First of all this:
According to Wikipedia, he ran for Congress in 2010 on a promise to get rid of federal income taxes and had become involved with several Tea Party organizations.
So basically he went from being a corrupt, protectionist Democratic HP to being a regressive de facto Republican HP.
He supported abolishing the IRS and getting rid of the income tax for years while he was still in Congress. As far as I see he hadn't really changed much on policy but he found comfort in the Tea Party once he was released from prison.
As bizarre as it might sound, after he was released from prison and was clearly a Tea Partier, he was still a protectionist Democrat. Early on in his career when he was the Mahoning County Sheriff he refused to enforse home foreclosures on people who were laid off by the steel mills. If he were in the same situation at any point until the day he died he would have done the exact same. The left/right spectrum as we know it breaks down with a man like Traficant. He was an odd duck, and even though he was convicted of corruption charges, he was probably still one of the most honest politicians in Washington for decades.
