Democratic National Committeeman Switches to GOP

As the Democratic National Committee gathered Monday to plan for upcoming elections, the party’s leadership was stunned when a member of the committee announced that he was switching to the Republican Party.

Louisiana state Rep. John W. (Jock) Scott announced his switch in a letter to Chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. just before the opening of a three-day meeting of the group’s executive committee.

“The Democratic Party has drifted far to the left of the mainstream of American thoughts and needs,” Scott said in the letter. “America’s great middle class of working men and women has been abandoned by the Democratic Party, its values ignored and even opposed.”

Kirk, presiding over the first meeting under his leadership, had no comment on Scott’s defection.

But committee spokesman Terry Michael, confirming that the letter was received, said: “There is a saying in politics: Timing is everything. Jock Scott’s timing couldn’t be worse. There is a broad consensus within our party to offer a commitment to the mainstream concerns of the American people while the Republican Party drifts to the far right fringes.”

Republican National Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. gloated over the latest defection.

“It’s not often we get the opportunity to broaden our grass-roots support with a member of the DNC who has seen the light,” he said in a statement.

The three days of Democratic meetings started Monday with presentation of a 1985-86 budget to the executive committee. The national committee will concentrate on two issues: the party’s “Fairness Commission” to rewrite rules for the 1988 presidential nomination and Kirk’s call for cancellation of the 1986 midterm convention.