Voters flip on party switchers

politico ^

[LouAvul]

When Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Parker Griffith decided to switch parties, they were welcomed with open arms by their new political families in Washington.

But when each returned home to face the voters of his new party, the door was slammed in his face.

That both were so soundly rejected before they even got to the general election — Griffith's defeat in Alabama on Tuesday wasn't even close — illustrates the growing disconnect in both parties between the national political establishment and the grass-roots activists who typically decide primary elections, and between the conventional goals of the national parties and the loftier aims of the rank and file.

[a fool in paradise]

Drain the swamp.

[rightwingextremist1776]

That is because the voters are tired of traitors and yearning for true believers.......

[Retired Greyhound]

I have little patience for anyone who was a Democrat after 1980.

Griffith was a Democrat in until this year.

Impossible to support him.

[saganite]

Griffith must have switched in Alabama because he could see it would be easier to get elected as a Republican. So, who won the Republican primary and how good of a candidate is he/she?

[Qwackertoo]

Here in the 5th District, everybody was “anybody BUT Griffith”. Glad he lost. I voted for Brooks, although was impressed with Les Phillip’s first attempt and LOVED his youtube video. :)

[Vigilanteman]

I don't think the voters object to party switchers per say, they object to ill-timed opportunism. Some of the best Republicans were once Democrats-- Ronald Reagan, Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms and Ben Campbell, just to name a few.

But their switch took place because the Democrat party drifted so far left as to leave no room for their core beliefs, not because of a trendy drop of their former party in the polls.

[Qwackertoo]

Mo Brooks won. Glad there won’t be a run-off. Hope he can carry other counties besides Madison. He is popular here in Madison County and known, not so sure about surrounding areas.

Griffith had signs all over the place and prominently used DR. Parker Griffith and below REPUBLICAN and still lost. Heck he didn’t even have the decency to show up at the Embassy Suites last night to thank his supporters.

AND from what my husband told me, he didn’t even have the decency to call Mo Brooks to concede and had Eric Cantor do it for him.

What a sore loser Parker Griffith is.

[saganite]

LOL. He sounds a lot like a sore loser. Kind of like Snarlin’ Arlen Specter of Scottish Law fame.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Snarlin’ Arlen Specter and Ira “Unicron Killer” Einhorn

(No, not Phil Spector the LA murderer, this is the Other Spector)

From Wiki:

“Ira Samuel Einhorn, a.k.a. “The Unicorn Killer” (born May 15, 1940), is a former American activist of the 1960s and 1970s who is now serving a life sentence for his 1977 murder of Holly Maddux.

Einhorn was active in ecological groups and was an icon of the counterculture, anti-establishment and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. At one time, he was a friend and contemporary of Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. He also claimed to have been instrumental in creating Earth Day in 1970, and claimed that during the first Earth Day event, he was on stage as master of ceremonies, although other event organizers dispute his account, including a rebuttal during testimony in Einhorn’s murder trial.[1] [2]

He called himself, poetically, “the Unicorn,” because the name Einhorn (a German-Jewish name) means Unicorn, or more literally translated to “One Horn”.[3]
Born into a middle-class Jewish family, Einhorn studied at the University of Pennsylvania and had a five-year relationship with Holly Maddux, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College who was originally from Tyler, Texas. In 1977, Maddux broke up with Einhorn. She went to New York City and became involved with Saul Lapidus. After learning about this turn of events, Einhorn called Maddux and told her to come back to Philadelphia to retrieve her belongings. She did so and was never seen again.
When questioned, Einhorn told police that Maddux had left to go to the store but never came back.

Eighteen months later, Maddux’s decomposing corpse was found by police in a trunk stored in a closet in Einhorn’s apartment.

Upon being confronted by police with this discovery, Einhorn reportedly replied “you found what you found”.

Einhorn’s bail was reduced to $40,000 at the request of his early-on attorney Arlen Specter;

Einhorn was released from custody (!!!!!!!) in advance of his trial by paying 10% of the bond’s value, or $4,000.

This bail was paid, not by Einhorn, but by Barbara Bronfman, a Montreal socialite and a member of the family that owns the Seagram liquor company. (!!!!!!!)

In 1981, just days before his murder trial was to begin, Einhorn skipped bail and fled to Europe.

Einhorn traveled in Europe for the next 16 years, along the way marrying a Swedish woman named Annika Flodin.

Back in Pennsylvania, as Einhorn had already been arraigned, the state convicted him in absentia in 1993 for the murder of Maddux. Einhorn was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Einhorn

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Phil Gramm is an interesting story and one that many politicians should take to heart. He was re-elected to the House as a Democrat in 1982, but in early 1983, he voted for President Reagan’s tax cuts. As punishment, Tip O’Neill threw him off of the House Budget Committee.

Instead of just switching parties, Phil Gramm resigned his seat in Congress and ran for re-election as a Republican.

He took all the risk of switching parties and didn’t endanger the political ambitions of any candidate from either party.

[Fedupwithit]

Politicians....Reap The Whirlwind...