Alabama Politics in
Doc’s Political Parlor
& Home of Lawn Mower Repair

Today’s Birmingham News reports a poll that shows candidates Larry Langford and Patrick Cooper easily ahead of the rest of the field in the Birmingham mayor’s race. Langford polls at 33%, Cooper at 25%, and the rest of the crowded field polls at a combined 25%. (Incumbent Bernard Kincaid leads that group at 9%.) The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points.

Which is not so different from what you could read between the lines (and we did) in an unusual Birmingham Times poll mentioned here last week.

Eighteen percent of the voters are undecided. (The graphic shows “Undecided/other” at 18%, but the text of the article says that 18% are undecided and “other” accounts for less than 1%.)

What would it take to shake up the field significantly between now and the October 9 election?

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• Considering the Birmingham Mayor's Race
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Birmingham News - Report says that Trenholm Community College program supervised by Sen. Quinton Ross (D-Montgomery) suffered due to senator’s absence to attend to legislative duties.

Birmingham News - Presidential hopeful John Edwards returns to Alabama today in campaign fund-raising stop.

Birmingham News - Commentary by Thomas Wells of Birmingham,  president -elect of the American Bar Association, calls for Alabama to adopt a system of merit selection for appellate judges.

Birmingham News - Commentary by Susan Pace Hamill uses controversy over new school zoning structure in Tuscaloosa as evidence that the underlying issue is an inadequate and unfair tax structure.

Birmingham News - Commentary by the director of the Alabama Women’s Resource Network argues that state should replace aging Tutwiler Prison with a smaller facility in and increase investments in community based corrections programs.

Mobile Press-Register - Press-Register praises the efforts of Chancellor Bradley Byrne, finding that his efforts are “restoring the [postsecondary] system’s credibility.”

Montgomery Advertiser - Alabama likely faces legal battles over executions.

Tuscaloosa News - The Tuscaloosa News views  Governor’s decision not to call a special session this fall as wise.

Tuscaloosa News - The Tuscaloosa News contends that controversy over state’s lethal injection processes indicates need for moratorium on death penalty.

Tuscaloosa News - U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D) defends the role of postsecondary employee assigned to his office.

Gadsden Times - The Gadsden Times calls for Governor to order DNA testing of evidence in Tommy Arthur case while execution is delayed.

Tuscaloosa News - “Alabama Exposure,” Dana Beyerle’s weekly political roundup for readers of the NYTimes regional papers.

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The word in the Parlor is that Rep. Terry Spicer (D - Elba) has formed an exploratory committee to look at running for the Congressional seat (AL-02) being vacated by Republican Rep. Terry Everett.

Ever have college friends that weren’t quite engaged to be married, but were “engaged to be engaged?” I’d venture to say that forming “an exploratory committee” is to running for an office as being “engaged to be engaged” is to being engaged.

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Birmingham News - ADEM facing $3 million budget shortfall.

Birmingham News - 11th Circuit Court orders Federal District Judge to rule on Siegelman’s request to be released from prison pending his appeal.

Birmingham News - The Birmingham News calls the firing of postsecondary’s chief financial officer a “necessary step.”

Mobile Press-Register - Shelby opposes measure that would add wind damage to coverage of federal flood insurance program; budget committee chair won’t commit to support expansion of coverage.

Montgomery Advertiser - AG asks Supreme Court to set new execution date for Tommy Arthur one day after Governor orders 45 day stay.

Associated Press - All of state’s GOP congressman vote against reauthorization and expansion of SCHIP.

Tuscaloosa News - Shelton State Community College foundation to sell president’s home after audit citing.

Tuscaloosa News - The Tuscaloosa News expresses disappointment that Alabama’s GOP congressmen voted against SCHIP reauthorization and expansion.

New York Times - Congressional Democrats working to gain support to override expected veto of SCHIP.

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Early indications are that national Democratic leaders are excited about the idea that Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright may be their candidate for the AL-02 vacancy next year. That is according to an article from Roll Call (behind a subscription wall) and, to a lesser degree, this one from Politico.

The word we hear is that state Rep. Terry Spicer of Elba is working aggressively behind the scenes to make sure that his interest in the seat is known when national Democrats plot their course of action.

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Attorney General Troy King demonstrates that politics can be personal with him (e.g. with Tony Castaldo and Robby Owens), but that doesn’t mean its smart. Continuing to goad district attorneys around the state by sending critical news releases naming individual DA’s who took a public stance opposing King on the Robby Owens issue, well, it simply does not feel politically astute.

Mobile’s Press-Register yesterday:

Fifteen district attorneys were targeted with the customized statements. Their names were inserted into the releases that went to media in their jurisdictions.

A King spokesman said the releases were simply designed to get across his side and to alert local news outlets that their local district attorney was involved. An official with the Alabama District Attorney’s Association said the releases were out of line.

These DA’s are local folks closer to their constituencies than King is, and I don’t see how this plays out well for King. I see King building walls where he should be building bridges.

The Ft. Payne Times-Journal last weekend with Dekalb County District Attorney Mike O’Dell after “King continued to attack O’Dell:”

O’Dell says local district attorneys did not object to King taking over the Shelby County case. They object to what they say is King using it for political gain.

“What we resented is he used that tragic, tragic situation – which has got to be painful for the victims’ families – to politicize and to attack and punish a fellow prosecutor. That’s what we couldn’t take. It’s the fact that he took such cheap shots as another prosecutor when it was unnecessary,” O’Dell said.

“The Troy King I thought I knew for the first few years he was in office, I would have not thought he was capable of doing this. I am ashamed of him. My position is that this is not about Troy King anymore, and it’s not about Robby Owens and it’s not about the personal attacks that he is putting on us. It’s about the people we serve and the people have a right to expect more from its prosecutorial leadership than this.”

Editorials are biting King pretty hard: Montgomery Advertiser, Press-Register, Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, Tuscaloosa News, TimesDaily.

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The Press-Register had a piece yesterday saying that even though many people (and consequently most politicians) say they are in favor of going back to property appraisals every four years instead of annually, it’s not that easy.

First, if legislators and Gov. Bob Riley, who also prefers four-year intervals, change the law, it must be able to pass legal muster. The federal court case that led to the annual appraisals — contrary to the popular and incorrect belief that it was all the governor’s fault — made it clear that the law requires that all counties and properties be treated equally and assessed according to fair market value.

Worth a read if this is a topic of interest to you.

Also, fyi, several a months ago a county tax official outlined the pros and cons of annual property tax revaluations for the Political Parlor.

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Kyle Whitmire’s War on Dumb in the Birmingham Weekly take a fun, decidedly non-scientific, and interesting look at the Birmingham mayor’s race by counting yard signs in all nine council districts.

Over breakfast, we came up with the rules. Only signs in yards counted. Placards on telephone poles and in the rights-of-way were disqualified. Only one sign per yard per candidate counted. However, if a yard had signs from more than one campaign, each candidate got a point.

The whole article is here.

Also, you may appreciate the Birmingham Weekly’s recent cover story in which five front-runners in the race were interviewed: Valerie Abbott, William Bell, Patrick Cooper, Bernard Kincaid and Carole Smitherman. Larry Langford’s campaign did not participate.

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If you are interested in the potential candidates for the Congressional seat being vacated by Terry Everett next year, note that we have updated the AL-02 Big List with several names in the last 24 hours.

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Birmingham News - Riley delays scheduled execution to allow state to modify lethal injection procedures.

Birmingham News - Chancellor says that private foundation contains millions of dollars.

Birmingham News - The Birmingham News calls for Governor to order DNA testing in Thomas Arthur’s case while stay is in effect.

Mobile Press-Register - Bush threatens veto of House-passed measure that would allow adding coverage for wind damage to federal flood insurance policies.

Mobile Press-Register - Bishop State Community College foundation to be dissolved.

Mobile Press-Register - Press-Register sees improvement in reading scores among state’s fourth graders as a “cause for celebration.”

Mobile Press-Register - Press-Register contends that development of toll roads is “a reasonable answer” to state’s infrastructure needs.

Associated Press - Many expressing interest in U.S. House opening.

Montgomery Advertiser - National GOP chair visits Alabama faithful.

Montgomery Advertiser - Huntsville creating nation’s most ambitious fallout shelter plan.

Decatur Daily - Education Trust Fund revenues growth slows, budget official warns State Board members that “real priorities” must be determined for the 2009 budget.

Decatur Daily - State Board of Education gives chancellor the authority to reject any two-year college appointment or promotion “that violates state law.”
(more…)

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What would have to happen for a Democrat to win the seat being vacated by retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Terry Everett? The Cook Partisan Voting Index for the district is R +13, meaning that in the last two presidential elections the district voted Republican 13 percentage points higher than the nation as a whole did.

Alabama is an odd mix. A red state with two Democratic houses in the legislature. A Republican Governor and Democratic Lt. Governor. A Republican Supreme Court with a newly elected Democratic Chief Justice. I don’t hear that Democrats are ready to pack it up and go home on this race.

So I asked someone who gets paid to think about politics, “Can a Democrat win AL-02?”

A Democrat has to lock down the black vote (30%) and hope for a good turnout, hold the white Democrats that still exist in the Wiregrass (10-12%) and then steal some white Republicans. There are plenty of Democrats in this district who have experience winning with white Republican votes — Ron Sparks, Wendell Mitchell, Jim Byard, Jimmy Holley, Terry Spicer, and others. This type of Democrat could conceivably lock down the Dem base and have enough local appeal in a key area like suburban Montgomery or the Wiregrass to hold GOP margins down. In such a situation a Democrat could be very competitive and if able to raise money well, catch a few breaks, then it’s potentially doable. Also the GOP nominee will probably emerge broke after a competitive primary and probably runoff. Geography could certainly play large role in the race as well. A Wiregrass Democrat vs a Montgomery Republican might be the kind of matchup where a Democrat can eat into normally GOP turf with the hope that geography can trump party.

Certainly the smart money is on the GOP to hold it, and perhaps not break much of a sweat doing so. But if Democrats can recruit a good candidate (and there are a few out there) then things could stay interesting through November 2008.

A GOP elected official in the district echoed that in telling the Parlor that the GOP would be making a big mistake to take the general election for granted. The official believed that Republicans should hold the seat but quickly acknowledged that a Democrat could possibly slip in.

Likely? Certainly not. Possible? I believe we have seen more unlikely political outcomes.

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The Birmingham Times today has a poll on the Birmingham mayor’s race. However, I confess that, to my way of thinking, it is oddly reported.

The poll does not ask for whom respondents will vote. It asks respondents what their top four concerns are, and then it asks, “What mayoral candidate do you believe would be the more responsive to meeting your goals and expectations as it relates to your concerns?” They then report those numbers not including the undecided voters. Granted, the person they believe is “more responsive to meeting your goals and expectations as it relates to your concerns” is probably the person who will receive the vote, but why not just ask?

The results:

 2 % Valerie Abbott
 6 % William Bell
13 % Patrick Cooper
16 % Bernard Kincaid
 8 % Carole Smitherman
55 % Larry Langford

Except that “Half of the voters polled on these dates stated they were undecided.” So actually, of the people polled, only 27.5% or so support Langford. Kincaid is at 8%, Cooper at 6.5%, and so on.

And a whopping 50% are undecided.

Incidentally, I have been conducting polls going back to the days when George Wallace was running for Governor and when he ran for President of the United States. I have never seen this many undecided voters so close to election day.

Conventional wisdom is that undecided voters will not break late for the incumbent so Kincaid looks in trouble. Larry Langford is so well known from his various roles that I have a hard time imagining that many of the undecideds will break for him. (He may be as well known as the incumbent.) Many of the undecideds will not vote.

Another interesting thing about the poll. “The polling was done in the larger predominately Black boxes.”

The question on some people’s mind is why these three or four boxes in the white community were not included in the polling. We have done four polls concerning the Mayoral election. The boxes in question in the white community have remained constant. Valerie Abbott will receive 48 percent of the vote, Patrick Cooper 28 percent, Larry Langford 14 percent and the remaining 10 percent is divided between William Bell, Bernard Kincaid, and Carole Smitherman.

What are the undecideds? We don’t know. (The %’s add up to 100 with no undecided voters, so we can assume that they left them out again.) Since the article doesn’t tell us, we can only guess, and my guess is that it’s lower than 50% reported in the other poll.

If Langford is at 27.5% in the majority black boxes, I don’t see him getting enough votes from the undecideds and the separately reported white boxes to get a majority. Unless all the undecided stay home.

If the incumbent Kincaid is second at 16% in the majority black boxes, I don’t see him staving off Cooper who is third in those boxes at 13%. Cooper is likely to get easily more of the undecideds, and shows much more support in the separately polled majority white boxes.

I read this article and, taking it at face value, it looks like a run-off between Langford and Cooper. The article correctly notes, “We must remember, it’s not over until it’s over and the only poll that counts is the one on October 9th.”

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As you peruse the AL-02 Big List, where the Political Parlor keeps up with who is, who isn’t, and who may be running for the seat being made open by Terry Everett’s retirement, keep in mind that you do not actually have to be a resident of the district to run for the seat. I have seen statements around the net saying or implying that one person or another lives outside the district and so would not run.

Granted, residency outside the district may make a candidate less attractive, but it does not prohibit someone from running for the seat.

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• The AL-02 Big List
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CQPolitics has an interesting piece on Rep. Terry Everett, saying that in Congress he paid a price for not playing nice.

Everett was 55 and a self-made millionaire when he won his first election to the House as a conservative from a district whose economy is reliant on agriculture and its military bases. But his attempts to move up in Congress were thwarted for years by his refusal to raise large amounts of cash for the Republican Party at election time.

GOP leaders passed him over for chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in 2005, in favor of a more junior lawmaker, Steve Buyer of Indiana. Two years earlier, Everett lost a bid for Agriculture Committee chairman to Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia.

Everett remained peeved that the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s political arm, had backed another candidate in his first run for Congress in 1992. But in the run-up to the 2006 elections, Everett reconciled with the NRCC and contributed $71,000 to its coffers.

The Dothan Eagle has a nice article on him and his decision to retire.

“It’s been a great ride,” Everett said Wednesday during a phone interview with the Dothan Eagle. “But there comes a time, especially when you get older, you need to lean back and smell the roses.”

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Who’s definitely in the race for AL-02 now that Terry Everett has retired? Who’s already out? What is the latest?

You can find it in the AL-02 Big List.

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