Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican. […]
While the timing of his announcement was unexpected, Griffith’s party switch will not come as a surprise to those familiar with his voting record, which is one of the most conservative among Democrats.
He has bucked the Democratic leadership on nearly all of its major domestic initiatives, including the stimulus package, health care legislation, the cap-and trade energy bill and financial regulatory reform.
He was one of only 11 House Democrats to vote against the stimulus.
185 thoughts on “AL-05: Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith to Switch to GOP”
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He never voted with the Dems anyways and now we dont have to spend any money protecting this seat.
It’s not even his votes against every single substantive matter the Democrats put forth that did it; it was his comments about not voting for Pelosi. If you literally can’t vote for a Democratic majority, you shouldn’t be part of the Democratic majority. Enjoy getting teabagged.
With Artur Davis heading the ticket for the Dems next year most likely, I wouldn’t put it past him.
it’s good news for most Dems. Alabama is. . .Alabama.
Good riddance.
Ok, so he was a very conservative democrat, this is still a very bad sign for the dccc and more importantly a good sign for the nrcc.
In 2008, the nrcc wasted $514,000 trying to defeat Griffith, and it is likely they would have had to spend alot this season aswell. He may get tea-bagged to death in the primary, but this is one discrict whose congress man will never have a (D)after his/her in the next centuary.
As well as that it’s just more bad PR for the dems and a sign that a wave is building, looking more and more similar to 1994.
*btw, just read somewhere that since presidential polling began, any president who went into his mid-terms lower than 50% on average lost 41 seats in the House (an unfortunate number).
This switch wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for the number $1.2 million. That’s how much the DCCC spent on keeping this seat Democratic. Wonder how many other races could have used that money?
n/t
Link:
One thing that’s being missed a lot in this discussion is that there are still quite a few Democrats remaining in north Alabama, including a considerable number of local officeholders. Bud Cramer had few problems holding this seat and Griffith is in his 60s, I think. It’s possible Dems could get this seat back, perhaps not in 2010, but with a Congressman with a voting record similar to Cramer’s.
I will have to admit that I was happy that Parker Griffith defeated Wayne Parker. I felt, at the time, it was important for the Democrats to still have a presence in a conservative district like AL-5. I was also not surprised that he would have a conservative record while serving in the US Congress. I could live with that.
I personally turned against Griffith when he questioned Nancy Pelosi’s leadership (or to be more blunt, inferred she wasn’t worthy to serve in the post at House Speaker). I felt like he was pandering to his district too much instead of trying to triangulate his own principles within the Democratic framework. Once he uttered out loud his dislike for Pelosi, I lost my respect for him. So I conclude that Griffith leaving the party is not a blow to the Democrats on a micro-level.
On the big picture, I don’t believe that all Blue Dogs are created equal. I’m fairly confident that most of the Blue Dogs fit better with the Democratic party than the Republican party.
Does anyone have any ideas on what other Democrats may be at risk of jumping ship?
this is probably good news for John McCain. /snark
And yes, try to get back at least some of the Democratic money that was wasted trying to elect his sorry turncoat hide over better Dems in bluer districts, but I really doubt many Dems outside of the Beltway are going to miss him as much as they miss the money, especially when the GOP’s two-year loan on LA-02 expires, which compensates for losing this seat. Griffith has always seemed to be a relatively clueless hack who was never quite sure which team he wanted to bat for and whose perception of reality was a little too colored by Fox News
to really have a solid grasp of political gamesmanship. As he’s not entrenched enough to pretend that this comes from anything but misguided self-serving opportunism, I expect this is going to turn into a Nelson Muntz moment a year from now, both for Griffith (who will now almost certainly face the full fury of the teabagging right) and
for the DCCC, for wasting so much scratch on him over more liberal candidates who would’ve been a more reliable vote.
Too bad the DCCC will probably never abandon the catechism of St. Rahm and start actually making proactive judgments of where to spend their money (hint: for the most part, not R +6 or greater districts in the rural South.)
On the other hand, I’d be willing to bet that Bud Cramer is royally pissed off right about now. It’s a long shot, but maybe either he or his daughter will end up in the race now that Griffith has decided to put himself on the wrong side of history.
No, I am not surprised.
I think the real losers here are Parker Griffith’s constituents. I’m sure at least some of them voted for him in hopes of reaping the benefits of being in the majority, and now he idiotically just screwed them over by jumping from the majority to the minority. At least Ralph Hall justified his switch by pointing out that it was from minority to majority. I admit to not knowing much about AL-05 but there must be at least some people there feeling royally shafted.
see here http://swingstateproject.com/s…
Am I a clairvoyant or what?
its another opportunity for the teabaggers to boot him.
One of the main reasons I opposed Seastak’s run against Specter was that we as a party need to show the moderates and barely conservatives of this world that we, as Democrats, do infact welcome them to the conversation.
The teabaggers will have a great opportunity to show that they will not do the same. I’m hoping that Griffith gets his arse handed to him in that primary.
Didn’t the Republicans already have some strong opposition lined up?
Let’s focus on building a Democratic majority with some staying power, not one that in a decade that’s going to go south anyway.
Sorry for the lame pun, it worked too well not to say!
especially if Griffith is going to get primaried, which has a good shot of occurring.
If Parker Griffith loses a primary, that should tell any Conservative Dem what they need to know about the current Republican party.
If Alabama’s ballot access wasn’t so nutty and borderline illegal for Congressional races, Griffith should have just switched to an Independent.
Hope you enjoy your last 12 months on the job.
Like the 90’s again when the Democrats in the South began to switch parties. During that time, Republicans picked up areas they never represented. I guess this is the trade off for NY-23. We won areas we did not have since Ulysees Grant while the Republicans picked up areas they never had in a long time.
now we have some more places that can be carved into, eh?
Oh man does JSmith wish he was not banned right now. He would be over the moon.
One important point: AL-05 is not as rural & Alabama-y as you might think. It’s certainly got several rural counties, but the bulk of the population is in the Huntsville area, which is the state’s best-educated and wealthiest urban conurbation.
Also, if Alabama Dems can pull off a win in the Governor’s race (tough, not impossible) they could do some really fun things to Griffith’s district post-2010. And by “fun” I mean destructive to Griffith’s electoral chances.
But dammit, Griffith, I was just about to put out a huge diary examining reelection chances for Alabama Dems and you just had to go and ruin it, didn’t you? For the record, I was pretty bullish on his chances.
Oh…and good luck surviving the Republican primary there, Parker, because I heard you voted for Nancy Pelosi, TARP, and other stuff Obama likes.
Griffith donated to Howard Dean’s presidential campaign.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
Here is a map of the Alabama state senate districts by party, with the black line designating AL-05.
Here is a map of the districts without party shading:
Of the three senate districts entirely within AL-05 (1, 2, and 7), two are held by the Dems and one is held by the GOP. That lone GOP-held district was held by Griffith until he resigned and the Republicans picked it up in a special election over the summer.
For the districts located partially within AL-05 (3, 4, 6, 8, and 9), only one district is represented by a Republican. So it seems as though the 5th district is more Democratic on the local level than would seem to be the case from the presidential results alone.
But its not as disastrous as some are claiming. The victory of Owens in NY-23 is much more important for the Democratic Party than the party change of Griffith.
We spent $1.2 million just to get this…
Sometimes I wonder why the Democratic Party bothers to contest Southern seats when half of our candidates switch parties anyways.
How could you Parker…after everything we’ve been through
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that Parker Griffith a cancer is worse than any teabagger, I am very very very thrilled about this development.
I will still donate to a Republican in AL-5, but this time it will be for the primary. I want to see this subhuman piece of filth removed from the House, and hopefully prosecuted and put in jail for a long time for stealing the Democratic voter lists.