Posted by I sat down with U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D – Birmingham) after his announcement Friday in Birmingham to talk about his candidacy in the 2010 Governor’s race. You can find Part One here.
Diving right in…
Comment a little if you would about the exit poll that indicates that only 10% of white Alabamians voted for Obama.
A number of people have talked about it, and I have seen some people bat it down. First, this conversation gets less important the more we move away from the election. If I had been running on the same day as Barack Obama this would be a very meaningful conversation. Since he will not be running on the ballot in 2010, it doesn’t matter as much as it did on Nov. 5.
As a practical matter, you can’t get to 39% [that Obama got statewide] on the turnout model we had in Alabama with 10% of the white vote. You just couldn’t get there. Wayne Sowell got about 10% of the white vote against Richard Shelby [in 1998] and that was 32% statewide. There is some difference of opinion on what the black turnout was but it certainly was not so much exponentially higher than it was in 1998 that 10% for Wayne Sowell translated into 32% [overall] and 10% for Obama translated into 39%. In fact, [Secretary of State] Beth Chapman says that white turnout went up more than black turnout in Alabama, which means that probably it was about 75-25. But that’s just what Beth Chapman says.
There was no Obama campaign here. The point is that this is a state that leans Republican at the national level and to overcome that you have to mount a significant campaign. Now as Daryl [Davis staffer Daryl Perkins] likes to say, you show me a campaign where no money was spent on the ground, where no ads were run, where you had one paid staffer in 67 counties, and you never came down here and never addressed the issues, you show me where you won a campaign like that, where you’re even competitive in a campaign like that. As a practical matter, the Obama campaign does not tell me a whole lot.
The other point that I would make is just look at the numbers from 1984 to 2008. Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama. They got between 38 and 41% of the vote [in Alabama]. If Hillary had been the nominee she would have gotten 38 or 39%. There is not one person in the Democratic Party who would have said if Hillary Clinton got 39% of the vote that that proves Jim Folsom is not electable. Because if a white Democrat couldn’t get but 39% and you’re a white Democrat, how are you going to get anything above that? What these folks are saying, this group of people who have made this an issue, what they mean is that whites can distinguish between white candidates but they can’t distinguish between black candidates. That’s what they mean, and I disagree with that.
And frankly every poll that has been done by any source I know of, public or private, over the last year and a half shows me running a little bit ahead, even, or a little bit behind the Republicans. We actually run worse in our own polls than we do in other people’s in part because we undersample blacks and we undersample Democrats, whereas Dr. Johnson for example [of AEA’s Capitol Survey Research] I think probably oversamples Democrats, and I think Matrix folks do too. But that’s ok. The bottom line is that it’s a consistent story of competitiveness.
Will that endure a year and a half from now? It’s up to us to make it endure. But to conclude the opposite, to say, “Well, this guy’s competitive in the polling and has a little bit of a war chest to transfer therefore we conclude he cannot win,” that strikes me as… well, frankly a lot of it is tactical. A lot of this is people who favor a different candidate. And because they favor a different candidate, they figure, “what case can we make that is plausible to people?” Their theory is “well, we can’t say he doesn’t know the issues because people wouldn’t buy that. We can’t say he isn’t a good Congressman, because folks don’t really buy that. Can’t say he’s not a good guy, because people don’t buy that either. So what we say is that he’s black. People will buy that. And that this is a tough state when it comes to race historically, well, people will buy that. We’ll stick those two together, and we’ll make that our campaign song.” It’s a very depressing campaign song though because it’s one that presumes that the state has lost ground since Oscar Adams and Ralph Cook. It’s one that presumes that the state has lost ground when it comes to race.
Here’s the thing to me. We polled last summer the question, “Do you think a black can be elected governor?” 53% said yes, 37% said no.
We polled that question in January and we thought, “Well that number is going to go down substantially because of all the talk of how poorly Obama did [in Alabama] and all the bloggers and people saying, ‘Well, a black can’t win.’” The numbers were 51-38. In other words, they had barely moved. So the voters aren’t buying this stuff. Which of course, all that means is that the insiders start saying it louder because they are seeing the same polls. And they are sitting here thinking, “Wait a minute, he’s got to be 10 points behind everybody. What the heck is he doing ahead of people?” So they’re thinking, “We must keep saying what we are saying even louder.” So I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.
If the voters cared, I’d worry about it, but they don’t seem to care about it.
Speaking of Obama, would we see him here for your campaign?
Well, I’d ask him to come down in the general. He certainly would not and should not get involved in a primary between two good Democrats. In the general, I would certainly ask him to come down. He’s a lot more popular now than he was in the election. That will go up and that will go down.
Do you have a sense of who is going to emerge from the GOP field?
I think [U.S. Rep. Jo] Bonner is the strongest guy. He said he wasn’t running. I think Bonner would have been the strongest guy and that is because Jo is a statesman. He also hails from Mobile and would have taken Mobile out of play. He is probably, from what people tell me, the second most popular politician in Mobile behind [Mayor] Sam Jones. He would have taken Mobile out of play. He would have done very well potentially in the suburbs of Jefferson County and in Huntsville. And Montgomery. I would not have wanted to run against Jo Bonner.
Now we happen also to be very good friends. Not just political friends, personal friends. So I would not have wanted to run against him for that reason. Honestly I was pleased that Jo was not running.
One Republican told me a few weeks back that [Attorney General] Troy King had not completely ruled out a run because the GOP has not had a clear frontrunner emerge.
He still polls competitively. I think all the candidates have strengths. I don’t know Tim James. We’ve never met. Obviously I know Bradley Byrne. I certainly know Kay Ivey, and for a few years we worked on the Black Belt Commission together. Jack Hawkins I have certainly dealt with a little bit. I suspect that one of those three will be the Republican nominee. Tim would have to spend an enormous amount of money to kind of get in the game. I don’t have a good feel for the Republican race.
Again I think some people want to look at the Presidential race and the Republican primary and conclude too much from that. A lot of people think the vote that Huckabee got was the religious right. I remember telling people at this political meeting a few weeks ago that I think some of that vote was that he reminds people of Riley. I have believed that for two years, and I have said that to a number of folks; I think he reminds people of Bob Riley. There is something about his style that approximates Riley’s. And if you look at the vote that Huckabee got in Jefferson County, that is not a religious right vote. That is a Bob Riley vote. So in other words you can’t look at the 41 he got and say whoever gets the religious right appeal will get 41% of the Republican primary. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I think the Republican race is wide open.
Some eyebrows went up when you stepped down from the House Judiciary Committee. What would you say to those people who are critical of that decision?
This is what never got reported. It’s true that I stepped down from the House Judiciary. I also stepped down from being co-chair of the New Democratic Caucus. I stepped down from being a vice-chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I stepped down from all those things, and it never got reported, I guess because it’s not interesting to people. There’s no conspiracy theory behind those things. So I made the decision to trim back some of my extra work in the House because I knew I was going to be doing this. And I think anybody realizes that if they are going to be taking up a major extra-curricular you’ve got to cut back on some other activities. If you are going to join the band, maybe you can’t do Debate. So, it was just a simple logistical matter. There’s nothing profound about it. And again, it’s in the context of other things that I stepped back from, though unfortunately the other things have not been reported.
What if someone were to say that you are elected to represent us the best you can and Alabama is better served when you are on the House Judiciary?
Other than a few bloggers out there who are frankly obsessed with the Siegelman issue for better or for worse, no one thinks that I was elected to be on the Judiciary Committee and represent Gov. Siegelman’s interests. I spoke out, if you will, in defense of Gov. Siegelman’s interests because I thought that that was the right thing to do. I still think so. And I think there is a very fair chance the 11th Circuit Court will reverse his conviction. They could do it any day now. That’s not any inside knowledge. That’s based on how long these things take and how quickly they could happen, from my days of practicing.
I was not elected to be on the Judiciary Committee, and frankly given the focus on the economy, [serving on] Ways and Means is much more consequential to Alabamians’ interests than being on the Judiciary Committee.
In tomorrow’s third and last part of our visit, Congressman Davis talks about the logjam in the state legislature, the cost of a Governor’s campaign, early voting, and more.
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Great interview. Very interesting.
I remain incredibly concerned that Mr. Davis felt so comfortable in adjusting his congressional workload to fit his campaign for Governor. I must conclude that his priorities are misaligned.
Why is Artur upset that when he shirked more responsibility than just Judiciary, no one reported it? Some would say the press did him a favor in that regard.
The facts are that Congressman Davis is as confused about exit polls as he is about how he would win in November. The Alabama general election exit polls reported the following: 29% of Alabama voters were African-American and Obama won 98% of their votes; 65% of Alabama voters were white and Obama won 10% of their votes. One can infer – by simple subtraction – that 6% of Alabama voters were included as neither African-American nor white (Asian, Hispanic, refused to say, etc.). If we assume that Obama won 70% of the votes of that 6% block (as he did according to nationwide exit polls), the results work perfectly. Obama got 28.4 points from African-American voters (29 times .98); 6.5 points from white voters (65 times .10); and 4.2 points from other racial responses (6 times.70). Add those up and you get 39.12, which is what he was reported as getting according to the results. So the 10 percent figure does work.
Moving on to the comparison of the Obama vote with other past Democratic presidential nominees: the Congressman throws out Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore and Kerry as examples. OK, let’s look at the record. Obama got 39.1% in Alabama, as opposed to 52.7% nationally; in other words, in Alabama he ran 13.6% behind his national performance. Kerry, as abysmal a campaign as his was, as invisible as he was in Alabama, in Alabama ran only 11.5% behind his national performance. The Gore campaign in Alabama ran only 6.8% behind its national performance. The second Bill Clinton campaign in Alabama ran 6.0% behind its national performance, while the first ran only 2.1% behind its national performance. Michael Dukakis in Alabama ran only 5.9% behind his national performance. The Mondale campaign in Alabama ran only 2.3% behind its national performance. In Alabama, Jimmy Carter ran ahead of his national performance both times, 6.5% and 5.6%. In Alabama, McGovern ran only 12.0% behind his national performance. You have to go all the way back to 1968 and Hubert Humphrey to find a Democratic candidate whose Alabama campaign underperformed the national performance to a greater extent than did the Obama campaign in Alabama – 24.0%. The difference there was that George Wallace was on the ballot as a third party candidate.
And I don’t buy for a minute that the Obama campaign had no presence in Alabama. How many of us saw ads for Obama? They had more money than any campaign in history and bought a national ad buy for the first time in over 20 years. They had internet presence, and they had press coverage so favorable you couldn’t see anything on TV without knowing what Barack Obama was doing that day. They also had the most inept Republican candidate in recent history, and a completely imploding economy. And they had Congressman Davis appearing all over the state speaking on behalf of the campaign. Somehow I think if Obama had carried Alabama we would be hearing a different bit of logic from the Congressman.
No serious observer believes that AA participation was 29% of the electorate. That’s the root of the problem with the exit poll math.
Atticus, did you do all that yourself? If so, kudos on the effort. If not, where did you get it?
Common Sense-
A little of both- the underlying data is available any number of places (the Internet really is a treasure trove of information). The resulting calculations, I am responsible for. Mathematical errors (if any) I blame on the calculator. I just get tired of hearing people (and I don’t care if their initials are AD, JF, TK, BR or what) take hard data and say it doesn’t say what it really says. We may be from Alabama, but we aren’t stupid.
Alabama is ready and will elect an African American Governor as long as he/she are not “liberal”. Look at the new RNC chair for example.
As you said Atticus, the internet is a treasure trove of information.
http://www.statestats.com/edrank.htm
While I wouldnt call Alabamians (I am one) “stupid,” we are ranked 45th out of 50.
Is that a joke Socrates or did I miss the “Stupid States” Rankings this year?
Atticus,
nowhere close to 6% of the state’s population is a race other than white or black. also, the black population makes up less than 27% of the state, and I am pretty sure that the voting population is something like 24% of the state. no one, and I mean no one, who has looked at this believes that 29% of the vote in Nov 08 was black.
the “statesstats” considers only Public Schools” as a positive education source. Wonder which NEA fund they receive their funding from?
Thanks to #11 for taking three sentences to dismantle a lot of blather from Atticus…
This is really one of the most tired arguments on this blog, because Davis has a point here. Given that the governor’s race is not last November, but a few Novembers from now, the much more relevant question is where Obama’s popularity stands in late 2010. If he is in the teens with white voters here, Davis’ numbers probably don’t top 41%,42%-Lucy Baxley territory. If Obama hits the 25%-30% zone, Davis probably moves to the 44%-46% zone. Above 32%-34%, Davis moves to the upper forties, and so on..
And given that we won’t know any of that for a long time, there appear to be only three reasons to dwell on the Obama numbers: one, to discourage Davis from running-last Friday says that didn’t work. two: to dry up his money base-too early to tell, but the word among Dem insiders is that the top Clinton fundraiser in the state is with Davis as are the top three Obama fundraisers. three: to convince voters he is not electable. Unless two major polls in the last month are wrong (admittedly, Davis paid for one, leading Dems supporting Folsom paid for another), three is not working either.
Davis is doing very well right now. All this talk about the numbers is gibberish right now. I cannot come up with any scenario outside a major scandal in which Davis will not win a primary.
.. but he will lose in a general election to the republican nominee. Folsom is the only democrat who can win. Davis knows that which is why he keeps releasing polls with head to head general election numbers.
Alert to #15, of course Davis is releasing polls that show he can win. Your problem and your candidate’s problem is that the polls do just that–show he can win.
To #11 and #13-
I am quite happy that you think what I posted was “blather” and makes no sense. That is the attitude the Davis campaign is showing, and with that attititude, he will not win the primary and take the Democratic Party down to a crashing defeat in November.
Yes, current voter registration figures show that white active voters are 71% of the current total; African-American active voters are 26%; other groups (Asian, Hispanic, etc., account for the remainder). HOWEVER, for anyone who knows anything at all about public opinion polling -including exit polling – there is an inherent difficulty in getting respondents to reply to demographic questions, particularly as our society becomes more multicultural. And the 6% figure that showed up in the Alabama exit poll for voters who responded that they were neither white nor African-American is in line with other Southern states – Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana and West Virginia were 5%; Arkansas and North Carolina were 6%; South Carolina was 4%; Virginia was 10%. HOWEVER, assume for a moment that you are right and the number should only be 3% – then you have to make that up somewhere else. You may not like the reports of 29% African-American makeup in the Obama-McCain race, but that is a pretty reliable, and basically accepted number – and is supported by a review of county by county results across the states in comparison with the racial composition of the voters in those counties. So, if you take the 29% number, and add 3% for other voters, you get a 68% number for white voters. The math then delivers the overwhelming result that President Obama got 13% of the white vote in Alabama. Admittedly, that is a lot better than 10, but still not nearly enough to win a general election.
Oh, and by the way, I notice neither of you dealt with the underperformance argument at all.
Atticus,
This article suggests that 25% of registered voters are black. http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1217492189313040.xml&coll=2 But that does not mean that blacks made up 25% of the voting population. In fact, you don’t know what percentage they made up. Moreover, the secretary of state doesn’t give out the race of voters. So the exact numbers aren’t clear anyway. And exit polls are so insanely unreliable it’s ridiculous.
I think it’s most likely that blacks made up about 24% of the statewide vote, that people who are not black or white make up less than 1%, and the rest are white.
You are right, of course, that Obama had a hard time hear b/c he’s black. The argument that he had no campaign here is really based on a comparison with states like Georgia, Virginia, and NC. Artur’s pollster also polled those states for Obama. In Virginia, Obama knocked on every door twice. An in-person talk is liable to be a lot more persuasive than a tv ad. Black candidates who have run campaigns on the local level have won over many many white votes in Alabama. The rep in Cullman, Fields, has a 90%+ constituency.
Yes Obama did poorly compared to the democratic nominees who came before him but Alabama is becoming more hostile to the national democratic party, in part b/c of social and cultural issues. But Artur doesn’t have those problems. He’s not for gay marriage or gun control, etc. Is it hard to be black in Alabama, of course. But is Obama’s performance (which you misrepresent) a good indicator that Artur has chance, no.
jpo-
The numbers I cite in paragraph 17 are the actual official numbers shown on the website of the Secretary of State. The article you cite was from July 2008, and if you had watched the registration figures over the next few months after that article, you would have seen a steady increase in certain counties, largely driven by the registration efforts of the Obama campaign. For instance, the article cites a number of 641,815 African-American voters; later in the year, the Secretary of State shows 745,818, or an increase of more than 100,000 in around 6 months. Note, for example, that the article you cite says that we are nearing the point where Alabama’s African-American population will be proportionately represented, at slightly over 26%. That is where we now are. With Obama on the ticket, to expect that African-Americans underperformed at the polls is a flabbergasting claim.
You also claim that I misrepresented Obama’s campaign, and you have the gall and temerity to say he knocked on every door in Virginia TWICE. That is a blatant misrepresentation, and did not happen. There were parts of Virginia that Obama never visited a single time, much less twice, much less went door to door. I do agree with you that in person contact is persuasive, and am a big James Fields fan. He is a good person, and has lived there his whole life, and has helped find jobs for a lot of people, and has coached youth ball, and everything else around there. Plus it didn’t hurt that the Republicans ran a bad candidate.
But let’s not mix apples and oranges. I am not comparing Obama’s campaign activity in Alabama with those in Georgia, Virginia and NC (you may be). I am comparing Obama’s campaign activity in Alabama with what previous Democratic candidates have done in Alabama – since Davis argues that the Obama performance was comparable. And I am still not sure how I misrepresent the Obama performance by citing published figures that you don’t like.
The more Atticus talks…what he misses is that while black turnout in Alabama rose, white turnout went up more from 04 to 08. That kept black turnout at a 24-25 share of the electorate.
I maintain that this wonderfully meaningless analysis of the Obama numbers misses the basic point. Both AEA and Anzalone, two well respected units, show Davis is a more than competitive candidate against the Rs. I agree these numbers are early, but if the the point of this attack on DAvis is that he can’t win, it seems polling ought to be relevant. No poll, after all, ever showed Obama competitive in Alabama.
I am not sold that Davis is a better candidate than Folsom either. But I am prepared to watch to see whether he can connect with voters as Fields did in Cullman, and whether he can inspire voters who may see Folsom as old news. let’s just watch and see instead of ridiculing his campaign or describing it as a fool’s errand.
Atticus,
How many paid staffers do you think Obama had in Alabama? How many people did his campaign train to go door-to-door in Alabama, post primary?
Also, please point me to the website where the secretary of state cites those numbers. I haven’t seen that number posted.
#20 has a good point Atticus. Can you find a poll in which Alabama voters gave Obama more than 40% of the vote?
atticus you are right about one thing. I found those numbers at the sos website. African american registration is 26% as of the end of the year. Still, you don’t have any basis for believing that african american turnout rose more than white vote. Do you? And it’s always been my understanding that the sos doesn’t say what percentage of the actual voters who vote are part of a given race. Unless you correct me, I don’t think we know what the black percentage was for 2004.
I voted for McCain and I’m white, but it had NOTHING to do with race for me. I have just always liked McCain. I like President Obama too. I have several friends who also voted for McCain and we are all supporting Artur Davis. I view myself as a moderate Independent, so do my friends I mentioned. We like Artur Davis, but we all say ANYONE OTHER THAN ROY MOORE!