WV: Justice rejoining GOP

[Adam Griffin]

Laws need to be passed that prevent politicians from switching parties while in office, unless they are willing to resign their seats. Ideally, Justice would be violently escorted off the premises by the WV Democratic State Committee, who would appoint his successor for the remainder of the term.

You dance with the one who brought you - if you get tired of two-steppin', then take a seat.

[Adam Griffin]

Laws need to be passed that prevent politicians from switching parties while in office, unless they are willing to resign their seats. Ideally, Justice would be violently escorted off the premises by the WV Democratic State Committee, who would appoint his successor for the remainder of the term.

You dance with the one who brought you - if you get tired of two-steppin', then take a seat.

Why? That's someone's choice to identify with the party of their choice. You could make the argument that preventing that violates Freedom of Speech (how you would like to identify politically). If the voters have a problem, then they will vote out the politician later.

It's also somebody's choice to run for office and utilize the resources of party apparatuses (money, ballot access, party staffers, proprietary data, etc) to get elected. It's obvious he ran as a Democrat because running as one made his ability to obtain the office easier than running as a Republican - that indicates that Democrats contributed to his campaign in ways above/beyond him doing them a favor.

Nobody's saying that politicians shouldn't be able to switch affiliation: I'm saying that you shouldn't be able to keep the office you were elected to as a member of that party if you choose to do so.

What you're trying to claim is akin to claiming that nobody can smoke because there are penalties (i.e. taxes) when you do so.

[Adam Griffin]

What? That's crazy.

No, it's not. The party and its supporters elect a candidate. Without them, a candidate wouldn't be in office. They ran as a member of that party, deliberately used its resources, and was elected by their constituents with the expectation that they would serve as a member of that party. To switch parties mid-cycle is false advertising and a breach of contract with both the public and the party.

[Adam Griffin]

Anyway, I'm not going round-and-round with a bunch of hypocrites about whether political affiliation and the institutions that are supported by them should mean anything in this country anymore.


Are we even sure that Justice is becoming a Republican? The WVGOP seems horribly out of the loop if so, based on this tweet from just a few hours ago. Could Justice (and even Trump) be announcing that he/they are going indy or starting a new party?

[Adam Griffin]

What? That's crazy.

No, it's not. The party and its supporters elect a candidate. Without them, a candidate wouldn't be in office. They ran as a member of that party, deliberately used its resources, and was elected by their constituents with the expectation that they would serve as a member of that party. To switch parties mid-cycle is false advertising and a breach of contract with both the public and the party.

Exactly. The voters elect a CANDIDATE. Not a party.

95%+ of voters in this country go into the voting booth for one specific reason: to elect the candidate representing one particular party. Surely this has become obvious to all over the past few cycles, with the endless parade of crap-kickers and absolutely terrible human beings who have been elected - even in nominally-competitive districts - based on the letter beside their name and nothing else.

Voters don't care about "candidates", and those candidates don't get elected without a party backing them. Candidates are merely an empty vessel elected to do as they're told by the electorate, with the electorate inevitably making its decision based on which letter is branded onto their foreheads.

[Adam Griffin]

If they only care about party, why is there not a Gov. Bill Cole (R) in WV? In a state Trump won by 42%, Justice as a D won by 7%.. so your 99% of people voting on party alone doesn't hold water.

Anybody can read the tea leaves and see where the wins are blowing. Justice felt (accurately) that it'd be easier for him to get elected in 2016 with a D branded on his head. As arguably the best candidate on balance Dems could have fielded, he won by single-digits. He's betting that a different letter will be better for re-election in 2020. This isn't difficult stuff.

Especially when you consider his nonsensical "oh the Dems walked away from a bill where absolutely 0 of their votes were needed and I've been the one feuding with the GOP over it in the first place" crap, he's absolutely, positively full of s[inks]t.