My American Spectator article today:
Tim James was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool. Before the federal bailouts, before most Americans had heard of Barack Obama, before Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck became household names, James helped lead the 2003 effort to stop a tax increase proposed by Alabama’s Republican Gov. Bob Riley.
The battle over Amendment One, as Riley’s $1.3 billion tax measure was known, was a defining moment for the state’s conservatives. James, who had challenged Riley in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary, sided with the anti-tax activists who organized an opposition campaign that became known as the “Alabama Tea Party.”
Alabama voters rejected the proposal by more than a 2-to-1 margin in a September 2003 referendum and, if politics were logical, James would be the front-runner in this year’s GOP gubernatorial contest. Instead, one recent poll showed that the early leader is Bradley Byrne who, as a state senator in 2003, voted for Riley’s tax-hike plan. . . .
Read the rest of that, which has sparked an internecine quarrel that I hadn’t expected. The Spectator‘s Quin Hillyer is after me now:
On Monday I will have a full-length answer to his column on Alabama politics, on the main page of this site. For now, though, let me just say that Tim James is no angel, and that GOP front-runner Bradley Byrne is a solid fiscal conservative, as is current Gov. Bob Riley, despite McCain’s suggestions to the contrary.
Some necessary background: Hillyer was editorial page editor of the Mobile (Ala.) Register at the time of the 2003 fight over Amendment One, which he supported. And last September he published a laudatory column about Byrnes, so he is obviously an admirer of Byrnes — who may be every bit as admirable as Quin says he is.
The root of the dispute is whether the 2003 “Billion-Dollar Bob” tax plan was fiscally conservative. Riley lost me with his argument that his tax plan (supported by the state’s teachers union) was the Christian thing to do. Excuse my skepticism when somebody says, “Jesus told me to raise taxes.”
At any rate, I didn’t intend to start an argument with Quin Hillyer, who is known to sling some invectives when he’s angry. I’ll be lucky to escape with a few mild epithets.
UPDATE: A commenter at the American Spectator mentioned Human Events coverage of the 2003 Amendment One battle:
By 68% to 32%, Alabama voters on September 9 soundly rejected Republican Gov. Bob Riley’s referendum to hike state taxes by $1.2 billion. . . .
He began invoking the state deficit, Alabama’s low-ranking public education system, and even divine law as justification for a tax hike. . . . Opponents countered that excessive spending caused the state deficit. A Cato Institute study showed that Alabama increased its inflation-adjusted per capita spending by 39% between 1991 and 2000. Riley’s reversal on taxes prompted two of his cabinet members to resign. . . .
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R.-Tex.), who worked with Riley in Congress, opposed the tax referendum as co-chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Armey told HUMAN EVENTS that Riley’s reversal was baffling. “I campaigned for him for his congressional seat for three terms,” Armey said of Riley. “He was in the House for six years, and I don’t remember Bob Riley ever hinting that he might be inclined to raise taxes.”
You can read the rest of that.
UPDATE II: Quin Hillyer asked me to post this message:
My friend McCain need not worry: What I intend to write on Monday is part of a friendly debate, hardly “revenge.” And he need not fear any “invective,” or even any mild epithets. I would no more hurl invective at my friend and colleague than I would worship at the shrine of Obama. Finally, while I thank him for giving me a retroactive promotion, I must admit that I was not editorial page editor in Mobile, but a mere editorial writer and columnist. I do note that the Mobile Register easily ranked with the WSJ, Investors Business Daily, and the Orange County Register as the four most solidly conservative major daily papers in the country — and a multiple-award winning editorial page at that. So trust me when I say that I will be debating with my friend on clearly conservative grounds, and with all due respect to a fellow conservative.
“Debating with my friend” — not a prospectI relish. I’m OK with the vitriolic denunciations by my enemies. I’ve become accustomed to being called names, and dish it out in equal measure. Even the cold silent hatred from Allahpundit doesn’t bother me much anymore.
Actual debate, however, is not something that actually happens on the Internet very often.
