My Wednesday column expands on a topic I began yesterday:
You might not have heard about Republican congressman Tim Griffin, an otherwise nondescript conservative lawmaker from Arkansas, but bear with me on this.
Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Griffin, whose physical appearance and speaking voice remind me of a stumpier, mini-me clone of George W. Bush, served as as the Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for RNC during the Bush re-election campaign. Following the 2004 election, Griffin was accused of nefarious “caging” efforts to disenfranchise African American voters in Florida. The charges were eventually dismissed and Griffin went on to become Karl Rove’s second in command inside the Bush White House and was eventually involved in the Alberto Gonzales “attorney firing” scandal as one of the Bushie loyalists who was hand-picked by the administration to replace U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Suffice to say, this guy’s dirty.
Like most of the accused crooks inside the Bush administration, Griffin moved onward and upward.
In 2010, he was overwhelming elected to represent Arkansas’ second district in Congress. The district includes the state capital of Little Rock and several of the surrounding counties including Faulkner County. Two years later, in last year’s general election, Griffin was re-elected by a margin of 16 points throughout the district and by an overwhelming 35 points in Faulkner County.
Why am I highlighting the results in Faulkner County, one of eight counties in Griffin’s home district? Faulkner is where the suburb of Mayflower is located — a neighborhood in Arkansas featuring the state’s only black, gunky river of heavy crude running through its streets and pooling in small lakes between its cookie-cutter McMansions. [continue reading here]