http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30896.html
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’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, who captured the seat in a close 2008 open seat contest, will become the first Republican to hold the historically Democratic, Huntsville-based district. A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties—and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.
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.
Okay, let's analyze this. From a practical perspective, his defection doesn't change the math in the House very much, and since his voting record was so "conservative" the leadership isn't losing a staunch supporter. From a morale perspective, his defection could start other blue dogs thinking along the same lines.
Either way, numerically his defection doesn't hurt the Democrats very much... nor does it help the Republicans very much.
On to motives... WHY did he do this? We're left with two options: 1) he's always been a conservative at heart but ran as a Democrat because he had a better chance of getting elected, or 2) he thinks he'll lose re-election as a Democrat and thinks his chances are better as a Republican.
I don't have enough information to choose between the two options, but my native skepticism towards the motives of politicians has me leaning toward the second option.
And I confess that I retain my basic objections to party switchers of ANY stripe. Running candidates or accepting politicians into a party who are not in line with the party's basic ideological tenets results in a changing of the core beliefs. In this instance, it moves the Republican party to left and makes it more liberal. Especially at this time in our history, when the Democrats are more liberal than they should be, we don't need another liberal party. For heaven's sake, we need a party who will not only CLAIM to believe in small government and fiscal responsibility, but also govern that way when they are in power. The Democrats won't and the Republicans haven't, but we stand a better chance of achieving fiscal sanity with Republicans than we do with Democrats.
I don't know if Griffith will be part of that leftward shift or if he really is a conservative... but my skepticism remains.
But if nothing else this should warn the Democrats that their solidarity is illusion, and that 2010 is going to be very rough on them if they remain on their current course.
0 comments:
Post a Comment