February 01, 2006
One of the major issues surfacing in the Governor’s race is the annual reappraisal of property taxes. Prior to Gov. Riley’s administration property tax reappraisals were done once every four years. In March of 2003, two months after Riley took office, his administration ordered the reappraisals done every year.
January 25, 2006
The cloud hovering over the gubernatorial campaign of Don Siegelman is not the only one looming in this year’s primaries and election. There are huge storm clouds hanging over all Legislative and Senate races.
January 18, 2006
When the gavel fell to start the 2006 Regular Session of the Legislature last week it began without one of its most stellar members. House Rules Committee Chairman Jack Venable succumbed to leukemia late last year and the state lost a true statesman.
January 11, 2006
The State Senate has been nothing less than a boiling pot for the first three years of this quadrennium and this final year it will reach a zenith of tension and rancor.
December 28, 2005
As 2005 comes to an end we will review the top political events of the year in Alabama.
At the beginning of the year it was speculated that four face cards, Republicans Bob Riley and Roy Moore and Democrats Don Siegelman and Lucy Baxley, would be the major players in next year’s Governor’s race. There has been no surprise here. All four have announced that they are candidates and they are all running hard as the new year approaches.
December 21, 2005
While we have been strolling down memory lane for the past four months reliving past Governor’s races, the field has been formulating for next year’s gubernatorial contest. Actually there have been no significant changes since the summer. It was expected at that time that Bob Riley, Roy Moore, Don Siegelman, and Lucy Baxley would be the major players and all that has happened is that they have confirmed the expected, all four have officially announced. It should be a fun and exciting race. All four face cards have statewide name identification prior to the battle. Therefore they will not need to use their resources introducing themselves. The bad part is that these resources could be focused on negative advertising aimed at disassociating you from their opponent.
December 14, 2005
I hope you enjoyed the fourteen-week series on past Governor’s races covering the 40-year span from 1962-2002. Many of you contacted me and shared your memories of these elections. Most of us lived through them and remember them vividly. We all have our favorite gubernatorial contests as well as our favorite Governors. However, considering George Wallace was Governor for most of that 40-year era we do not have as many Governors to choose from as most other states.
December 07, 2005
Don Siegelman defeated Fob James in the 1998 Governor’s race by a landslide 18-point margin. Siegelman ran on an overt platform favoring a state lottery for Alabama. He patterned his campaign and lottery issue after Georgia Governor Zell Miller’s plan. Georgia earmarked their lottery for education and called it the Hope Scholarship Program. Under Miller’s Georgia plan any deserving Georgia high school graduate with at least a “B” average could go to any Georgia college tuition free with proceeds from the Georgia lottery. It was working in Georgia, so Siegelman sold it all over Alabama. He perceived that his lottery issue had propelled him into the Governor’s office. He should have remembered the initial poll he saw in 1996 showing Fob James was so unpopular that anybody could have beaten him. George Wallace had lived by the adage that more people vote against someone that for someone. The people were not as much in favor of Siegelman’s lottery as they were against Fob.
November 30, 2005
Old Fob James had a quixotic political personality. When he was out of the Governor’s office he showed a tremendous yearning to get back. The proof is he sought the office in 1986 and lost in the Democratic primary and lost again in 1990 in the primary. However, he came back and won in 1994 as a Republican, but once he got the job he acted as if he did not want it.
November 23, 2005
When Guy Hunt won the Governor’s race over Bill Baxley in 1986 it was well publicized that he was a part-time Primitive Baptist preacher. He was also billed as a part-time Amway salesman. These common man vocations appealed to the average Alabama voter. It was Hunt’s calling as a Baptist preacher which resonated warmly with his constituency. Alabamians are very religious and very Baptist.