Former Democrat 'Turncoat' Tells Why GOP Suits Him Better
by Chad Groening
August 19, 2004
(AgapePress) - An ex-Democrat U.S. Congressman from Louisiana who raised the ire of several members of his former party by switching to the Republican Party this month, says he has been a supporter of President Bush for some time now.Rodney Alexander is unabashedly pro-life and pro-Second Amendment. Those were two of the reasons why the Louisiana lawmaker had a far more conservative voting record than most other House Democrats. But the first-term representative says he really began to feel the pressure to change parties this past spring, when he told a reporter he preferred George W. Bush over the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry.
"During my public hearings I would have people questioning me about that," Alexander says, "and the last six or eight months, I've spent most of my time defending my voting record in the Democratic Party."
And when a Democratic challenger entered the fray, contesting the incumbent Louisiana congressman's hold on his 5th District seat, he decided it was time to make a move. "When the Democrat qualified against me, I realized there was a dissatisfaction there that I was going to have to be confronted with," Alexander says. "I felt my time would be better devoted to the party with whom I had been voting all this time and [I should] just be a member."
A year before then-Texas Governor Bush decided to seek the presidency, Alexander says he was one of 19 Louisiana House Democrats who signed a letter encouraging Bush to run. "Some of my Democratic colleagues were critical of me about that," he says.
Then during the Democratic primaries, when the press asked him who he supported, the Louisiana congressman admitted he could not endorse Kerry but "liked George Bush." Alexander says he did not attend the recent Democratic National Convention, but he is "looking forward" to attending the upcoming GOP convention in New York.
