Some smart Republicans know if they want to get reelected they will have to switch parties

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15293001/

Party switchers

If control of Congress changes, watch for a few people to jump ship

Updated: 3:50 p.m. CT Oct 16, 2006

The widely held notion that Democrats are poised to win at least the House is grounded in the premise that 2006 bears an eerie resemblance to 1994, the last time control of the chamber changed hands.

If the analogy holds true, losing the House might be just the beginning of the House Republicans' troubles: The post-1994 political era has demonstrated that a congressional caucus newly relegated to minority status continues hemorrhaging long after Election Day.

That was the bitter, unexpected lesson that Democrats learned in the aftermath of the 1994 upheaval. Within a year, the scent of majority power had enticed five House Democrats and two Senate Democrats to switch their allegiance to the Republican Party. And that wasn't the end of the Democratic Party's bleeding. As the durability of the House GOP's majority became clear, three more Democrats found their way to the Republican Conference between 2000 and 2004, each defection making the party's climb back to power that much steeper.

Ambition and self-preservation

Despite vigorous claims to the contrary, nearly every case of party-switching involved a calculus that apparently had as much to do with ambition and self-preservation as ideology. It's no coincidence that nearly all office-holding converts, either in Congress or at the statehouse level, join a legislative majority rather than a party out of power. And if they aren't joining an existing majority, then they are providing the critical seat that puts a politically ascendant party into the majority.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who joined the GOP the day after the historic 1994 election, is an instructive example. At the time Shelby switched, the national Democratic Party was no asset to Alabama's statewide Democratic candidates. Nor was President Clinton very popular back home in the South. So when the Clinton administration attempted to punish Shelby for his wayward voting habits, it probably wasn't hard for the senator to decide that the time had come to make his move. He had four years to go on his second term, and his seniority was guaranteed by the new GOP majority. Shelby's leap across the aisle was virtually a no-brainer.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. They are already switching in Kansas

Our newly elected lt governor and att general were republicans until recently when they switched to the Dem party.

[Nay]

2. What does the Dem Party do if it doesn't WANT the pub in its ranks?

Can people just change parties willy-nilly and we all have to accept it? Because it this is true, there will be a bunch of pubs jumping and we are back in the same boat.

[Greeby]

3. I'd bet on Walter Jones

He's metamorphosed back to a human being lately. Anyone who has seen him at the Democratic Policy Committee hearings on Iraq knows what I mean