It’s the news today that everyone is talking about. First year Rep. Parker Griffith has switched parties, from a Democrat to a Republican.
Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith announced Tuesday that he’s switching parties – saying he can no longer align himself “with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy and drives us further and further into debt.”
“Unfortunately there are those in the Democratic Leadership that continue to push an agenda focused on massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts and a health care bill that is bad for our healthcare system,” Griffith said in a statement. “I have always considered myself to be an independent voice and I have tried to be that voice in Congress – but after watching this agenda firsthand I now believe that the differences in the two parties could not be more clear and that for me to be true to my core beliefs and values I must align myself with the Republican party and speak out clearly on these issues.
Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.
The switch represents a coup for the House Republican leadership, which had been courting Griffith since he publicly criticized the Democratic leadership in the wake of raucous town halls during the summer.
Griffith is a radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center. His district, in Huntsville, is a historically Democratic one. No Republican has held the seat since 1866. Apparently, he’s been considering switching parties for months, supposedly without getting any kind of deal for it. He was assured that he would be welcomed into the GOP as a Republican in full standing. The good news is that he’s pro-life. He believes in protecting the Second Amendment. He voted against the stimulus, against cap-and-trade, and was one of only 11 Democrats to vote against this horrid health care bill. He apparently also didn’t like Obama’s decision to scrap plans for the missile defense shield in eastern Europe. He also said in August that he wouldn’t vote for Nancy Pelosi to be reinstated as Speaker next year.
The bad news? He doesn’t look to be as fiscal as he appears on the surface. While he voted against Obama’s first budget, he voted for nine of the twelve spending bills that make up the budget. He voted for the omnibus bill, yes for Cash for Clunkers, and voted against every stimulus amendment that would reduce its size (maybe because he knew he’d be voting against it anyways?).
The good news about this switch is that it makes an already nervous Democratic Party even more jittery. There are plenty of Blue Dogs already worried about their chickens coming home to roost, which probably is a big part of the reason for Griffith’s switch to begin with. He spent the summer hearing from extremely angry constituents, which probably gave him the extra push he needed to start thinking about switching parties. It very well may save him his seat next year. How many other Blue Dogs will look at him and think that it’s time for them to leave an increasingly extremist liberal Democratic Party as well?
What I worry about is gaining yet another RINO Republican who will work with Democrats at every turn. He’s been bucking Democratic leadership all year, but… he’s not fiscally solid. Nothing but time will tell, and all in all, this is a positive for conservatives right now.
Lastly, here’s a video of him explaining his thoughts on the health care bill and why he feels like he has no place in the Democratic Party, while there’s another video of him blasting Democrats here.
Hat Tip: Hot Air
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I live in Griffith’s district. Allow me to fill in some details from the local perspective.
First of all: Too much is being made of the fact that the GOP has not held this district since Reconstruction. Until I read that today, I had not realized it. It’s true, but only an accident of history: Griffith won the seat after the retirement of Bud Cramer, who had represented the district since prior to the 1994 Gingrich Congress. If memory serves, Cramer did not have significant Republican opposition when he won his first term (it used to be the case that the Alabama Republican Party only fielded candidates in the handful of races that they thought they were most likely to win). After that, he kept winning re-election because he did a good job of concentrating on the issues that the district cares about. People weren’t voting for a Democratic candidate; they were voting for Bud Cramer.
Griffith won the seat last year in part due to an endorsement from Cramer, who is still thought highly of here. The other major factor was that Griffith’s Republican opponent, Wayne Parker, ran a terrible campaign. Parker’s campaign consisted mainly of attacking Griffith personally, accusing him of (among other things) malpractice in his medical practice. Someone forget to tell Parker that this district’s voters hate mud-slinging politicians. I’ve seen it many times here in local races: the apparent front-runner decides to engage in mudslinging, and the underdog wins. If you want to win in this district, you’d better stick to the issues.
So Griffith’s party affiliation played very little part in his winning the election; if anything, it probably hurt him some. But as a Democrat, Griffith probably felt like he had to show at least some party unity to prevent important military projects in the district from being threatened. As it turns out, that party loyalty did no good on that score; those programs are threatened anyway. So there is no longer any motivation for him to try to make nice with the Democrats.
Huntsville is an engineering town. It’s often said that you can’t throw a rock here without hitting a Ph.D. People here have done the math and they don’t have any patience with the sort of government gimcrack that the Democrats are peddling. Griffith knows that. As a Republican, he may not be the most conservative person in Congress, but he will definitely be at least to the right of the McCain faction. He definitely won’t be a RINO — the district’s voters won’t stand for that. As far as I’m concerned, the Fifth District just got an early Christmas present.
I voted for Wayne Parker in 2008, but I did so mainly because party affiliation matters, not because I thought Parker would be a particularly good Congressman. There’s talk that Griffith may face a primary challenge from Parker and at least one other person in 2010. As a voter, I say bring it on; if nothing else, it will give Griffith a better idea of what the voters are expecting from him.
[...] Parker Griffith switched parties, he certainly got a lot of attention for himself. Switching from a Democrat to Republican drew the [...]
[...] Parker Griffith switched parties, he certainly got a lot of attention for himself. Switching from a Democrat to Republican drew the [...]