Weigel

Alan Grayson Returns!

Reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby, who had been badgering Rep. Joe Crowley with questions about how Democrats blew NY-9, were handed a distraction today – former Rep. Alan Grayson. The towering one-term Democrat slipped out of the House chamber – which, as a former member, he can visit whenever he likes – and chatted for a while about his visit to D.C. He was in town to speak to the Alliance for Aging Research, and decided to drop in.

“You always manage to run into the people you don’t want to see,” he said.

Grayson, who was born in New York, had been talking to the delegation’s Democrats about what happened last night. There were no good answers. “I wouldn’t presume to give these guys advice,” he said. “I lost last year. They won.” He rejected the premise that voters were angry at government, and taking it out on Democrats. “They’re not anti-government. They’re anti-misery. They see that Washington, this House especially, is not functioning.”

Over the summer, Grayson announced a bid for one of Florida’s redrawn congressional districts. He was pleased at how plans to make the new districts less gerrymandered were proceeding, but a little nervous about the potential for Republicans to copy what their peers are doing in Pennsylvania, and split up Florida’s electoral votes. “I would put nothing past them.”