Posted on 05/30/2012 3:47:47 PM PDT by Kaslin
Former Democrat, Obama supporter and Congressman Artur Davis is making the switch to the Republican party. Davis is a former member of the Congressional Black Caucus and after watching for three years as the Democrats destroy this country and break promise after promise, he's had it.
While I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this website a forum for ideas, and not a personal forum, I should say something about the various stories regarding my political future in Virginia, the state that has been my primary home since late December 2010. The short of it is this: I don’t know and am nowhere near deciding. If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.
And the question of party label in what remains a two team enterprise? That, too, is no light decision on my part: cutting ties with an Alabama Democratic Party that has weakened and lost faith with more and more Alabamians every year is one thing; leaving a national party that has been the home for my political values for two decades is quite another. My personal library is still full of books on John and Robert Kennedy, and I have rarely talked about politics without trying to capture the noble things they stood for. I have also not forgotten that in my early thirties, the Democratic Party managed to engineer the last run of robust growth and expanded social mobility that we have enjoyed; and when the party was doing that work, it felt inclusive, vibrant, and open-minded.
But parties change. As I told a reporter last week, this is not Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party (and he knows that even if he can’t say it). If you have read this blog, and taken the time to look for a theme in the thousands of words (or free opposition research) contained in it, you see the imperfect musings of a voter who describes growth as a deeper problem than exaggerated inequality; who wants to radically reform the way we educate our children; who despises identity politics and the practice of speaking for groups and not one national interest; who knows that our current course on entitlements will eventually break our solvency and cause us to break promises to our most vulnerable—that is, if we don’t start the hard work of fixing it.
On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again. I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country. You have also seen me write that faith institutions should not be compelled to violate their teachings because faith is a freedom, too. You’ve read that in my view, the law can’t continue to favor one race over another in offering hard-earned slots in colleges: America has changed, and we are now diverse enough that we don’t need to accommodate a racial spoils system. And you know from these pages that I still think the way we have gone about mending the flaws in our healthcare system is the wrong way—it goes further than we need and costs more than we can bear.
Taken together, these are hardly the enthusiasms of a Democrat circa 2012, and they wouldn’t be defensible in a Democratic primary. But they are the thoughts and values of ten years of learning, and seeing things I once thought were true fall into disarray. So, if I were to leave the sidelines, it would be as a member of the Republican Party that is fighting the drift in this country in a way that comes closest to my way of thinking: wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities.
Full confession: you won’t find in my columns a poll tested candidate who could satisfy a litmus test. Immigration is a classic example: I wince at the Obama Administration’s efforts to tell states they can’t say the word immigration in their state laws, and find it foolish when I hear their lawyers say that a local cop can’t determine the legal status of a suspect validly in their custody. At the same time, I wince when I see Latinos who have a lawful right to be here have to dodge the glare of so-called “self-deportation laws” that look too uncomfortably like profiling. (It’s a good thing Virginia hasn’t gone that path). And while I haven’t written about the subject as much as I should have, I can’t defend every break in our tax code, or every special interest set-aside, as a necessary tool of a free market. And I can’t say every dollar spent on our weak and our marginal is a give-away: a just government is mindful of the places where prosperity never shines (and I give a lot of credit to an undisputed conservative, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, for saying so, and doing it at the nation’s leading conservative political caucus at that.)
I was at the annual Truth The Vote Summit a month ago with Davis where he pledged his full support for Voter ID. During his speech, he held up his driver's license and said, "This is not a billy club." He also said opposition to Voter ID laws are built on a lie and that voting doesn't happen by snapping a finger.
"Where is this idea that if I have a right I have no responsibilities?" he said.
Quite the opposite of President Obama and Eric Holder, who are suing state after state for passing Voter ID laws in order to prevent voter fraud.
The sentiment sounds the same as Ronald Reagan’s: “I did not leave my party! My party left me.”
There is such colossal pressure in the black American community today to conform to the Democrats, no matter how little sense they are making. Maybe this Barack Obama will finally prove the straw that breaks the camels’ backs, so to speak.
Davis has got to know he’s now going to get called an Oreo, an Uncle Tom, and many things not fit to print. I hope there is a strong presence of the Republican black caucus in Virginia.
I’m a little skeptical. Perhaps, he resides in a district held by a strong Dem.....wouldn’t surprise me.
But, welcome, Mr. Davis.
Wow! Would more believe as he does!
He has missed the filing deadline for ‘12.
If Connolly wins VA-11 he could challenge in ‘14.
VA-08 (Moran) is safe Dem...but he could make it interesting if he ran in it.
WaPo says he would consider a seat in the General Assembly.
Hmm...I wonder if he wouldn’t have had a better shot at his old seat AL-07?
As a second term member, Congressman Davis won a floor fight to restore funding to the HOPE VI program for renovating public housing; he persuaded over sixty Republicans to vote with Democrats to save HOPE VI.
In 2005, the congressman was the lead Democratic sponsor of a bill establishing a national cord blood bank, which will widen the availability of blood transfusions for thousands of patients who suffer from diseases such as sickle cell anemia and diabetes.
He received an A– grade on his voting record relating to veteran issues from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Davis was the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to demand that former House Ways and Means chair Charlie Rangel surrender his gavel in the wake of ongoing ethics issues.
Davis twice voted against Democratic-supported health care reform legislation, first in November 2009, and again in March 2010 when the legislation passed and was signed into law by President Obama. He was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against the legislation in March 2010; he was also the member from the most-heavily Democratically-leaning district to vote against the legislation.
In Spring 2012, he said he will not run for public office and will instead become a visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics.
Davis is doubtful he will run for public office again. He said "I’ve heard some people at the national level encouraging me to run as an independent for my old office. Alabama is not friendly to independent candidacies.” Davis suggested running as a Republican won't be a viable option because the Alabama Republican Party has declined to embrace politicians who have switched parties. He referred to former U.S. Congressman Parker Griffith who switched parties and lost the Republican primary in 2010.
It does appear something changed his mind
He couldn’t win back his old seat as a Republican (he’d get a higher % of the vote than another one would, but it wouldn’t be enough). He harbored statewide ambitions when he was Congressman, and he realized that there was no way to win pandering exclusively to the narrow radical left & racialists. When he expressed that publicly, the AL Dems derailed him for his honesty. At this point, he’s probably better off rebooting his political career in VA and see where it leads him.
Slow down. He’s not in office, and talks a good game. Let’s wait to see how he walks the walk.
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