| The commercials are over, the ballots are cast, and the victory party confetti has been vacuumed up off numerous hotel ballrooms. Now that the dust has settled, let's consider who won and who lost yesterday. Not in terms of candidates per se, but in general:  Winner: Paul Hubbert. He managed to get both his preferred candidates for governor through the primary and runoff.
Loser: Paul Hubbert. He watched as many of AEA's most powerful alies in the Legislature were replaced in implacable AEA foes. Loser: Gambling interests. They bet the farm on Ron Sparks and Democratic legislators. Winner: Matrix & Joe Perkins. This powerful, abeit shadowy campaign consulting firm works for candidates in both parties. No matter who loses, Matrix wins. Loser: Rural Conservative Democrats with political beliefs just one tiny step to the left of the Dixiecrats. Their (mostly Matrixx-run) campaigns were abysmal spectacles that ran from the Democratic party, used the word "liberal" as an epithet, and tried to out-Republican their GOP opponents. Sorry guys, voters will go for authenticity every time. You lost your base of supporters by chasing after votes that weren't going to go to you anyway. Your giant miscalculation turned what might have been close races into genuine "ass-whippings." I can't even feel sympathy for you. Winner: Ethics reform. The chief impediment to, well, virtually any bill passing the Alabama Senate - former Rules Committee Chair Lowell Barron - lost his seat yesterday. The GOP has promised to make Ethics Reform a priority. They'd better. Loser: Constitution reform. We lost several prominent reform proponents last night. What are the chances that newly-elected Republicans will be any more likely to give up the Legislatures control over local issues? Pretty much nil. It's just human nature. Winner: Artur Davis. He warned the party over and over that they were headed over the cliff unless they got serious about reform. What did truth-telling get him? Implacable resistance from AEA, ADC, and others in a nasty race-baiting primary that tarnished this state for a generation. I'm betting he's enjoying a nice hot cup of schadenfreude this morning. Loser: The prognosticators who confidently predicted that Ron Sparks was "the only candidate" who could attract both black voters and rural whites. As I recall, he was "the only one who could save the Legislature." Maybe it's time to stop treating rural white voters as ignorant doofuses with a KKK robe in one hand and the neck of some hapless Mexican immigrant in the other. It's damned patronizing and offensive. Winner: PACT parents & students. They have a supporter in the governor's mansion. Although nobody knows how this new Legislature will view the issue, how the program will survive continuing tuition increases, or lawsuits. Loser: The ADP's "Big Mules" who don't seem to understand that the 1960's are over. You can't win simply by running on the Democratic ticket guys. You had a generation to reform state government, fix education, generate real economic development that supported local communities and small businesses, and make Alabama a state to admire, not ridicule. Instead, we got inaction, corruption, and "return to the cotton fields" rhetoric. Winner: New leaders for the ADP. They have an opening. With this devastating defeat of the Old Guard, we have the opportunity to start rebuilding from the bottom up. We can start with new, young, reform-minded leaders like Greg Varner, Scott Gilliland, Joe Hubbard, Jeremy Sherer, Michel Nicrosi, and others. The ADP's "bench" of up and coming leaders is painfully thin because we've had the same group in control for decades. Time to give it up, boys. Your time has gone. The bright spots... such as they are.... are on the flip. |
