Elections

Ex-Obama ally Artur Davis uses convention speech to ask other Democrats to leave party too

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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TAMPA, Fla. — Ex-Obama ally Artur Davis — the former Democratic congressman from Alabama who in 2008 gave a speech in support of Barack Obama at the Democratic convention, but has since renounced him — says he feels at home with the Republican Party and is encouraging others to leave the Democratic Party too.

“Thank you for welcoming me where I belong,” Davis told delegates who gave him roaring applause throughout his Tuesday night primetime speech at the Republican National Convention.

He used his speech to encourage “Democrats and independents whose minds are open to argument” to “listen closely to the Democratic Party that will gather in Charlotte and ask yourself if you ever hear your voice in the clamor.”

“Ask yourself if these Democrats still speak for you,” Davis said.

“Now, America is a land of second chances,” Davis said, “and I gather you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it.”

Davis said Americans supported Obama is 2008 because “no candidate had ever spoken so beautifully,” but said “dreams meet daybreak.”

“Maybe the Hollywood stars and the glamour blinded us a little: you thought it was the glare, some of us thought it was a halo,” Davis said.

He criticized Obama for gutting the “welfare work requirement” and knocked him for not reaching across the aisle as he “rammed through a health-care bill that took over one-sixth of our economy.”

“Let’s put the poetry aside,” Davis said, “let’s suspend the hype, let’s come down to earth and start creating jobs again.”

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