Monday 2/4/2008 DAILY NEWS DIGEST

Birmingham News – Alabama delegate election process explained.

Birmingham News – Former Mississippi governor, actor make campaign pitch for Obama in Birmingham.

Birmingham News – The Birmingham News says that the actions of Attorney General King in pursuing an execution in the face of the likelihood that Supreme Court would stay that action, as it did, brought unnecessary pain to both the families of the victim and perpetrator and was “cruel and unusual.”

Birmingham News – The Birmingham News contends that the failure of the Senate Ethics Committee’s failure to take public action against Sen. Charles Bishop (R-Jasper) sends the message that violence is an appropriate way to settle differences.

Mobile Press-Register – Senate president pro tem wants fast action on proposal to ban PAC-to-PAC transfers.

Mobile Press-Register – “The Political Skinny,” the Press-Register’s weekly political roundup from Mobile, Montgomery and Washington.

Huntsville Times – The Huntsville Times identifies “money, civility and ethics reform”  as the top challenges in legislative session.

Montgomery Advertiser – More production cuts possible at Montgomery’s Hyundai facility as sales plunge.

Montgomery Advertiser – State’s public employee retirement system and health insurance have $5.8 billion impact on economy.

Montgomery Advertiser – Senate minority leader say’s GOP members are ready to do their part to make session productive.

Montgomery Advertiser – The Montgomery Advertiser says that state Senate must overcome partisan issues.

Tuscaloosa News – The Tuscaloosa News calls Senate Ethics Committee’s closed-door actions “a disgrace.”

Decatur Daily – AP survey shows majority of legislators support Governor’s plan for tax cuts.

Anniston Star – The Anniston Star offers its suggestions for the Governor’s state of the state address.

FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:

State’s black voters face tough choice Super Tuesday

MONTGOMERY — Tuesday, Alabama’s Democrats and Republicans will select the candidates they want to see win their parties’ nominations for president.

The choice is expected to be particularly tough and revealing for the state’s Democratic-leaning black voters.

State Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, chairman emeritus of the Alabama New South Coalition, said having to choose between two historic candidates — a woman and a black man — for the Democratic nomination is a watershed event for Alabama and America.

“African-Americans have never had the opportunity to vote for an African-American presidential candidate that they really thought had a chance to be elected president,” said Sanders, who supports Sen. Barack Obama. “I think that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton made a different kind of statement to people.”

Sanders said Obama is challenging blacks’ and whites’ ideas of what it would mean to have a president who happens to be black.

“There are still many African-Americans who don’t think that a black person can be elected in this country,” he said. “They have to consider and debate that possibility, and it changes a whole lot of things.”

The Alabama Democratic Conference, a powerful organization of black Democrats, made its decision on the matter early, endorsing Sen. Hillary Clinton early in her presidential campaign.

Attempts to reach ADC Chairman Joe Reed for comment for this story were unsuccessful, but Reed has said publicly that America isn’t ready to elect a black man to the nation’s highest office.

The Alabama New South Coalition, another powerful, mostly black political organization in the state, has endorsed Obama.

Sanders said that in his view the black community is grappling with an internal struggle over how much hope to put in a black candidate.

“There is a hope that this can happen with Obama, but with others there is a fear that he will win,” he said. “It’s like when I was growing up, my mother and father, in trying to raise us, gave us enough hope so we could do our best, but not so much hope that we would try things where we would fall on our faces and give up.”

That internal struggle seems to be playing out on the national stage as prominent blacks choose sides.

For example, billionaire and reigning media mogul Oprah Winfrey is stumping for Obama. Billionaire and founder of Black Entertainment Television Bob Johnson is a Clinton supporter.

Maya Angelou, award winning poet and author, is backing Clinton.

Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, who dubbed then-President Bill Clinton America’s “first black president,” has endorsed Obama.

Winds of Change

While endorsements like these might have little impact on what voters will do Tuesday, David Bositis said the success of younger, more moderate black politicians exemplifies why Clinton has had such a fight, despite the loyalty of many in the black community.

“Alabama is changing, and some of these newer and younger black leaders are looking to move on from the conflicts of the past,” Bositis said. “They are ambitious and they see themselves as being future leaders — not just future leaders of civil rights organizations, or black organizations, but future leaders in a lot of states.

“I think that Barack Obama is the epitome of these young black leaders.”

Bositis is the senior analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a non-profit institution that conducts research on public-policy issues that impact blacks. He said a generational change among black politicians is taking place all across America.

“Congressman Artur Davis represents that as much as anything,” Bositis said of the now three-term congressman from Birmingham, who unseated 10-year incumbent Earl Hilliard. “I think there will be a strong black vote for Obama that is similar to what there was in South Carolina.”

Davis isn’t the only example of a politician in Alabama who has broken barriers and old loyalties.

Democrat James Fields Jr. recently won a special election to fill the House District 12 seat vacated by former Rep. Neal Morrison.

Fields is black, and District 12 in Cullman County is about 97 percent white.

Another Democrat, Rep. Patricia Todd of Birmingham, is a white woman who now represents the mostly black House District 54.

“The winds of change are blowing in Alabama and in America,” Sanders said. “I certainly think that the time is coming that we can elect an African-American in a statewide race.”

Bositis said that, as Davis did in his campaign for the seventh congressional district, Obama will find support among whites who are younger, more urban and more moderate in their political beliefs.

Turning a red state blue?

Bill Stewart, Alabama political expert, said he saw those diverse faces at a recent Obama appearance in Birmingham, and he believes the ADC’s famous yellow ballot won’t have the power in this primary that it once wielded in political campaigns.

“I believe the African-Americans in this state prefer Sen. Obama,” said Stewart, who attends as many of the candidates’ appearances as he can get to. “I felt like there was a lot of enthusiasm for his candidacy, and that voters were turning more and more in his favor.”

A recent poll conducted by Capital Survey Research Center shows that Stewart’s views could be on target.

In a survey of 366 voters likely to participate in the Democratic primary, 44 percent said they would vote for Obama, and 37.4 percent said they supported Clinton. The margin of error for the Democratic survey is 5.1 percentage points.

The new polls put Obama a little farther ahead of Clinton than he was in a January poll that indicated he had 36 percent of supporters and she had 34 percent.

With Sen. John McCain mounting an impressive comeback among Republicans, the Democrats will have a good fight on their hands for Alabama’s electoral votes next fall.

In the January poll, McCain was behind Mike Huckabee, who hasn’t won a primary since his surprise win in Iowa.

New poll numbers show that McCain is the frontrunner, with nearly 38 percent of the 377 voters surveyed saying they would vote for him, while only 26 percent of those voters support Huckabee. The margin of errors for the Republican survey is 5 percentage points.

Both McCain and Huckabee made trips to Alabama this weekend for one last shot at turning out the Republican vote in the state.

“I think there is momentum toward Sen. McCain throughout the nation that will carry over here,” Stewart said. “Republicans want to win, and they know President Bush is not popular; and while some people might say ‘Huckabee is a good conservative Christian like me,’ why nominate someone like that who doesn’t have nationwide appeal?

“I don’t think Huckabee would ever win. McCain has a better chance to win, because he has an excellent record and he appeals to Democrats as well as Republicans.”

Stewart said he believes that despite the buzz swirling around the historic significance of the Democratic choices, Alabama will remain a red state come November.