Birmingham Blues

I hate to admit it, but the forum was kind of a snooze.  There were several last-minute cancellations, but we still had 33 candidates, each of whom got a big two minutes to tells us why we should vote for him or her.  Most of the judicial candidates were there, and one pointed out that this year’s ballot is known as the “eighteen year storm” because so many offices are up for grabs.  I was hoping for some fireworks, but Judge Terri Thomas never got there.  Nancy Worley showed up and actually gave a nice, coherent speech that highlighted some good things she’s done to make the voting process more uniform across the state.

I noticed a pattern at the beginning of the evening:  the Democratic candidates were touting their experience, while the Republican candidates were touting their wives and kids.  To their credit, I think the Republicans realized pretty quickly that wasn’t going to fly, so we started hearing about previous work, endorsements, etc., from everyone.

The highlight of my evening was watching Russ Parker.  Russ is a Democrat running for State Senate in District 16.  That’s about as close as you can get to a hopeless cause in this state.  The incumbent, Jabo Waggoner, has been in the legislature since God was a child, and he serves as the Senate minority leader.  When they got their respective two minutes, Jabo went first.  He spent his time bashing Democrats and telling us if we’d just put the Republicans in power, they’d fix everything.  He made a telling slip when he said, “If you like things the way they are in Montgomery, just keep sending the same people back down there.”  Russ, on the other hand, talked about giving voters a choice.  He talked about constitutional reform, alternative energy sources that would benefit the state, public transportation, and the need to return integrity to the process — not just by stopping PAC-to-PAC transfers but by limiting the amount any politician could take from PACS.

During the question and answer session, Jabo got red in the face explaining to us (yet again) how we don’t need a constitutional convention because it would be taken over by special interests.  He assured us that we’re better off allowing the legislature to do an article-by-article rewrite.  This from the man who has told me directly that he depends on lobbyists to tell him what’s in proposed legislation.  I had to bite my tongue really hard to keep from jumping up and asking him who controls the legislature right now.  Russ kept his cool and gave positive responses to all the questions.

I’m more convinced than ever that it’s tiime for a new face in District 16.

Bonus for Don and Dan: both Parker and Waggoner said they support Initiative & Referendum.  I think Parker really means it.  Bonus for all of us: both the candidates and the crowd last night were racially diverse.  As Judge John England said last night, we looked like our state.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 11:42 am and is filed under Alabama Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.