Who’s Running for PSC President?
Who’s running for President of the Public Service Commission in 2008?
Republican incumbent Jim Sullivan has held the office since 1983, and has not faced a strong challenge for the seat in many years. Despite an Associated Press story to the contrary, I continue to hear from strong (and disparate) sources that he has not yet committed to running for re-election. There are those who suspect that he may decide that this is a good time to hang it up, especially if he is going to get more of a challenge than he has had for many years.
Former Democratic Lt. Governor Lucy Baxley is indicating that she is in. We continue to hear that former PSC Commissioner George Wallace Jr. (R) is looking at a run, though the story is that if Sullivan runs for re-election then Wallace’s participation becomes iffier.
One version of the story floating around is that the race will play out like this: Sullivan will announce after Christmas that he is not running for re-election. Wallace will announce that he is running, and the utilities will put whatever influence they have behind Baxley.
The utilities dislike Wallace enough that they pushed him out of the Public Service Commission and when he landed in the 2006 Lt. Governor’s race, the story goes that they found and propped up a political unknown in Luther Strange to knock him out of that race too. The expectation apparently is not that Baxley would be a great friend to the utilities, but that she would be sensible and someone that the utilities could work with better than Wallace. In addition, we hear that Lucy Baxley is good friends with the wife of Alabama Power CEO Charles McCrary.
Baxley has more money in her campaign fund than Sullivan does in his according to the last reports, and the word is that Sullivan might go another term if it were handed to him, but that he “may not be pumped up” about a real campaign.
Update: Democrat Ed Gentle was said earlier to be interested in the race also, but the word heard here from a strong source is that he would not run against Baxley. Baxley would likely clear the Democratic field.
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whatever happened to Ed Gentle on the Dem side?
Comment by intheknow — November 27, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Good question. I hear that he would not run against Baxley. I updated the post with a note at the end to that effect.
Comment by Danny — November 27, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
Perry Hooper Jr. could run again and bankrupt Alabama Power . . . .
Comment by Anonymous — November 27, 2007 @ 3:57 pm
[…] of Wallace, who served as an associate commissioner until 2006. Filed under Elections permalink :: no comments These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new webpages. […]
Pingback by Daily Dixie: Baxley running for PSC — December 1, 2007 @ 11:41 pm
[…] George Wallace, Jr., already mentioned as a candidate for the Public Service Commission Presidency, may be showing some interest in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District race. A Parlor source says that the word is that Wallace has been making calls recently to the old gang about a possible run for the seat. […]
Pingback by Wallace in AL-02? » Doc’s Political Parlor — December 11, 2007 @ 12:45 pm