of the party's attitude toward the black community as its most reliable voting bloc and its most taken for granted.


Remember, 45 percent of North Carolina's registered voters are Democrats, versus 34 percent Republican and 21 percent unaffiliated, yet the state tends to support Republican presidents and gave Republican Sen. Jesse Helms one term after another.


This scenario has played over and over, like a well-worn plot. It probably will play out again in November, when John McCain likely will beat either of the Democrats, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, here in November, on the strength of unaffiliated voters and Democratic defections to the GOP.


Democrats purport to be the party of the big tent, which embraces diversity and stands for equal opportunity. And I have no doubt that some of them do.


But when push comes to shove, party loyalty doesn't mean beans to Tar Heel Democrats; otherwise, former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, an African American with strong credentials, would have beaten Helms at least once in their nationally important campaigns in 1990 and 1996.
But he didn't. And a major reason was white Democrats who deserted Gantt and their own party, for Helms.


Then there's a guy named Eddie Knox.


Knox, like Gantt, was another former Charlotte mayor, and a Democrat, who was stumping around the state in a gubernatorial bid in '84. As editor then of a black weekly, the Winston-Salem Chronicle, I spent an hour with Knox, who came across as progressive and forward-thinking. He was in a contentious race.


I remember black Democrats in Winston-Salem, feuding passionately over which of the front-runners to support in the primary: Rufus Edmisten, Knox or Tom Gilmore. I also remember state Rep. Larry Womble, then a city alderman, proclaiming that we all needed to "eat, sleep and drink Rufus," which seemed neither rhetorically nor dietetically very appealing.


Anyway, Edmisten edged Knox in a run-off (before losing to Republican Jim Martin in the general election). In a huff, Knox switched overnight, and became not only a Republican, but a Helms Republican. It was a dramatic, Incredible Hulk-like transformation, sans the busted britches and gamma rays.


Knox and Helms and Gantt and Forsyth County made it clear to me that parties didn't count for very much, so I decided to choose individual candidates, based on their individual merits (at least as I saw them). I became unaffiliated and over the years have found various Republicans and Democrats to my liking. Either party I can do without.


Of course, the Republicans could have taken advantage of all that unrequited loyalty and offered black voters a viable alternative. Sad to say, they haven't, leaving us two choices: a party that cares too little about black voters and another that hardly seems to care at all.


Meanwhile, Knox was hardly done with his switching parties in 1984.


In 2004 he contributed to the John Edwards' presidential campaign. In 2005 he went Independent. Go figure.