Kay Ivey’s announcement today gives the Republicans five candidates vying for the nomination in the 2010 governor’s race: Robert Bentley, Bradley Byrne, Ivey, Tim James, and Roy Moore.
A GOP Senate insider had told the Parlor about eight weeks ago that a GOP state Senator was considering entering the race “in six to eight weeks.” This week the Senate insider confirmed that it was Charles Bishop who was considering the race, and that Bishop has decided to pass.
This leaves ADECA Director Bill Johnson as the only Republican known publicly to be still considering the race. Hard to picture him elbowing his way through that crowd into a run-off for the nomination, but then again the more crowded the field gets the easier it gets to imagine a scenario where someone unexpected makes it into a run-off.
The wild card on the Republican side looks to be Roy Moore. He will have a fervent core of support, and the unanswered question is whether that core has sustained its size to a degree that it can propel Moore into a runoff, or whether it has shrunk to the point that he will not be a major player. Moore is a polarizing figure in that I run across few people neutral on the idea of his candidacy. Given that, it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario where he could attract enough supporters in a run-off to claim the nomination.
On the Democratic side, I tip my hat to Sue Bell Cobb who has played her cards so close to the vest that we are only left to guess as to her intentions. But since we can only guess, I will: I have never thought it made any sense for her to enter the race, and so I still suppose that ultimately she won’t. One reader with some familiarity with the situation tells me that she has not confided her intentions to staff members. That’s a smart move for stemming leaks, but not good for reassuring staff members who, according to one email I received, “haven’t had a good night’s sleep since her name was first announced.”
Politico.com today has an article today on the Anybody But Artur Davis (ABAD) contingent of Democrats:
Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Joe Reed and Alabama Education Association Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert confirmed to POLITICO this week that they had been holding meetings with potential Democratic primary challengers to Davis, a four-term congressman who is widely regarded as the leading contender for his party’s nomination.
To say that Reed and Hubbert, two Montgomery-based power brokers who have dominated the state’s political scene for decades, have little love lost for Davis would be something of an understatement. The 41-year-old Birmingham congressman has made a habit of attacking the state’s political establishment, which puts his campaign squarely at odds with not only the current Republican administration but also two of the most powerful Democrats in Alabama.
Question: how much money would Hubbert have to put into a primary race to help a candidate defeat Davis? And won’t that represent money that he’s not putting into legislative races in a year when the GOP is aggressively promoting the idea that it can take over the legislature? (This is another reason why a Cobb candidacy is a win all the way around for the GOP.)
If Artur Davis wins the nomination, some down-ticket Democrats may feel a need to distance themselves from Davis, but you have to imagine that party loyalists Hubbert and Reed will come around and support him.
Ron Sparks tells George Talbot in so many words that he’s content to play the tortoise in the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, and Talbot is right that underdogs are not out of it. As for other Democrats, it’s not too late by any means for another to enter the race, but Davis has set an aggressive enough tone for the race that other challengers (short of the stature of Cobb) probably won’t want to let grass grow under their feet.
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