Parker Griffith's Party-Switch Not So Big a Surprise

MSNBC correctly notes that it's not as momentous as Specter's switch, since Griffith has been voting with the Republicans on many/most major issues anyway.

However, like Specter's move (and unlike, say, Jim Jeffords' move several years earlier, which was fully ideological) it is based almost entirely on his desire to get re-elected. In fact, it may be even more so than it was for Specter.

After all, when Specter first got elected to the Senate as a Republican back in 1980 as part of a massive influx of new Republicans that allowed them to win control of the Senate, he was hardly the only moderate Republican. Lowell Weicker (later ditched the party and served as Independent Governor of Connecticut), Charles Percy, Nancy Kassebaum, Bill Cohen, Charles Mathias, David Durenberger, John Danforth, Warren Rudman, Mark Andrews, Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood, John Heinz, John Chafee and Bob Stafford were all very moderate Republicans, and perhaps Ted Stevens, Bill Roth, Rudy Boschwitz and Al D'Amato (and maybe even Bob Dole). This year, it was Arlen, the two ladies from Maine, and then after them, next would be Dick Lugar, who probably wasn't even in the top half when it came to moderate Republicans back then.

On the other hand, even though the Democratic house majority was only slightly smaller (244-191), the majority in the Northeast was much, much smaller, 65 out of 113, 57.5% (as opposed to 76 out of 92 today 82.6%)

Outside of the northeast, the majority was actually larger (55.6%) in the 97th Congress than today (52.8%). This was of course due to the difference in the South, where the voters hadn't made the big switch yet. In the greater South (defined as the 11 Confederate states plus Oklahoma and Kentucky), in the 97th Congress, Dems had 79/121 (65.3%) of the seats; today they have 61./142 (43.0%). The difference is even more dramatic if you leave out the border states of Arkansas, Virginia and North Carolina (which all have a larger percentages of Democrats in their delegations today than in the 97th Congress). 69/96 (71.9%) in the 97th Congress. 44/114 (38.6%) today.

Anyway, outside of the greater South and the Northeast, in the 97th Congress, Dems had 100 of 201 (49.8%), just shy of the majority, while today, they have 120/201 (59.7%). This is, of course, mostly due to the significant Democratic gains in the West

Black Registration Percentage Up 0.21% in Alabama from January

The Obama campaign is not spending more than minimal resources in Alabama.

This makes sense, as Alabama has some of the most conservative (if not outright racist, and it has a good number of those) whites in the country, and though it was Jimmy Carter's 9th best state in 1980 (after Minnesota, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland and West Virginia), Democrats seem to have been doing relatively worse and worse there each year.

1984: Mondale's 27th best state (lost by a little over 22 points)
1988: Dukakis' 35th best state (lost by just under 20 points)
1992: Clinton's 42nd best state
1996: Clinton's 43rd best state

While Gore did slightly better relatively

2004:Kerry did not; it was his 44th best state, doing worse only in Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah and Idaho.

It'll possibly be even worse for Obama, as he's actively contesting Alaska, North Dakota, and Nebraska's 2nd district (since Nebraska splits by electoral vote) [granted, Obama may do worse in Kentucky/WV/TN that in Alabama)



In particular (especially where Obama is concerned), it is the least heavily African-American of the 5 Deep South states (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA), only a little over a quarter black (the others range from nearly 30% black to 3/8 black in the case of Mississippi)

However, there are two competitive House races in which Democratic victory will depend heavily on African-American turnout. Both are located in Southeast Alabama.

While AL-3 (designed by the Democratic state government to elect a Democrat, but electing Mike Rogers instead of Joe Turnham in 2002) has shown, if anything, smaller gains than the state,

However, the open AL-2 seat has shown bigger gains (at least up 0.30%, possibly more or a small bit less depending on the way Montgomery County's gains divide up), which will be helpful in Bobby Bright's quest to pick up the open seat.

This seat went Republican in the 1964 anti-Civil Rights Act backlash. The last time this area was represented in Congress by a Democrat, there was a grand total of 11 Republicans (William Cramer in St. Petersburg, Edward Gurney of East-Central Florida, Charles Jonas in Charlotte, James Broyhill in the Blue Ridge Foothills just west of Charlotte, the 2 always Republican East Tennessee districts as well as the slightly more swingy Chattanooga district, Bruce Alger of Dallas, Ed Foreman of very, very sparsely populated at the time West Texas, Joel Broyhill of Northern Virginia, and Richard Harding Poff of Shenandoah) in Congress from the 106 Congressmen representing the 11 former Confederate states

These days (admittedly with 25 more Congressional districts), there are 75 Republicans in Congress from these states out of a total of 131 members of Congress, down from 77 at the beginning of this session of Congress and an all-time high of 82 at the beginning of the 109th Congress; .

With any luck, we can get that number down below 70


Note: my data comes from the Alabama Secretary of State's Excel files of Voter Registration Data and Dave Leip's Election Atlas.