Or you could say that Griffith voted with Nancy Pelosi, Socialists Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel for 7/15 key votes like this guy would have me say it. Mo Brooks refrain on freshman Democrat Parker Griffith’s first vote, for Pelosi as speaker, seems to be the line of attack that the GOP will use against Democrats from conservative districts. See Travis Childers of Mississippi, here and here. The classes of 2006 and 2008 will be targeted since most of the Dems elected were more conservative than the leadership.
…the road toward a GOP return to power begins in the 49 congressional districts where the most people split their vote; they were the places that were carried by John McCain at the top of the ticket but that also elected a Democrat to the House. The outcome in those districts — almost half in the South, but stretching from upstate New York to rural New Mexico — account for one out of every five members of the House’s majority caucus this year.
Democrats won’t be able to benefit from the full weight of Obama’s get-out-the-vote efforts next fall, the GOP is banking that many of the “McCain-Democrat” districts will revert to their historic Republican leanings. “If you go back to a non-presidential year, meaning turnout will be down lower, it goes back to the norm,” said California’s Kevin McCarthy , who is heading up candidate recruitment efforts for the House GOP. “And if you look at the norm there, we have an opportunity — given the right candidate, given the right message — to win those seats back.”
Of the 14 split districts where Democrats are now serving their first full terms, two of the four most solidly for McCain are in Alabama: in the southeast corner, where Mayor Bobby Bright of Montgomery narrowly won an open seat and McCain won 63 percent of the vote, and along the state’s northern border, where state Sen. Parker Griffith won an open seat and McCain carried 61 percent.
Bobby Bright voted with the Republicans for 13/15 votes according to this Hill analysis (H’tip to Yall Pollitics). No surprise since both Dems represent conservative districts and are up for re-election this year.
According to this CQ analysis on vulnerable representatives, Bright is the next Democrat (3rd) least likely to vote with his party’s majority, with a party unity score of 52 percent. His district went 63% for McCain. Bright is a former Montgomery mayor who won an open-seat race in 2008 with just more than 50 percent of the vote.
Bright bucked Democratic leaders on just about every major bill the House has passed so far in the 111th Congress: the economic stimulus law; an expansion of children’s health insurance programs (PL 111-3); the fiscal 2010 budget resolution; and the climate change bill.
Law Of Increasing Conservatism 