Ken Rudin at NPR.org places Bob Riley 11th (out of 22) on his ranking of Republican governors most likely to reach the White House. Me? I would have put Riley ahead of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford.
SurveyUSA’s latest poll of Sen. Richard Shelby’s approval rating among Alabamians shows a third straight month of decline down to 51%, his lowest rating in the four years shown online. Not sure that there is a lot to be made about that as his seat is quite safe and 51% is certainly respectable.
Just in January though he was at 60% and only two months before that he was at 64%, his highest rating in the four years shown on the chart. For that matter, his current 51% approval rating is close (within the margin of error) to the 48% of Alabamians who approve of the job Barack Obama is doing in a poll taken at the same time.
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| Do you approve or disapprove of the job Richard Shelby is doing as United States Senator? |
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Some Dems are not at all unhappy to have Sen. Jeff Sessions as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Democrats like how this is looking.
“Sessions will help galvanize and crystallize why we need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate,” a Democratic senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told POLITICO Tuesday.
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Slate.com has Alabama’s Myron Thompson listed among its Top 20 possiblities to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
Will Alabama’s Sen. Jeff Sessions succeed Arlen Specter as the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and “be the party’s leading voice on the pending nomination?”
Thanks to reader M.
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| Michael Scanlon | Hayden Christensen |
Hayden Christensen has been cast to play Michael Scanlon in Casino Jack, a movie about Scanlon’s partner-in-crime, lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Scanlon served a stint as Bob Riley’s press secretary when Riley was a Congressman. Scanlon went on to serve as chief of staff for Congressman Tom Delay and became a close associate of Abramoff’s. The corruption investigation that led to guilty pleas from Abramoff and Scanlon also led to guilty pleas or convictions of Congressman Bob Ney (R - Ohio), White House officials Steven Griles and David Safavian, and others.
Scanlon, you may remember, worked to protect the gambling interests of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and it was his campaign contributions to organizations that later donated to Bob Riley’s gubernatorial campaign that led to accusations that Riley had accepted out-of-state gambling money to keep gambling out of Alabama.
Hayden Christensen played Anakin Skywalker in Episodes II & III of the Star Wars movies. I don’t know about you, but I look at the picture of Scanlon, and I see Dennis Quaid, especially a young Dennis Quaid.
Kevin Spacey has signed on to play Abramoff and has even visited Abramoff in prison.
There is also a documentary expected to be released later this year to be called Casino Jack: The United States of Money. And oddly enough, Abramoff himself has his own Hollywood ties; he produced the 1989 Dolph Lundgren action movie Red Scorpion and its sequel, Red Scorpion 2.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R - Saks) drops in at Auburn University in Montgomery and says that Congressional Democrats are paying Republicans back for how Dems were treated when the Republicans were in charge.
“They don’t talk to us,” he said. “They’ve got the vote, and they can do what they want.”
[…]
“Republican leaders didn’t talk to the Democrats [when Republicans were in charge],” he said. “The attitude was ‘We have the votes on our side, let the Democrats whine.’”
Rogers said that’s a culture that needs to change if Congress wants to get more done in between election cycles.
In the process, he called Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “crazy,” “mean as a snake” and “Tom DeLay in a skirt.” Which led a friend to comment to me, “I guess Rogers has gotten all he wants out of the House.”
In the beginning, at least, Obama and Congressional Democrats tried to play ball with Republicans.
And there might be a lesson here for the Democratic majority in the state legislature: make sure you have the votes. As one state GOP legislator put it to me, the state Dems can try to be heavy-handed, but they don’t have the votes to back it up (for example, to pass a BIR vote or break a filibuster).
Glad to have South Union Street (from the Montgomery Advertiser) join Alabama’s political blogosphere.
Updated: State Democratic Party Chair responds Tuesday afternoon.
Responding to disparaging public remarks Republican Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama’s 3rd District made about Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rogers’ remorse of a lack of bi-partisan cooperation in Congress, Alabama Democratic Party Chair Joe Turnham is making an offer to Congressman Rogers to be of assistance.
[…]
Chairman Joe Turnham announces today [Tuesday] that he is offering to assist Congressman Rogers in his quest to work together with Democrats by personally asking the Democratic Speaker to meet with him and to attend the meeting if he so desires.
Congressman Jo Bonner (R - Mobile) speaks about his vote on the TARP legislation, not running for Governor, the tanker contract, visiting the Obama White House and more in Lagniappe Magazine out today. An excerpt:
I don’t think there’s anything that could have occurred that could have done more to unite the Republican Party and conservatives in general than having a very liberal, big government president and Congress put in power.
You know again, we were dealing with – we meaning House Republicans – the lingering effects of the culture of corruption, the campaign of 2006 that was so successful run by Rahm Emanuel to remind people why they were disenfranchised, disenchanted. They were frustrated, they were mad, they were angry at Republicans and we had given them a lot of reasons.
Throw in an unpopular president, who the media was just hounding everyday. And then throw in the financial meltdown that occurred and in many respects, the bloodbath that we took on Nov. 4 could have been a lot worse.
Having said that, I had the opportunity to sit on the front row of the presidential inaugural stand by virtue of the fact that I’m the ranking member now of the Ethics Committee and when you look out and you see literally a sea of people stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial as far as the eye could see and you felt the electricity and you felt the euphoria.
Here in a .pdf file is the ruling from the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Don Siegelman’s appeal.
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Walt mentioned Alabamian Lilly Ledbetter already today, that she is in Washington where Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act… I was interested to hear this morning that her ad during the presidential campaign that criticized John McCain for his opposition to the bill had a “stratopheric effect” on viewers. NPR said this morning [at the 2:58 mark of the audio]:
Political consultant Frank Luntz tested every campaign ad on survey groups for Fox News, and this ad, he said, had a stratospheric effect. [Luntz said,] “It was one of the few effective negative ads in the campaign because it delivered a statement that women looked at and said, ‘You know what? This is right. John McCain, how dare you.’”
Here is the ad.
The ad and the issue did not sway Alabama Democratic Congressmen Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith who voted against it, along with Alabama House Republicans Jo Bonner, Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt and GOP Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby. Republican Spencer Bachus did not vote. Democrat Artur Davis was the lone Alabamian in Congress to vote for the bill.
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SurveyUSA poll results from last week showed that 60% of Alabamians approve of the job Obama is doing as President versus 24% of those who disapprove. Among white Alabamians, 49% approve and 30% disapprove, a 19 point difference. It’s early, there is no doubt a post-inaugural glow, and his administration is enjoying its honeymoon, but all things considered these numbers are still surprisingly high to me.
See the whole poll here.
Among those present at Obama’s inauguration yesterday, Rep. Cam “life long Republican and big John McCain supporter” Ward (R - Alabaster).
Chris Cillizza of The Fix, the Washington Post’s political blog, named Bobby Bright’s winning campaign for the 2nd Congressional District as one of the six Best House Campaigns of 2008.
Bright’s campaign manager David Mowery is now working with Montgomery mayoral candidate Todd Strange who is seeking to claim the seat vacated by Bright.
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The Department of Justice tells U.S. Rep. John Conyers (House Judiciary Committee Chair) in a letter sent this week that the DoJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility expects to complete its investigation in the Siegelman matter “in the near future.” The letter touches on some of the concerns that OPR is investigating, for example, “whether U.S. Attorney Leura Canary complied with her recusal from the case.”
The word in Alice Martin’s circle is that she asked Sen. Jeff Sessions to support her for a one-year extension in her role as U.S. Attorney to assist in the prosecution of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford. She also reportedly has expressed interest in the judgeship made vacant by Greg Shaw’s election to the state Supreme Court.
U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the U.S. President and typically offer their resignations at the change in presidential administrations.
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Freedom’s Watch is “pretty much kaput,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week. Freedom’s Watch was active in the AL-02 and AL-05 Congressional races on behalf of Republicans Jay Love and Wayne Parker respectively.
There is more reading on this here.
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At the Thursday breakfast of the Republican Governors Association last week, Alabama state Treasurer Kay Ivey was one of 16 VIP’s recognized as “future leaders.”
At the conclusion of this event, Ivey released this statement:
I was honored to be asked to attend the Republican Governor’s Assocation meeting and recognized as an emerging leader of the Republican Party. State officials are on the front line of effective government. I’ve seen that in my experience as Treasurer, efficiency and relevance in meeting people’s needs is what counts.
I’ve met some of our nation’s finest Governors. I appreciate their encouragement to seek higher office. Governor Riley has set a wonderful example of leadership and it would be a high honor to follow in his footsteps.
I will be listening to the people of Alabama over the next several months before making a final decision.
Plus she has a million dollars in her campaign account… does that sound like a gubernatorial candidate to you?
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Here is a map of the data I presented here last week.
The darker the purple, the greater the percentage increase in the number of votes cast for president in 2008 compared to 2004. Grey indicates that fewer votes were cast in 2008 compared to 2004.
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Here is the map of which counties voted more Democratic or Republican for president in 2008 than in 2004, from the NY Times. This is a visual representation of the same info I presented last week (here and here) though we used slightly different methods of getting there so there are small differences at work.
This information and tons of other interesting data are available at this interactive map at the New York Times website.
One note about my lists of Alabama counties voting more Republican and voting more Democratic: I noticed after the fact that I was missing Calhoun and St. Clair Counties from both lists. Turns out that neither went Democratic or Republican in greater percentages in 2008 than in 2004.
Calhoun voted 33.3% for Kerry and 65.9% for Bush. It voted 33.2% for Obama and 65.8% for McCain. St. Clair voted 18.7% for Kerry and 80.6% for Bush, and it voted 17.7% for Obama and 80.1% for Bush. (And both had increases in votes for “other.”) That’s why neither one sorted out in my spreadsheet as voting more Democratic or more Republican.
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What Alabama counties had the largest increase in voters for President from 2004 to 2008? What counties had fewer voters in 2008 than in 2004?
Here’s the complete list based on 2004 data from the Secretary of State website and 2008 data from USA Today.
Here are the Alabama counties whose voters voted Republican for President in greater percentage in 2008 than in 2004 (plus one county with no change) - in order from largest change in percentage to smallest.
| 2004 | 2008 | GOP | |||
| County | % Kerry | % Bush | % Obama | % McCain | Difference |
| Jackson | 42.5% | 56.8% | 30.7% | 67.7% | 11.0% |
| Cherokee | 33.6% | 65.5% | 23.7% | 75.0% | 9.6% |
| Lawrence | 44.0% | 55.2% | 35.3% | 63.4% | 8.2% |
| Marion | 29.6% | 69.8% | 21.1% | 77.4% | 7.6% |
| Franklin | 36.8% | 62.7% | 29.7% | 69.0% | 6.3% |
| Cullman | 22.9% | 76.2% | 16.6% | 82.1% | 5.9% |
| Lamar | 28.4% | 71.1% | 22.8% | 76.6% | 5.5% |
| Marshall | 26.8% | 72.3% | 21.3% | 77.8% | 5.4% |
| Etowah | 35.9% | 63.3% | 30.2% | 68.6% | 5.3% |
| DeKalb | 29.4% | 70.0% | 23.7% | 75.2% | 5.1% |
| Walker | 31.8% | 67.6% | 26.0% | 72.7% | 5.1% |
| Cleburne | 24.0% | 75.4% | 18.0% | 80.5% | 5.1% |
| Fayette | 30.1% | 69.2% | 25.0% | 74.0% | 4.8% |
| Colbert | 44.3% | 55.1% | 39.2% | 59.6% | 4.5% |
| Lauderdale | 39.4% | 59.7% | 35.1% | 63.4% | 3.6% |
| Blount | 18.3% | 80.9% | 14.6% | 84.2% | 3.4% |
| Clay | 28.8% | 70.3% | 25.6% | 73.5% | 3.2% |
| Washington | 38.1% | 61.4% | 35.0% | 64.5% | 3.2% |
| Winston | 21.5% | 78.0% | 17.6% | 81.0% | 3.0% |
| Covington | 23.4% | 76.0% | 20.5% | 78.9% | 2.9% |
| Limestone | 31.4% | 67.8% | 28.5% | 70.5% | 2.7% |
| Morgan | 30.1% | 69.1% | 27.6% | 71.5% | 2.4% |
| Chilton | 22.6% | 76.9% | 20.7% | 78.6% | 1.8% |
| Geneva | 20.1% | 79.3% | 18.3% | 80.9% | 1.6% |
| Randolph | 31.3% | 68.1% | 29.6% | 69.2% | 1.1% |
| Bibb | 27.5% | 72.0% | 26.6% | 72.6% | 0.6% |
| Coosa | 41.1% | 58.1% | 40.9% | 58.4% | 0.3% |
| Coffee | 25.4% | 73.9% | 25.2% | 74.2% | 0.3% |
| Crenshaw | 30.9% | 68.7% | 30.9% | 68.7% | 0.0% |
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Here are the Alabama counties whose voters voted Democratic for President in greater percentage in 2008 than in 2004 (plus one county with no change) - in order from highest change in percentage to lowest.
| 2004 | 2008 | Dem | |||
| County | % Kerry | % Bush | % Obama | % McCain | Difference |
| Montgomery | 50.4% | 49.2% | 59.4% | 40.2% | 9.0% |
| Jefferson | 45.2% | 54.2% | 52.1% | 47.3% | 7.0% |
| Dallas | 60.2% | 39.5% | 67.1% | 32.6% | 6.9% |
| Monroe | 38.5% | 61.2% | 44.7% | 54.9% | 6.3% |
| Bullock | 68.1% | 31.7% | 74.1% | 25.7% | 6.0% |
| Pike | 36.5% | 63.0% | 42.1% | 57.4% | 5.7% |
| Mobile | 40.7% | 58.7% | 45.3% | 54.1% | 4.7% |
| Escambia | 30.8% | 68.7% | 35.4% | 64.0% | 4.6% |
| Lowndes | 70.3% | 29.7% | 74.9% | 24.8% | 4.6% |
| Sumter | 70.4% | 29.2% | 74.9% | 24.7% | 4.6% |
| Chambers | 41.0% | 58.5% | 45.5% | 54.0% | 4.4% |
| Conecuh | 45.2% | 54.3% | 49.3% | 50.1% | 4.2% |
| Barbour | 44.8% | 54.7% | 49.0% | 50.5% | 4.2% |
| Shelby | 18.8% | 80.4% | 22.9% | 76.8% | 4.1% |
| Perry | 68.2% | 31.5% | 72.3% | 27.4% | 4.1% |
| Houston | 25.3% | 74.2% | 29.3% | 70.2% | 4.0% |
| Macon | 82.9% | 16.7% | 86.9% | 12.8% | 4.0% |
| Greene | 79.3% | 20.2% | 83.2% | 16.5% | 3.9% |
| Tuscaloosa | 37.9% | 61.4% | 41.6% | 57.7% | 3.8% |
| Russell | 49.8% | 49.6% | 53.4% | 46.1% | 3.5% |
| Wilcox | 67.5% | 32.3% | 71.0% | 28.8% | 3.5% |
| Clarke | 40.6% | 59.1% | 44.0% | 55.6% | 3.4% |
| Lee | 36.4% | 62.7% | 39.6% | 59.5% | 3.3% |
| Marengo | 48.8% | 50.9% | 51.7% | 48.1% | 2.9% |
| Pickens | 42.9% | 56.6% | 45.7% | 54.0% | 2.8% |
| Dale | 24.6% | 74.7% | 27.3% | 72.0% | 2.7% |
| Butler | 40.6% | 59.2% | 43.1% | 56.5% | 2.6% |
| Hale | 58.3% | 41.3% | 60.7% | 39.0% | 2.4% |
| Talladega | 38.0% | 61.3% | 40.3% | 58.9% | 2.3% |
| Autauga | 23.7% | 75.7% | 25.8% | 73.7% | 2.1% |
| Madison | 40.2% | 58.9% | 42.0% | 57.0% | 1.9% |
| Elmore | 22.6% | 76.9% | 24.2% | 75.2% | 1.6% |
| Henry | 33.3% | 66.3% | 34.8% | 64.7% | 1.5% |
| Baldwin | 22.5% | 76.4% | 23.8% | 75.4% | 1.3% |
| Tallapoosa | 30.4% | 69.0% | 31.5% | 68.0% | 1.1% |
| Choctaw | 45.7% | 53.9% | 46.1% | 53.6% | 0.4% |
| Crenshaw | 30.9% | 68.7% | 30.9% | 68.7% | 0.0% |
The 2004 numbers are from the website of the Secretary of State. The 2008 numbers are from USA Today.
If someone wants to see the spreadsheet that put this together, let me know, and I’ll try to put it into presentable shape.
What insights, if any, are to be gleaned from this?
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Read Brian’s post, Win, Lose or Draw at Flashpoint. Not much else can be said.
| Push the play button to hear the radio ad. |
State Representative Alvin Holmes is imploring you to vote for “Barack Obama and the straight Democratic ticket.” Or, if not you, at least the listeners of radio stations like WKXN / WKXK (Greenville, Montgomery, Pine Hill) where this ad is airing.
Like most partisans do, the Montgomery Democrat has rallied around the nominee though he once thought that Obama was not electable.
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Wade on Birmingham runs down the presidential endorsements from the state’s newspapers:
Of the eight newspapers that have published endorsements in the presidential race, five support Obama, two support McCain, and one endorsed neither. Before the cries of “liberal media bias” ring out, keep in mind that most of these same papers endorsed Republican George W. Bush in the previous two elections.
He also has short excerpts from each paper’s endorsement (or non-endorsement).
Mike Halperin on The Page at Time.com offers his take on the Five Most Important People in American Politics Not Running for President.
Number 3? Alabama’s John Anzalone.
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This paper plans a live chat on the presidential election debate and is looking for folks to test the system. More details below.
“Opelika-Auburn News political writer Jennifer Foster will host a live chat during the presidential debate tonight. She’ll get started shortly before 8 p.m. CDT. For more details, check out her blog today.”
According to this article at TheHill Congressional mail servers are throttling connections to keep from overloading.
A tip, your email will eventually get delivered, resending it (unless the bounce message says otherwise) will only make it worse. Whoever delivers your mail will keep retrying until it delivers.
Hat tip to the Bulldada Newsblog for the steer. Don’t browse Bulldada from work, it will get you talked about.
The DCCC gets in on the act and has a new ad running in AL-05 this week.
Thanks to reader J.
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Alabamian Lilly Ledbetter is featured in an campaign spot for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. You can download it here in Realmedia format (.rm).
My two cents: If you have not already installed Realplayer, don’t. Use Real Alternative instead. It’s fast, light, and treats your computer right.
Roll Call ranked the “50 wealthiest Members of Congress based on the minimum net worth reported on their financial disclosure forms.” (The article explains up front the ways that the financial disclosure forms are “extraordinarily unreliable sources of information.”)
FWIW, by my count, among the 50, there were 23 Democrats and 27 Republicans. 21 Senators and 29 Republicans. One Alabamian: Sen. Richard Shelby (R) at #30.
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