See also the AL - 05 Big List.
Welcome to the AL - 02 Big List.
This list has been an attempt to keep up with everyone in either political party who has been credibly mentioned (in public or private) as a potential candidate for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District since Rep. Terry Everett (R - Rehobeth) announced that he will not run for re-election.
Both parties’ qualifying period ended April 4, 2008. Three Democrats and six Republicans qualified for the primary race, and they are listed below. The primary is June 3.
The Political Parlor will update the Alabama Line (found in the sidebar) for the race, though perhaps not as fast as you like since input from a wide array of people is sought.
| Democrats |
Republicans |
IN
Bobby Bright, Montgomery Mayor
Cendie Crawley, Dentist, Troy native
Cheryl Sabel, Alabama NOW President
OUT
William Boyd, Montgomery Mayoral Candidate
Seth Hammett, Speaker of the House
Jimmy Holley, State Senator
Jimmy Lunsford, Troy Mayor
Gary McAliley, Pike/Coffee Co. DA
Wendell Mitchell, State Senator
Scott Ninesling
James Perdue, Crenshaw Co Probate Judge
Cooper Rutland, Union Springs Atty
Ron Sparks, Agricultural Commissioner
Terry Spicer, State Representative
Glen Zorn, former Florala Mayor
|
IN
David Grimes, State Representative
Jay Love, State Representative
John W. Martin, Retired Army (Dothan)
Craig Schmidtke, Dothan oral surgeon
Harri Anne Smith, State Senator
David Woods, President, WCOV-TV (Montgomery)
OUT
Greg Albritton, former state Representative
Wes Allen, former candidate for Auditor
Kenneth Boswell, Enterprise Mayor
Bobby Bright, Montgomery Mayor
Terry Butts, former Supreme Court Justice
Jim Byard, Prattville Mayor
Steve Clouse, State Representative
Mark Culver, Houston County Commissioner
Larry Dixon, State Senator
John Giles, former Christian Coalition of AL President
Jack Hawkins, Troy Univ. Chancellor
Jimmy Holley, State Senator
Tim James, Greenville businessman
Troy King, Attorney General
Ben Lewis, State Representative
Barry Mask, State Representative
Charles Nailen, Dothan businessman
Steve Pelham, former Everett staffer
Jim Sullivan, PSC President
George Wallace, Jr., former PSC Commissioner
Dot Waller, Autauga County Bd. of Ed.
Greg Wren, State Representative
|
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People who want Amendment 1 to go away are the people who want to raise your taxes - like BCA’s No-Name Nailen and Jay (Union Man) Love. Voters should remember the things tax-hikers wish fervently that they will forget.
Here is the crux: Jay Love voted to raise your taxes - several times in support of the Biggest Tax Increase in History. Charles Nailen’s organization - under his leadership- spent thousands and thousands of dollars trying to pass the Biggest Tax Increase in History. Whatever record Nailen and Love has is inferior to that of Tim James amd Smith on taxes. That is a fact no matter how much Taxman Nailen wants it to go away. If Love or Nailen was inn Washington, and there was a tax increase on the table, could you trust these guys more than someone like Tim James (who has NEVER supported a tax hike) to hold the line against new taxes?
Of course not.
The support of new taxes by Nailen and Love will be brough up and it does have resonance. You can wish it away all you want to . . .but wishful thinking has yet to win an election.
Comment by Zortag! — October 17, 2007 @ 8:21 am
MH glad to have you back in the show. You found anything Harri Ann Smith has accomplished yet that she actually did?
Comment by Pookie Wilson — October 16, 2007 @ 6:52 pm
I can’t wait until this election is over and all these amendment one is still huge folks are proven wrong.
Comment by Anonymous — October 16, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
As long as somebody is on record supporting taxes it is NEVER dead in a GOP primary. Nice wishful thinking for tax-hikers like Love, Grimes, and BCA-spent-hundreds-of-thousands-trying-to-raise-our-taxes Nailen, but the tax issue is ALWAYS here in Alabama.
Comment by Zortag! — October 16, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
Amendment one is dead folks
Comment by ST — October 16, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
This race scares me. The more I look into it and the more I think about it, there is not a good candidate for the job. Many of the people will get eaten alive in DC others will get run over and others will see dollar signs and follow the money and do as told by the money men. I guess I just have high expectations of getting a person that is not a politician setting up their next election with this spot after having Congressman Everett.
And I think Smith will run for this seat only if she thinks she can win and then turn right around after one term and try to be governor, but thank god neither of those will happen so that Slocumb can have her and not the rest of the state.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — October 16, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
I’ve been under the weather and am still not up to a lot of verbal jousting. Hopefully I will be back up to my usual P&V self in a few days. In the interim, I couldn’t help but nod in the direction of those who have been posting that the Amendment 1 issue will be a factor in the race. Taxes are taxes…whether local, state or federal. The history of any candidate on taxes will be an issue, no matter how much the ostriches want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it will not be.
Riley had three things going for him in this last election…(1) no viable opposition (2) incumbents are hard to unseat (3) even though he had increased taxes and backed Amendment 1, the state was in better financial condition after his first term than it was before he became governor. We seem to be comparing apples to oranges on this Amendment 1 issue by folks saying that it won’t be an issue simply because Riley won reelection after having supported it, etc. It was a different race, with different candidates, for a different office…and it was a different climate. Amendment 1 will be an issue if any of the viable candidates for the office were publicly opposed to it.
Personally, I’d like to see this upcoming election be about issues and not about character assasination, back stabbing and mud slinging. Obviously that is not going to happen. We can’t even have a discussion on this blog without stooping to such petty maneuvers, why should we expect our candidates to behave any better? (And yes, I said, ‘we’…I’m not above reproach on this matter, either!) I’d also like to see all the anonymous bloggers at least use a screen name or some form of identifier on here. If you feel strongly enough about something to say it publicly, you ought to have enough guts to identify yourself in some way….even if it is some sort of pseudonym, at least give us a handle to hang the comment on rather than ‘anonymous’.
Comment by MH — October 16, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
I think you are missing the point when you say that “Amendment 1 didn’t hurt Riley.” Exactly who could have actually used Amendment 1 against Riley? Roy Moore? Come on. Moore had a boatload of other issues hurting him. If there had been a serious Republican contender who could have used Amendment 1 effectively, the story may very well have been different.
I think a public position in FAVOR OF A TAX INCREASE - READ LOVE AND NAILEN - WILL HURT GOP CANDIDATES IN DISTRICT 2.
Comment by Garbage — October 16, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
Boswell is a nice man but he would not win in my view. No money to put in the race and not a strong personality in terms of campaigning. He is doing a fine job as Mayor of Enterprise, however. A better candidate from that City would be former mayor and former Riley appointee Dr. Tim Alford. But I have nto heard any buzz on him at all.
Comment by Anonymous — October 16, 2007 @ 11:18 am
What does everyone think of Ken Boswell?
Comment by Up on the White Verandah — October 16, 2007 @ 1:01 am
Housekeeping Note: This page has so many comments that I have arranged the comments in pages with the last page showing first so that you don’t have to scroll past all the old comments to see new ones.
Comment by Danny — October 16, 2007 @ 12:31 am
Amen Tim T. Harri Anne For Governor, Harri Anne for Congress, Harri Anne for President!!!!! It gets old after a while.
Comment by GOPer — October 15, 2007 @ 10:55 pm
The Harri Ann Smith campaign seems to be on its way to becoming one tease after another. Harri Ann is washing out as she has every time. She is running
the risk of becoming the “girl” crying wolf : or is that “a big fat elephant” she is crying about? HARRI ANN for dogcatcher, or is she interested in
running for constable? Make up your mind Smith.
Comment by Tim T. — October 15, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
Agreed - you don’t want to be to the left at all but many in favor of Amend. 1 are far from leftist. It will not be an issue that will decide anything. It is dead and gone just as it was when Bob Riley, the very architect of Amend. 1 ran for re election. If it didn’t play a part in that race, why would any reasonable person think it would come up in this Congressional race…it will not.
Comment by Anonymous — October 15, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
I don’t know if Amendment 1 wil be a huge issue, but it might be a “deciding” issue. It will hurt Nailen and Love and it might hurt enough for someone else to be elected.
Taxes are indeed a federal as well as state issue, and if you won’t stop taxes at the state level, why should anyone in their right mind expect you to fight federal taxes?????
The tax issue defines Nailen and Love to the LEFT of Smith and James, and believe me, to the left is NOT where you want to be in this district.
Comment by Taxes — October 15, 2007 @ 10:02 am
I agree with 124, Smith will not be elected. In fact, I am confident she will not even run. Nice lady but not cut out for the US Congress. Amendment one may come up, but I agree with some others that it will not be a huge issue…certainly not in the rep. primary where several of the possible candidates were supportive. and in the general election is a dem really going to try and play the raise taxes card or a rep? I doubt it.
Comment by PikeCountyguy — October 14, 2007 @ 8:08 am
Amendment 1 is an issue because it was not popular to the people of Alabama. Federal issues matter, but those are only what these candidates think. You have heard the phrase “Actions speak louder than words.” so what if Amend. 1 is not a federal issue, it is an issue to the people of Alabama and that is who the congressman (notice I said man all of your smith fans) is being elected to represent.
By the way mark my words Smith will not be elected to this seat this election. I will put up or shut up, if by some stroke of luck enough people vote for her (namely every sane person outside of Slocumb, ok so every sane person in the district basically which is hypocritical in itself Sane People voting for Smith?) I will forever leave the blog world, no more comments no more chance of resurecting my short lived blog, no nothing except keeping to myself and reading quietly.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — October 14, 2007 @ 1:37 am
You cannot find a significant legislative achievement of Sen. Smith. She is popular and nice and folks recognize her name therefore MH and others think she is the obvious choice for U.S. Congress. It makes no sense to me either. Sure, she should be considered, but to the exclusion of all others? I say that as the threads on here that support here usually talk about other candudates from the Wiregrass as bad people, or they have no name recognition or how they would lose miserably, etc is not only unrealistic but close minded in my view. I doubt she will even run…she has done this type of thing before and ended up sitting out.
Comment by Anonymous — October 13, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
I’ve been unable to spend much time here on the site lately. However, I did want to respond to MH. You still have not produced any creditable
accomplishments of Harri Anne. Your justification for not responding with actual accomplishments took up a lot of space. You could have
responded to my challenge and provided us with a few of Harri Anne’s accomplishments but rather you spent a great deal of time and space giving us all
a weak excuse for not doing so. As for her Enterprise School support all Harri Anne did was show up for photo ops and get everything she could
out of the death of these kids. It was shameless. I know first hand she did not lift a damn finger that meant anything. She said she helped Holley and Spicer get the bill passed. She only gave lip service and voted when they finally got it to the floor of the Senate. Put up or shut up MH! You are
insulting the intelligence of those who blog here.
Comment by Pookie Wilson — October 13, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
There seems to be an Amendment 1 issue fanatic out there. It never passed and is a dead issue to voters. No one talks about it but some person on here…he must work for ALFA. I agree with post #117, people need to get through their thick heads that this is an election for a member of the UNITED STATES CONGRESS (that is a federal office after all!) Be concerned about how they feel about the War in Iraq, Social Security solvency and so forth instead how they felt about a state of Alabama issue years ago that never even passed.
Comment by Anonymous — October 12, 2007 @ 9:39 pm