The Democrats are rebuilding in Alabama. Maybe? Ballotpedia says that they are running candidates in only 47 of 105 state house races, 14 of 35 state senate races, governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Nobody running for lieutenant governor or auditor or treasurer. Simple math tells us that no Democrats are standing in 58 state house districts or for 21 state senate seats. There are candidates seeking the nomination for US Senate, while for the US House, Democrats will contest only five of the seven seats.
Republicans are running in all statewide races, all national races, in 83 of the 105 state house seats, and in 29 of the 35 state senate races.
Not great. The best case for state Democrats for the next four years is as a minority party that can sometimes influence legislation if the Republicans are fractured or perhaps fixing defects the Republicans overlooked in generally acceptable legislation. None of the statewide candidates are well-known or in a strong position.
Most of the Republican candidates run on made-up bullshit issues that have no relationship with reality (the FOX News ticket), much less with the offices they seek. They talk about CRT or disliking Spanish, none of which has anything to do with running the government or drafting meaningful legislation.
The big-ticket item from the governor, which she’s not even running on, was funding and plans to build new prisons using COVID funds so that the state can keep locking people up rather than educating them and building a better tomorrow. But like Biden’s infrastructure work, the prisons won’t be built for some time. So she’s making up some crap and yelling about it. She’s another George Wallace type, vying to be seen as loudest dipshit in the pack. Taking pleasure in pissing on and pissing off the libs. And most of her opponents are doing the same.
That’s also what the Republicans running to replace Senator Richard Shelby are doing. They bring up state issues that a federal legislator has no influence on, or they make up some grievances against the president or against the politicians from other states.
There’s a fairly weak offering of media in the state, and while what exists makes some efforts to push for a better way, it’s mostly ineffective. They have the power to break a scandal, but not to turn the ship.
Alabama Republican politics are works of fiction, any resemblances to reality are accidental, unintentional.
Doug Jones helped the Democrats adopt new charter rules which may help structurally at some point, but the state party is still not very animated. National politics and national political brands are too dominant to give much room for them to break out, apparently, and they don’t have the funds, manpower, or candidates to do it.
Maybe they’ll get there some day, but in 2022 it looks like a pretty weak party, in a weak state that doesn’t have many short-term prospects for reform or improvement.
There are Republicans in the state who would be Democrats in other states, but they can’t afford the association down here. That stifles the growth opportunities for the party, which keeps us on a trajectory of Republican primaries deciding statewide races on phantom issues and hate and bile. And the same Republicans block reform efforts, gerrymander the districts, and don’t set the state on a real growth trajectory.
That means a lack of state leaders tethered to truth and compassion. It means deprioritizing human welfare, education, and environment, all of which mean less liberty.
It’s so dumb and why it looks to stay that way, at least for four more years. I’ve voted in every government election I’ve ever been eligible to, and I want everyone to vote, believe it would make things better, but it’s always bothered me that my vote never really counts at any level of government, living in a backwards state with broken politics.