Salon.com > Parker Griffith, R-Ala.

2010: Not the year for party-switchers

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:01:00 +0000

It should have been obvious all along that party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith was heading to defeat in Tuesday's Alabama GOP primary. (And actually, to many Democrats hoping for Griffith to fall, it was.) Politicians have been getting away with jumping from one side of the aisle to the other for a long time -- but 2010 is clearly not the year for it.

Griffith quit the Democratic Party in December, citing healthcare reform -- and a generalized dislike for, oh, pretty much everything the party stands for -- as his reason. The Republican establishment welcomed him with open arms, trumpeting the leap as another good omen for the GOP's November 2010. (Mostly open arms, that is, except when they accidentally attacked him in party-funded mailings.) At the time, Griffith seemed to be making the right move -- Democrats had stalled in their push for the healthcare bill, President Obama (never particularly popular in Griffith's district) was watching his approval ratings plunge and elections the month before had mostly gone well for the GOP. But on the ground back home, activists weren't so quick to get on board. In Madison County, Alabama, the local party endorsed anyone but Griffith in a three-way race. The Tea Party blasted Griffith, calling him a Republican in name only -- which was hard to refute, since he'd only been a Republican for a few months.

Alabama’s YouTube primaries

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:45:00 +0000

Alabama's primary elections are today! The candidates running for various offices include a man who hates foreign languages and sex offenders, a black Democrat who hates Obamacare, a white Democrat who became a Republican, a black Republican who hates Obama, and the guy who installed a giant, granite copy of the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse for attention a couple years ago. All of them have produced or been the subjects of crazy YouTube ads. It is everything wonderful and terrible about this nation in 2010 in one convenient place.

First, the gubernatorial race. Rep. Artur Davis is expected to win the Democratic nomination. Davis' House district is as safe as can be -- Obama won 73% of the vote there -- but he has long had his eye on on statwide office. That's why, according to David Jarman, Davis is "the least liberal member of the Congressional Black Caucus."

Ex-Dem Parker Griffith mistakenly bills DCCC

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:53:00 +0000

Apparently it's taking a little while for the realization that Rep. Parker Griffith is now a Republican to sink in -- with his own staff.

Aides at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee got a FedEx packet Monday morning, from Griffith's Huntsville, Ala., district office and addressed to one of Griffith's schedulers, Leigh Pettis -- but at 430 South Capitol Street SE, the Democratic National Committee headquarters, instead of at Griffith's Capitol Hill office. Inside were a bunch of receipts for more than $1,000 of office expenditures. Which almost made it look like Griffith was trying to bill his former party for keeping his office running. (The DCCC and its Republican counterpart don't reimburse lawmakers for their official business, so it was pretty obviously just a case of writing the wrong address on the package before sending it.)

Take a look at the FedEx envelope here -- Salon blacked out the account number and and sender's name and highlighted the DCCC's address:

“What kind of man is Parker Griffith?”

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:14:00 +0000

Republicans are turning to one of their newest colleagues to give a response on Saturday to President Obama's weekly radio address. Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama -- who switched parties late last year, but still has had trouble convincing tea party activists in his district to trust him -- will take up the GOP cause on healthcare reform.

Griffith, a doctor, might seem like a natural to speak on the subject. But Republicans haven't always been so impressed by his medical credentials. A Democratic source reminded Salon that a nasty 2008 attack ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee, during Griffith's first campaign, went after his career as a physician. "What kind of man is Parker Griffith?" the ad asked. Apparently, the answer is that he's the kind of man who doesn't hold a grudge for long against the national GOP.

Watch the ad here:

Party switcher Griffith’s staff resigns

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:10:00 +0000

Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith is crossing the aisle and becoming a Republican. His staff -- or at least the bulk of it -- won't be following along.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just blasted out a release announcing that "nearly every" one of Griffith's staffers tendered their resignation Monday morning. According to the DCCC, Griffith's chief of staff was one of those who quit, "along with the entire legislative and communications team."

In a quote included with the release, Sharon Wheeler, Griffith's chief of staff, said, "Alabama's Fifth District has deserved and has benefited from great Democratic conservative leadership since Reconstruction. And until now they had it. But Parker Griffith has abandoned the legacy of conservative leadership provided by Bud Cramer, Ronnie Flippo, Bob Jones, Howell Heflin, Jim Allen, Lister Hill, John Sparkman, Big Jim Folsom, and so many more.”

This isn't the first defection from Griffith's camp; his campaign consultants cut ties shortly after the announcement of the congressman's decision to switch parties. And though the DCCC is trumpeting this, it's not exactly a huge surprise. It's one thing when someone like Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., switches parties; he's had staffers who've been with him for years, and at least some of them are more loyal to Specter than to any given party. But Griffith's a freshman.

Dems want money back from party switcher Griffith

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:33:00 +0000

As a freshman Democrat, Rep. Parker Griffith looked to be in trouble next year. Sure, his district hadn't ever elected a Republican to the House, but it was trending red -- it consistently gave 60 percent or more of its vote to the Republican presidential candidate -- and in a year in which Democrats are bound to take some losses, especially in the South, he seemed very vulnerable. So his fellow Democrats, including most of the party's leaders in the House, opened their wallets.

Now that Griffith has announced that he's becoming a Republican, however, some of them want their money back.

"House Democratic Members and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took Parker Griffith at his word and, as a result, invested a great deal in working with Alabamans to bring Mr. Griffith to Congress. We were committed to helping Mr. Griffith deliver for his constituents and successfully helped Mr. Griffith fend off the personal attacks against him from the far right," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

NRCC scrubs ads attacking party switcher

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:15:00 +0000

When Democrat Parker Griffith ran for Congress last year, it was in a district that the GOP wanted badly to win. So the Natioanl Republican Congressional Committee really went to town on him, putting out an attack ad filled with dark images of terror attacks, including 9/11, that ended by quoting Griffith as saying, "We have nothing to fear from radical Islam."

Griffith won anyway. But on Tuesday, news broke that he plans to switch parties, and will officially announce his decision to become a Republican Tuesday afternoon. Problem was, that ad was apparently still on YouTube.

The NRCC seems to have moved quickly, though. Their official copy of the spot has been removed from the video-sharing site. One other user's copy still remained as of this post, however. You can view it below.

Freshman House Democrat switching parties

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:28:00 +0000

Rep. Parker Griffith, D-Ala., will announce Tuesday afternoon that he's switching parties and becoming a Republican, a GOP source familiar with the decision who didn't want to preempt the announcement tells Salon. A first-term congressman, Griffith represents a district that's trended more and more conservative in recent years but hasn't been represented by a Republican since shortly after the Civil War.

Griffith is a doctor, and he's expected to cite his differences with Democrats over healthcare reform as a major issue in his move. But politics likely played a major role as well.

The congressman won 52 percent of the vote in a 2008 race for the seat, which was open as a result of Democrat Bud Cramer's retirement. But the district went to John McCain in the presidential election; the Republican got 61 percent of the vote to Barack Obama's 38 percent. President Bush got 60 percent of the district's residents in 2004. With numbers like that working against him, Griffith was seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic members of Congress next year, even though he'd been voting against his party on major issues since being sworn in.

Republicans remain 40 seats away from taking back the House.

Politico's Josh Kraushaar, who was the first to report Griffith's decision, noted that the congressman already has more than $600,000 in the bank for his race next year, and at least $14,000 of it came from House Democratic leaders.