September 05, 2007
While a student at the University of Alabama I had the opportunity to intern with the Dean of Students, Dr. Joab Thomas. A few years later Dr. Thomas became President of the University and I was elected to the legislature. He invited my wife and I to sit with him at an Alabama game. We had just had our first daughter and she seemed to us quite precocious. Dr. Thomas and I were discussing my newborn and the topic of her early education came up. I somewhat lamented the fact to him that she might not be able to compete academically as well as she might in college because she would be raised in a small town and not have the advantages or competition that a larger city school might offer.
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August 29, 2007
Alabama experienced the wrenching throes of the Great Depression like the rest of the nation. There were tragic stories of devastation that paralleled those illuminated in the classic novel, “The Grapes of Wrath.” On the other hand, I have heard many old timers who lived during the Depression say we never knew there was a depression in Alabama. We were poor before the Depression so there was no marked difference to our standard of living. We had plenty to eat but heard of people jumping out of buildings in New York City committing suicide because they were millionaires one day and penniless the next.
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August 22, 2007
In 1971 George Wallace was at the height of his political power. Including his wife’s election in 1966, Wallace had been elected Governor of Alabama three straight times. Much like today several of the general fund agencies were in dire financial straits. Wallace chose to remedy the problems in prisons and mental health with a loan from the Teachers’ Retirement Fund. Dr. Paul Hubbert had only been head of the fledgling toothless Alabama Education Association for less than two years. He was a young, clean-cut, new kid on the block. He looked a lot like Albert Brewer. In fact Hubbert and Brewer were allies and friends. Hubbert had supported Brewer in that historic 1970 contest which Wallace won by the skin of his teeth.
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August 15, 2007
I have been on a speaking tour throughout Alabama this summer talking Alabama politics with many of you. As I traveled the state a question was posed to me several times about politics in general. The query being whether politics has always been as mean and dirty as it is today. That question is hard to answer because politics has always been a tough business.
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August 08, 2007
Our Senior U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby, is Alabama’s most premier and powerful politician. Shelby has enjoyed a stellar political career and taken a textbook path to stardom. He served eight years in the Alabama State Senate and eight more years as a U.S. Congressman. In 1986 Shelby took a leap of faith as a democratic congressman from Tuscaloosa and narrowly defeated the republican incumbent, Jeremiah Denton. He coasted to reelection in 1992 as a Democrat. In 1993, in perfect timing he switched to the Republican Party just in time to reap the rewards of being in the majority party in the Senate when the GOP took control of Congress.
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August 01, 2007
The dynamics of the 2008 Presidential Race have changed dramatically over the past six months due to the avalanche of large and more populous states changing their presidential preference primaries to February 5th. This historic altering means that in about six months from now you will probably know who the Republican and Democratic nominees will be for the November 2008 Presidential Election.
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July 25, 2007
The avalanche of states moving their presidential primary to February 5th next year has made a tremendous impact on the 2008 Presidential Race. This cavalcade, which includes Alabama, will change the dynamics dramatically. It has diminished the role that New Hampshire and Iowa have traditionally played as early states in the nominating process, making them somewhat irrelevant.
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July 18, 2007
It seems like the saying, “thank God for Mississippi,” has been around most of my life. This adage referred to our perennial status on most economic barometers and rankings as 49th but Mississippi was always last or 50th. We have progressed significantly economically over the past decade. Most charts put us around 40th. We are no longer next to the bottom and are likely in the middle of the pack in comparison to our sister southern states.
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July 11, 2007
As the year 2007 began the biggest story brewing was the unraveling and evolution of the gigantic junior college system corruption saga. It is still evolving and the mounting evidence portends that it is a tempest in a teapot ready to explode. The obvious pilfering and abuse are brazen. It is astonishing to comprehend the widespread cavalier scandalous behavior in this day and time. A day seldom passes when there is not another revelation of nepotism, waste, malfeasance and reckless spending of taxpayers’ money.
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July 04, 2007
Otto Whittaker wrote the following essay, “I am the Nation,” in 1955 as a public relations advertisement for the Norfolk and Western Railway. The message found in Mr. Whittaker’s essay is still appropriate for this Independence Day so I have chosen to include it below in lieu of my weekly political column.