"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
Dan Collins at Piece of Work in Progress notes that David Horowitz seems to be stocking up in the Rule 5 department. Meanwhile, here is my friend Ali Akbar with two young lovelies at the Alabama GOP meeting Friday night in Montgomery:
I’m pretty sure this was after Ali ordered a round of Jack Daniel shots for the table — an offer that I had to refuse. I swore off whiskey after an unfortunate incident with Mr. Daniel in 2000.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Bailey Barber greeted us at the front door of her family home Saturday morning with ecstatic news. “We’re going to a parade,” announced the 6-year-old daughter of Republican congressional candidate Rick Barber.
Retail politics requires a relentless press-the-flesh effort on the part of the candidate, and Barber hit the streets Saturday. After attending a morning conference of 2nd Congressional District officials at the annual state GOP meeting at Montgomery’s Renaissance Hotel, Barber learned (via Facebook) that there would be a pre-Mardi Gras parade in the Elmore County town of Millbrook.
Despite cold, windy weather, hundreds turned out on Main Street in Millbrook for the parade, with children collecting the beads, trinkets and candy thrown by parade participants. Bringing along his daughter, Barber walked the route, handing out cards and shaking hands.
Barber talks to a Millbrook voter. “I’d love to have your vote June 1,” he told voters, referring to the date when he’ll be facing off against Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby in the Republican primary. Here are three short videos, beginning with the fire trucks that led off the Millbrook parade, and Bailey scrambling to grab some Mardi Gras beads thrown by the firemen.
Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright — the “Blue Dog” congressman whom Barber hopes to defeat in November — rides in a truck in the Millbrook parade. Bright spotted Barber shaking hands in the crowd and was heard to say, “I see him over there.”
Barber points out a float in the parade to his daughter.
By the time the parade ended, Bailey sported an impressive collection of Mardi Gras beads.
How many votes did her dad collect? It’s hard to say, but there is ultimately no substitute for the old-fashioned politics of meeting voters one-on-one and asking for their votes. For all the advances in communications — TV ads, phone banks, e-mails, etc. — Americans still like to see candidates doing this kind of retail campaigning. Anyone who watched the Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts knows what a difference it made that Brown spent weeks driving his truck from town to town, shaking hands with voters, while his opponent . . . didn’t.
(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)
Alabama blogger Truth on Troy has posted an open letter to the state Republican Party:
Dear Chairman Hubbard and Members of the ALGOP Executive Committee,
The time has come to encourage your expeditious review of Troy King’s actions as attorney general which directly contradict the conservative principles of the Republican Party. As Alabamians prepare to head to the polls in June, they deserve the full facts regarding their political candidates as well as the exposure of any ulterior motives which may guide these candidates. . . . We also ask that you protect other Republican candidates in the 2010 elections from scandal by directly acting to condemn a candidate responsible for serious, egregious violations of basic ethical principles and good governance. . . .
Read the rest of that. The same blogger also has a post about The Rumor That Dare Not Speak Its Name:
Let’s think for a minute about what brought the Republicans down in 2006. Sure, there were a number of problems, but when Florida Congressman Mark Foley was publicly exposed in a scandal involving Congressional pages, Republicans tanked everywhere. Images of him on the cover of Time and Newsweek came to symbolize the struggles of the GOP. Now, the GOP is rebuilding, and a lot of momentum is taking shape heading into 2010. That is especially important here in Alabama, where a major Governor’s race, a series of judicial races, and several Congressional races will require major attention. These Republican candidates don’t deserve to deal with a political powderkeg which frankly could explode at absolutely any moment. . . .
Read the rest of that, too. At Friday night’s GOP dinner in Montgomery, I caught sight of King’s Republican primary challenger, Luther Strange. At 6-foot-7, he’s not hard to spot in a crowd:
Based strictly on the number of Luther Strange lapel stickers worn by Republicans at Friday night’s reception — and the large number of attendees who sought out Strange to shake his hands and express their support for him — it would appear that Alabama’s GOP rank-and-file are keen to have “Big Luther” usher in a new era. And when I introduced myself to Luther’s wife, Melissa . . . well, she recognized my name, IYKWIMAITYD.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Please excuse my unusually long silence since yesterday’s post about the state attorney general. From Birmingham, we left en route to Montgomery for the winter meeting of the Alabama Republican Party, arriving about 6:30 p.m. Central time.
Six hours of heavy-duty reporting/schmoozing ensued, and then we departed for an unknown location near Dadeville. This morning, we went back to the AL-GOP meeting. Two quick points:
Update: (Smitty) I relayed the cel phone note above to Mrs. TOM. She responded with an outburst of Emmanuelism concerning her husband, IYKMIMAITYD. My suggestion is that the Shoe Leather Fund be fully supported, so he can return home for further adventures in Competition Groveling, as the poor wife has to dig out of the Al Gore Memorial Blizzard.
The photo is of the picnic table out back, with the Goreflakes currently above the bottom of the green umbrella, and still climbing like the national debt. It is completely unfair to pick on Stacy for being out of town for this event. Also, life is unfair, so, let the abuse be heaped, say I.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Everybody who follows Alabama politics knows about the gossip and everybody has a sarcastic joke about the state attorney general, so it’s not exactly news, which may partly explain why the state’s establishment media won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Do a Google search and it’s hard to miss the online rumor that swirled in 2008 when the name of Troy King, who had been John McCain’s state campaign chairman, was inexplicably scrubbed from the campaign’s Web site. King previously had been rumored as a 2010 gubernatorial candidate, but the new rumor seems to have put an end to that talk.
The rumor was quite specific, involving J.W. Godwin, who interned in King’s office and was subsequently hired as an aide. Reports that the 24-year-old Godwin was being paid nearly $60,000 — a princely sum in Alabama, where the cost of living is very low — added grist to the rumor mill.
No political reporter in the Heart of Dixie will go near the ugly gossip about King, a Baptist who has a wife and three children. Maybe it’s all a left-wing Internet smear and, trust me, I’ve got first-hand experience with that stuff. At some point, however, a rumor becomes news.
King is up for re-election and the question is whether the Alabama press corps — or King’s Democratic opponent — will ignore this gossip until after Election Day in November. My guess? Probably not. Even if news reporters won’t touch this subject, that certainly hasn’t stopped Mobile Press-Register editorial cartoonist J.D. Crowe, who has taken to depicting King in kinky S&M regalia:
From a newsman’s angle, the question is this: How long until TPM, Daily Kos or Rachel Maddow takes notice of this rumor, forcing the Alabama press to stop pretending it doesn’t exist?
Let me get one thing straight (no pun intended): This wasn’t the story I came to Alabama to cover. While I was in Boston covering Scott Brown’s Senate race, I met Rick Barber, a Tea Party-backed congressional candidate who traveled to Massachusetts to volunteer for the Brown campaign. Since I’ve been following this theme for months — the impact of the grassroots uprising on GOP politics — the Barber campaign seemed like a natural excuse for me to make a trip down home, and I learned there were related stories in Alabama, including the campaigns of Les Phillip (the Tea Party candidate against Parker Griffith) and gubernatorial candidate Tim James.
However, as soon as I started blogging about the idea of a trip to Alabama, an anonymous tipster asked me if I was going to check out the talk about Troy King. I’d never even heard of the guy, so I Googled the name and discovered a very curious fact: Both of Alabama’s Republican senators had endorsed King’s GOP primary opponent last fall.
Three words: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
That’s what we call a “clue,” Dr. Watson. Anybody who knows anything about politics would understand the profound significance of that story, and yet national media scarcely noticed it. Whatever the reason, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions clearly view King as a liability for the GOP in this crucial mid-term election.
Maybe Shelby and Session’s aren’t concerned about the Rumor That Dare Not Speak Its Name (172,000 hits). Maybe it’s all the talk about Troy King and gambling lobbyists. Maybe it’s the parade of King aides who’ve been called to testify before the federal grand jury. Clearly, however, there is the sense that the GOP attorney general is a ticking scandal-bomb that might explode into ugly headlines soon, and Republicans are worried about the potential for collateral damage in a year when all the political indicators seem to favor the GOP.
Nasty rumors are a dime a dozen in politics and, as I said, this might be just another left-wing blog smear. If so, the rumor needs to be refuted and the rumor-mongers silenced, rather than to permit a vicious whisper campaign to continue damaging innocent reputations. As it is now, the widespread gossip about Troy King portrays him as a cross between Jack Abramoff and Ted Haggard, a major Republican scandal just waiting to happen.
How long can Alabama’s political reporters ignore it?
UPDATE: Is Troy King The GOP’s Next Larry Craig? Or, considering the Florida connection, how about the next Charlie Crist?
UPDATE II: Alabama Republicans and the Tea Party movement are making big news today, but my misfortune is to actually be in Alabama covering Tea Party Republicans, so I’m suffering from a linky-love deficit. If only I could get Alyssa Milano to re-Tweet me . . .
AT 8:30 a.m. (Central Time), I’ll be on the Matt Murphy show on Birmingham’s WAPI 1070 AM. You can listen live online.
=>MP3 here.
. . . the next governor? Just returned from dinner with Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim James. Among the guests joining us at McCormick & Schmick’s was Judy Merritt, president of Jefferson State Community College. Dr. Merritt became Alabama’s first female president of a state college in 1979 when she was appointed by former Gov. Fob James, Tim’s father. “I’ve known Tim ever since he was old enough to be taken for a haircut,” Dr. Merritt said.
Of course, I’m saving the best quotes from the interview for a future article, but over seafood dinner — he had stuffed flounder, I had grilled salmon — the candidate gave an impromptu seminar on the causes of the current economic crisis. James majored in finance at Auburn University and worked 25 years in real-estate development. He named Gary Shilling and Bob Prechter as the contemporary economists whose views he shares, expecting a long-term deflationary trend.
James said the economy is now the No. 1 political issue in Alabama, and that the state’s official unemployment rate (about 11%) understates the seriousness of the recession. He criticized the TARP bailout and the Federal Reserve’s attempts to reinflate the economy through monetary policy. James did not spare the Bush administration from criticism for its policies. Based on our conversation, it’s easy to see why James is a favorite of the state’s Tea Party activists, who share his anti-bailout views.
Of course, the dinner conversation was not all about serious economics. Another of the dinner guests — not Dr. Merritt — asked about the state’s Prohibition-era legislation that bans home-brewed beer and brew pubs. Libertarians in the state are backing “Free the Hops” legislation to overturn the ban. Asked if he favored legalizing home-brewed beer, James jokingly responded: “We’re not going to put up with any cheap stuff.”
Quality beer, OK. Bad beer, not OK.
Yes, that’s right, folks. Despite the law-enforcement dragnet across Virginia and Tennessee — “Be on the lookout for a black 2004 KIA Optima . . .” — I have arrived at an undisclosed location in Birmingham. Political intrigue and shenanigans are afoot down here in God’s country, and I’ll be updating regularly.
While en route — 785 miles in 15 hours, including a two-hour nap in the car this morning at a rest area near Bristol, Tenn. — I had several phone conversations with Alabama political activists. I’m learning more about the scandals swirling around state attorney general Troy King. A parade of King’s aides have been called before a federal grand jury, and the “Truth On Troy” blog has more.
Down in the Wiregrass Country (2nd Congressional District), Tea Party candidate and Marine Corp veteran Rick Barber slammed the Obama administration’s proposal to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Up in the 5th District — which hasn’t elected a Republican since Reconstruction — another Tea Party candidate, Les Phillip, just Tweeted the news that Alabama is the most conservative state in America.
Meanwhile, in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Tim James ended 2009 with the most cash-on-hand of any candidate in the race. I’ll be interviewing James this evening.
Finally, I’m hanging out here with Hive Mind filmmaker Ladd Ehlinger Jr. After my Tim James interview, Ladd’s wanting to show me some of the exciting nightlife in B’ham and I’m dead broke, so please hit the tip jar.
UPDATE: What’s better than Demon Sheep? Killer Elephants!