Conservadem Congressman from Alabama switching to GOP

[WI_DEM]

Good riddence!

Given how he has behaved since taking the oath of office in January, it is hard to classify this one as a shocker:

POLITICO has learned that Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican.

According to two senior GOP aides familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place this afternoon in Griffith's district in northern Alabama.

Griffith has been one of the more conservative votes in the House, siding with the GOP on nearly all major domestic policy initiatives this session. Indeed, for most of the year, it appeared as if his primary role in the Congress was providing the veneer of "bipartisanship" for Republican obstructionism. He was one of only five Democrats to oppose the Lily Ledbetter Act, and also voted against the stimulus, cap-and-trade, and healthcare reform.

In addition to his right-of-center voting record, he has been one of the more embittered vocal critics of his own party in the Congress, going so far as to insist over the summer that he would not vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker when the vote came up again in 2011.

Griffith is not like party switchers of the past: long-suffering iconoclasts within their own party who finally reach their breaking point. He was first elected just last year, which makes it hard to make the case that the Democratic Party has seismically shifted beneath his feet in the way that a two-or-three decade incumbent might be able to.

And, of course, while Griffith will no doubt speak with much disdain about the national Democratic Party later this afternoon, he saw nothing wrong with watching them spend seven figures on his campaign last year.

Most likely, Griffith looks at this party switch as an act of self-preservation. Griffith's Alabama 5th district is a conservative one (McCain took it with 61% last year). In a cycle with a strong Democratic tailwind and a sizable African-American vote (17% of his district), he barely beat GOP nominee Wayne Parker. Absent that tailwind, he might have been a casualty.

Of course, if this CNN poll (PDF File) from Monday showing a sizable bounce for the President represents a real shift in public opinion, Griffith might have just traded himself away from the first-place team (that is getting a second wind) to a second-place team that is still in pretty rough shape.

www.dailykos.com

[old mark]

1. From what I read of his record, he is no loss. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. I only have one question about this -

if a DINO is honest enough with himself to switch parties, is he too honest to really be a Republican?

[WI_DEM]

4. more a case of political survival. Doubtful he can be elected in a midterm election

in his district without the massive numbers of African-American voters that Obama brought out in 2008--with Obama's name not on ballot. So I still just see him as an opportunist.

[BurtWorm]

6. I read somewhere this morning that he's under attack already from the teabaggers.

They say they want someone purer (ie, even more constipated) in there.

[Don Caballero]

3. See ya later stinky!

We can unplug our noses now. Whew what a smell.

[AlinPA]

5. Media will go crazy out of their minds with this reporting it 24x7.

[mmonk]

7. Honesty is the best policy.