On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin, who in 2004, as accused of attempting a voter registration scheme in Jacksonville, Florida, and then after laying low for a few years, was one of the beneficiaries of the Bush Administration’s culling of U.S. Attorneys. After it was revealed that his predecessor was fired on Karl Rove’s orders to make a job opening for Griffin, he resigned six months into the job, citing “spending time with his family” for bailing. He resurfaced in 2010 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District, and won in spite of being named one of CREW’s “Most Crooked Candidates of 2010”. His most noteworthy moment in office came in October of 2013, when during a point when the capitol was on lockdown after a woman ran a barricade at the White House and began a high speed chase that ended with her being fired upon by the Secret Service, Griffin, while hiding in his office, took to social media to blame the event on President Obama’s “violent rhetoric” while the situation was still active, and before any details were known. Halfway through his second term in office, Griffin again resigned to “spend time with his family”, only to turn around and six months later register as a candidate for Arkansas Lieutenant Governor, making people wonder if his family tell him to go away after a couple months of him bothering them. He currently is serving as lieutenant governor while bizarrely cashing in big by working for a consulting firm through an obscure legal loophole, as well. In May of 2016. He, along with Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge all surfaced around the same time to respond to President Obama’s directive about transgendered bathroom use, with Griffin himself taking to social media to call it “misguided”.
Over the past two years, Griffin has been remain content with sitting in Arkansas, giving a thumbs up’ to the spree of executions that Gov. Asa Hutchinson went on in April 2017, while also hiring a guy who worked for the Koch brothers on a SuperPAC to serve as his own deputy chief of staff and communications director, because that’s not shady at all.
In any event, Tim Griffin won re-election in 2018, and we’re already predicting he runs for Governor in 2022, assuming Griffin doesn’t need to “spend time with his family” suddenly when a scandal involving him inevitably surfaces.