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Rod Dreher picks up on an interesting question, and gives his own answer:

As for myself, obviously I've had some political changes of mind in the wake of the Iraq war debacle, and a religious change of mind that occasioned my leaving Catholicism. I've detailed them on this blog. But to answer this question, the most fundamental change, at least for me, is that I ceased to believe in the sufficiency of reason as a guide to, well, life.

What have I changed my mind about? Well, let's see: In 2000, I voted for Nader.

I don't regret that, by the way. I live in Kansas. Barring his discovery with a dead girl or a live boy, George Bush was always going to get my state's electoral votes. That leaves me, the voter, with one of two approaches at ballot time: A) I can say "good riddance" and skip the process entirely, or B) I can vote my conscience and hope that it becomes part of a message sent.

And in 2000, I really did believe the Nader line that there wasn't much difference between the Democrats and Republicans. I figured supporting Nader might muddy up the dynamic, in a good way. It didn't turn out that way, of course.

The last eight years have forced me into a bit of retreat. Yes, there are a lot of similarities between the parties -- because, I now realize, the mass of electoral opinion runs from center-left to center-right. But there are important differences.

I think a President Gore would have taken out the Taliban, much as President Bush did. But I'm skeptical he would've gone into Iraq. And I'm skeptical he would've pushed tax cuts in the face of rising bills for the war -- the balanced budget, after all, was one of the signature legacies of the Clinton years, and Gore would've been loathe to let it drop.

It's possible that, post-9/11, we still would have had debates about eavesdropping and torture. I suspect, though, the contours of those debates would have been much different in the hands of a Democratic White House that would've defended executive power -- but wouldn't have been so eager to expand that power as the Bush Administration has been.

A lot of what-ifs, I realize. But that's what I've changed my mind about.