Top Democrat and President Obama Supporter Defects to Republicans
May 31, 2012 |
Posted by ABS Staff
Tagged With: Artur Davis, black politicians, cory booker, David Axelrod, Mayor Cory Booker,President Obama
Tagged With: Artur Davis, black politicians, cory booker, David Axelrod, Mayor Cory Booker,President Obama
A former Democratic congressman and leading 2008 supporter of Barack
Obama who was often referred to jokingly as ‘the
second black President’ has switched his voter registration in
preparation for a possible election run as a Republican.
The defection of Artur Davis, 44, Harvard-educated and a one-time rising
star in the party who
was the first member of Congress outside Illinois to back Obama against Hillary
Clinton, is a major symbolic blow to the President.
Perhaps most damaging is Davis’ biting critique of Obama and the way the
Democrats have evolved over the past four years. He left the Democratic Party last
December to become an independent. Now he is registering in Virginia and has
made clear he is now a Republican.
At one time, Davis – like Obama, a Harvard Law graduate – was tipped as
a possible Attorney general in the Obama administration.
His dramatic move comes after Mayor Cory Booker of New Jersey, another
prominent Democrat identified along with Obama and Davis as part of a new wave
of black politicians, slammed the Obama campaign attacks on Mitt Romney’s Bain
Capital record as ‘nauseating’.
Booker later apologized after the Obama campaign publicly lambasted him
with David Axelrod, Obama’s top campaign strategist, describing his comments,
quickly made into a Republican ad, him as ‘just wrong’.
Davis left the House of Representatives in 2010 to run for Alabama
governor but was defeated in the Democratic primary, a loss that accelerated
his disillusionment with his party.
In a blog post on Tuesday, he said he was switching his voter
registration to Virginia.
In his blog, he took aim at Obama’s agenda and his failure to deliver:
‘I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators
with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again.
‘I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc
by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured:
frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance
of a united country.’
The former congressman is understood to be considering challenging Gerry
Connolly, a two-term Democrat representing Northern Virginia, just outside Washington,
where Davis now works for a law firm. Running against Connolly, however, would
be a tough challenge.
Davis portrayed Obama’s Democratic party as having abandoned its more
centrist heritage and as dividing America.
‘My personal library is still full of books on John and Robert Kennedy,
and I have rarely talked about politics without
trying to capture the noble things they stood for.
‘I have also not forgotten that in my early thirties, the Democratic
Party managed to engineer the last run of robust growth and expanded social
mobility that we have enjoyed; and when the party was doing that work, it felt
inclusive, vibrant, and open-minded. But parties change.
He added that ‘this is not Bill
Clinton’s Democratic Party (and he knows that even if he can’t say it)’. Davis
said that he had been encouraged to run for Congress and also the Virginia
state legislature. ‘I by no means underestimate the difficulty of putting
together a campaign again, especially in a community to which I have no
long-standing ties,’ he wrote.
‘I have a mountain of details to learn about this northern slice of
Virginia and its aspirations, and given the many times I have advised would-be
candidates to have a platform and a reason for serving, as opposed to a desire
to hold an office, that learning curve is one I would take seriously.’
Read the rest of this story on the Dailymail.co.uk
