alabama

As I've noted on two separate appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show, the Alabama Tea Party movement clearly hasn't been usurped by the Republican Party.  Right now, Tea Party activists in north Alabama are leading a bipartisan fight over House Minority Leader John Boehner's scheduled appearance in Huntsville to support recent party swapper Parker Griffith.

Yesterday, Representative Mike Pence held an impromptu press conference at Blogger's Row.  I was busy on other issues at the time, so I wasn't paying attention until I heard my home state mentioned. 

With my ears perking up when I heard the word "Alabama," the first words which registered were that Alabama's governor supports Democrat-recently-turned-Republican Parker Griffith and that Republicans in DC support him, too.  The implication was that everyone else should do the same, too.

Les Phillip is one of the Republican candidates running against Griffith. He and another conservative, Mo Brooks, have been campaigning for that seat long before Griffith changed parties. 

Before he changed parties, Griffith spent a lot of time dodging Town Hall forums. 

Phillip is at CPAC and I ran into him this morning.  When I asked him about Rep. Pence's statement, he reminded me that Griffith was a Democrat before he was a Republican.  He reminded people to check Griffith's actual voting record.

"He was a liberal, then jumped to keep his seat," Phillip said. "I saw the same poll he did."

I've seen plenty of "Les Phillip" buttons here, but none for Parker Griffith.  It's not just in DC.  I know plenty of people in the district who support Brooks or Phillip. I know even more who are undecided but will vote for "either of the two conservatives." Finding people who live in the district who support Parker Griffith isn't happening all that often, though.

What happens when you pit a popular, well-funded Tea Party candidate in a open, contested statewide primary against the establishment GOP candidate? Writing for the American Spectator, Robert Stacy McCain takes a look at the Tim James gubernatorial campaign in Alabama as this re-emerging theme in post-2008 politics continues.

Before I continue, I'll disclose that Tim James is my guy in this race and that my firm is contracting with the campaign. However, as I've stated before, I'd be writing about this anyway, as this local-to-me race highlights the disconnect between the Tea Party/conservative movement and old-school Republican candidates.

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.

So far so good, but (after the jump)...

He has baffled the mainstream news media and taken the Senate Democrats by surprise, all in plain view of the American people. That man is our own U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions.

While the talking heads on network TV for weeks have warned that Republicans risked losing Latino voters forever if they challenged Judge Sonia Sotomayor during the current nomination hearings, Senator Sessions pulled the wool over their eyes and took a different tack.

His disarming Alabama charm and incisive questioning put Sotomayor on the defensive; she has been in a full retreat from every boneheaded liberal position she's taken. She even tried to stealthily distance herself from her infamous "Wise Latina" remarks of several years ago. Senator Sessions wouldn't let her off the hook.

Not even New York Senator Chuck Schumer's "Mr. Fix-it" tactic could help Sotomayor. The damage was done.

Thanks to Senator Sessions's excellent preparation and coordination with other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sotomayor and the Democrats have sustained some direct hits on their credibility in a very public forum. Live television coverage has revealed to American voters just how disengenuous the liberal agenda really is. Legislating from the bench and going against the laws of the land aren't popular with a vast majority of Americans, except for a tiny minority of liberal activists.

Sotomayor is the choice of liberals, especially Democrats in the U.S. Senate who now have 60 members, a filibuster-proof majority. Senator Sessions has so far done a stellar job of making sure the American people have a clear picture of just who this Sonia Sotomayor is and what kind of Supreme Court Justice she will be. For that, we should be most grateful.

As an Alabamian, I am especially proud of the leadership of Senator Jeff Sessions at a time when many are looking for bold Conservative leadership.

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Tim James for Governor 2010

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While at an Alabama Eagle Forum banquet on Friday night, I was fortunate enough to grab a few minutes alone with 2010 Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James.  While James doesn't have a long and padded political resume, he's the son of former Governor Fob James and is well known in conservative circles in the state.  He's been significantly increasing his public appearances and media exposure, of late.

When I had the opportunity, I asked James if I could ask him a quick question.  "Sure," he replied.  The question I lobbed at him was whether or not he would absolutely commit to not increasing taxes if elected governor.