GOP lawmaker: Disenchanted Dems are welcome to join Republican Party

The Democratic Party has abandoned its "conservative" members and is now controlled by the "extreme left wing,” said one Republican lawmaker, who invited these Dems to join the GOP.

"It is unfair that culturally conservative Democrats have been marginalized within the party, which is now controlled by its extreme left wing," Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) said Wednesday in an interview with National Review Online.

McCotter said he would be happy to welcome those Democrats into the Republican fold.

"I hope these abandoned Democrats follow Ronald Reagan’s path to the Republican Party, or at least my late father’s path into the voting booth to elect conservative candidates," he said.

The interview was to promote McCotter's new book, Seize Freedom! American Truths and Renewal. In the tome, McCotter argues that traditional Democrats have become marginalized.

“There are still some traditional working-class Democrats who love God and country, guns and their union, but they are an endangered species,” he wrote.

McCotter is not the first member of Congress to try to paint the opposing party as controlled by extremists.

Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have suggested they believe House Republicans are controlled by right-wing elements such as the Tea Party.

In a speech to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) on Saturday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) referred to the “very conservative group that now runs the Republican Party."