I am a far left, either socialist or communist really. I was a member of the CPUSA (communist) but, I haven't paid dues in a long time, mainly due to how ineffective they are, though most of their platform is still nice it is mostly a democratic socialist platform with a few references to communist thinkers to justify it. I don't see this as a horrible thing per se, especially since their logic is that society has to transition to socialism before your can get to a totally classless (communist) society.
Basically I became interested after the 28th national convention (2005 IIRC) affirmed their stance on LGBT rights, and became a bit apathetic when I realized no matter how good the platform is, in the US at the very least, even mentioning the word communist provokes a knee-jerk reaction that makes no sense to me, as lots of these same people who freak out at the word agree with the points on the platform.
Nowadays I basically just vote for the lesser evil. Whoever is more into LGBT and labor rights, which basically means 99.9% of the time a Democrat who I don't like too much either.