Posted on 12/22/2009 8:05:01 AM PST by Danae
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 a senior GOP aide familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place in this afternoon in his home district in northern Alabama.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Before Griffith’s switch, the Democrats had held the Huntsville seat since March 1869. Democrat Peter Myndert Dox of Huntsville was elected in November 1868 to what even then was the AL-05: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Myndert_Dox
Earlier in 1868, a special election was held in AL (the state had just been readmitted to the Union), and Republican John Benton Callis of Huntsville was elected. Callis served from July 21, 1868 to March 3, 1869. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Benton_Callis
Immediately prior to the Civil War, the district was represented by Huntsville Democrat Williamson Robert Winfield Cobb, who was a Unionist (as were many North Alabamians—some wanted counties in North AL, North GA, East TN and West NC to secede from the Confederacy and form a new state of the U.S.) but who reluctantly withdrew from Congress when AL seceded in 1861. Cobb served from 1847-1861 in what was back then known as the AL-06. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamson_Robert_Winfield_Cobb
Prior to Cobb, the Representative for the Huntsville district was Democrat Reuben Chapman, who served from 1835 to 1847. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_Chapman Chapman had replaced Democrat Clement Comer Clay, who served from 1829-1835. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Comer_Clay Clay, in turn, replaced Jacksonian (and thus proto-Democrat) Gabriel Moore, who served from the district’s creation in 1823 (prior to that, AL had a single Representative, elected statewide) until 1829. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Moore
So, before today, in the 186-year-old history of the Huntsville-based congressional district in Alabama, it was represented by someone other than a Democrat (or proto-Democrat Jacksonian) for less than 7 and 1/2 months.
Now *taht* is an “ancestrally Democrat” district!
D’oh! “Taht” = “that” (I noticed the typo just as I hit “post”).
You two are exactly right. Further, what would be the point of switching to a minority party to vote with the majority? Both parties would hate him. I expect him to be a loyal GOPer for a long time.
You two are exactly right. Further, what would be the point of switching to a minority party to vote with the majority? Both parties would hate him. I expect him to be a loyal GOPer for a long time.
You two are exactly right. Further, what would be the point of switching to a minority party to vote with the majority? Both parties would hate him. I expect him to be a loyal GOPer for a long time.
Please delete 205 and 206 as duplicates. Sorry.
I doubt that there has been a party switch quite analogous to this one in recent history.
Richard Shelby did the same thing from the same state in 94. But I’m going be skeptical until he shows that he really is a conservative, and not just another infiltrator in the party.
This guy is from Alabama. Alabama democrats are NOT like San Francisco democrats. Some of you who immediately dismiss this guy as a RINO shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him. How has he voted thus far? Maybe we should look at that.
Some of you may not realize this, but Ronald Reagan was a registered DEMOCRAT before he made that great speech at the 1964 Republican Convention. So again, don’t be so quick to just dismiss this guy. I’d like to hear more about his overall philosophy on personal freedom, etc.
Is this a federal senator? If so, great news.
Forget my last post(#211), I misread, I thought he was a senator not a Rep. Good news anyway(to a point).
You are free to challenge what you want. My experience in the GOP here in California is different.
I was on the CA-GOP Board and the only conservative - and only life-time GOP. All the others were “ex-dem’s” that switched as the conservative community we lived voted right leaning. Each candidate they supported was a union school teacher that talked a good game but once elected headed left.
Tom McClintock was a good friend and each election was difficult as the local GOP supported other “less conservative” candidates.
That’s the difference. You’re talking about California, while I’m thinking of the South. In the South, there are still a lot of folks - especially older, especially in rural area and smallish cities - who really are Democrats because they’re great, great, great granddaddy was a Democrat who voted (and fought) against Lincoln. That mindset really does permeate a lot of the South even to this day. That’s why Southerners will vote for Republicans, yet the majority of voters are registered Democrats. In 2004, our county GOP had a whole bank of telephones dedicated solely to phoning (largely receptive) registered Democrats to encourage them to vote Republican.
Much, but not all, of the nationally-observed switching in 1994 was by Southern Democrats becoming Republicans - and most of them really were conservatives who continued to vote like it. In fact, the only disappointing party-switcher (let me qualify with “that I can think of at the moment”) was Ben Campbell, who ended up being a RINO - but he was from Colorado.
For this reason, and given the fact that Griffith appears to have a solidly conservative voting record in the one year that he’s been in the House, I don’t see any reason to suspect that he’s some sort of super-secret deep cover agent reporting directly to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
My father never voted for a Republican, but I think he would have if he had lived long enough to see Carter and Obama.
How has he voted thus far?
Griffith voted against the Porkulus, Crap and Trade, and Obamacare.
There is a video of him getting irate and taking the Lord's name in vain. I will paste when I find it.
Parker Griffith is a RINO and should and most likely will be replaced. Hopefully it will be Les Phillip but if not Mo Brooks. Mo Brooks is polished. Les Phillip isn’t as polished but he is one of us. Hopefully he will get better at public speaking. He reminds me of Allen West from Florida, who spoke at the Free Republic Convention in DC.
Thank you for the comments. I appreciate it. You know better than I, so there’s not much else to say.
I did not like Shelby’s vote on the budget recently. Hoping we can get a better than Shelby candidate. Sessions is great and is conservative and his record leaves no doubt.
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