By Yaël Ossowski | Florida Watchdog

TAMPA — The congressman with a knack for colorful hyperbole and an audible distaste for Republicans is back

After losing District 8 to Republican Daniel Webster in the 2010 midterm elections, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson now is aiming for the newly configured and Democratic-friendly 9th Congressional District, south of Orlando.

Grayson first came to prominence in the U.S. House floor debates over health-care reform in September 2009. He summarized the Republicans’ plan for health care as “don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly,” drawing ire from many of his GOP colleagues.

He stoked further controversy when he described the nation’s current health-care regime as a “Holocaust in America,” and described those opposed to PresidentBarack Obama‘s proposed reform as “foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”

But his most adversarial language may have occurred throughout his 2010 campaign for re-election against former Florida House Speaker Webster.

In a widely circulated ad, he labeled Webster “Taliban Dan” for certain fundamentalist comments about religion, as well as accused him of dodging the Vietnam War draft by receiving medical deferments, actions which cost Grayson votes and earned him the label of America’s “worst politician” by conservative columnist George Will.

Read more: Florida Watchdog