Doug Winterburn wrote:

As my dear old departed mum told me almost 50 years ago - "When you're
young, you're idealistic and liberal, then you got to work and start
paying taxes and become a conservative, then you get old and start
looking for help because you didn't plan ahead and you become liberal
again".

Or "a conservative is a former liberal who's been robbed."

One maxim that floated around New York during the Guiliana years:

"A Republican is a Democrat who suddenly realizes he hasn't been mugged
lately."