aattp.org via Crooks and Liars
A former Republican congresswoman in Florida has left the GOP and joined the Democrats, citing her former party’s increasing attacks on women and other minorities.
Ana Rivas Logan said:
“The GOP of today is not the party I joined. It’s not the party of my parents. It’s a party that has been radicalized and held hostage by a group of extremists.”
Rivas Logan explained that she felt she could not, in good conscience, continue carrying the flag for the Republican Party as both a woman and an Hispanic-American. She dismissed the modern Republican Party as nothing more than “a party that attacks women and minorities — and one that asked me, and my former Hispanic Republican colleagues in the Florida legislature, to turn on their own people by supporting extreme anti-immigrant policies.”
The midterm elections are just months away, and Republican strategists are intensely aware of the detrimental effect the party’s reactionary policies may have on independent and moderate voters in crucial swing states.
Rivas’ defection is indicative of a problem senior Republicans like Karl Rove have long warned of: Hispanic voters and other minorities, who otherwise share many conservative values, refusing to support the party because of its extremist rhetoric and policies on immigration and women’s rights.
