Last night there was supposed to be a debate between the two runoff canidates to fill out the rest of ousted and about-to-be-jailed Mayor Larry Langford's term. Only William Bell showed up. Patrick Cooper was a no-show, sending a letter claiming that the invitation came too late. Whatever.
The Birmingham News reports this morning that Cooper's absence allowed Bell to answer questions uncontested, which he did. When he was asked why he's the best person to run the city, he mentioned his family background:
“My father was a veteran, not a general but a sergeant,” Bell said in a clear reference to Cooper, who’s father was a general.
If I ever run for office, I can hear opponents referrring to the fact that I was born in New York City. Like that commercial for hot sauce. New York City??? I guess living in Alabama by choice for 34 years isn't enough? [Not to worry. There would be plenty of other fodder for that shootout.]
We spend so much time in Alabama listening to non-arguments in politics, that the candidates are able to avoid what little discussion of the actual issues might happen. How does that help anyone? Especially in the default-swap land of Birmingham?
But somehow Bell finds it worthy of note that Cooper's father had managed to rise through the ranks to become a General? A General???
George Wallace wasn't the only Alabama politician to ride the common-man pickup truck to office.
And if Harvard-educated Artur Davis wins the Democratic nomination for Governor in June, I won't be even a little surprised to hear the college name used as a curse during the campaign, even if his GOP opponent is the well-educated former PostSecondary Chancellor Bradley Byrne (Undergraduate degree from Duke--uh oh, magnum cum-laude!, and UA Law).
Forget the dismal state of our budgets. Ignore the dire poverty of the Black-Belt. He went to Harvard??? Isn't that in New York City???
And just in time, the courts are loosening restriction on campaign spending by special-interest groups.
Hey, Tim? You thinking of running for political office?
ReplyDeleteI can just see your opponent's TV ads--"New York City? TOOO liberal for Alabama!"
BTW, our first daughter was born at NYU hospital. They demanded pre-payment even though the kid hadn't been born yet.
I asked, "What happens if we don't pay now and my wife goes into labor?" Answer: "We'll send her to Bellevue down the street."
Me: "Suppose the baby is coming, right on the floor of the ER?" Answer: "She'll go to Bellevue."
I coughed up the pre-payment, even though that left about five dollars in our checking account.
I wish you would run for public office. I think you'd make a great statesman and we are in very short supply of real, true, statesmen these days.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the state's high school drop out rate is something like 47% and only 15% of adults have a college education in AL is it any wonder that the dominant view of education is mistrust and suspicion? People here like being dumb. They wear it like a medal of honor. Case and point is this recent letter in the Montgomery Advertiser about the very wise decision to start teaching Chinese in some Mtgy public schools.
I'm not sure I will ever understand the prevailing mentality of many of my fellow citizens and I am a born and bred Alabamian.
I recollect once, in the summer of '92 while I was in training in FL to head a group of teens for an international short-term mission project, that I asked one of the young men in another group what his studies were, and college he was attending.
ReplyDeleteWith a distinctly humble delivery, he said, "a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts."
"Oh?," I responded, and probed further.
"Which one?"
"Harvard," was his reply.
It wasn't an in-your-face, boastful answer, it was one of the most genuinely humble and respectful answers I've ever received.
Goodness knows, the young man could've boasted. But about what? He put his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else.
I don't think the issue is as much achievement as it is the "better-n-you" prideful attitude that often comes with some whom have achieved.
But, as the well-read will recall, "the greatest among you will be your servant."
Such invectives are distractions - which, if answered properly, can become strengths.
And I get some unusual delight in asking folks like you, Tim, why they stay in the Heart of Dixie.
Turns out, like you, they like it! And, what's not to like? Good folks, good food, good music, clean air & water, good hunting & fishing, outdoor sports a-plenty, and more!
Hey... welcome home, eh?
Sweet Home Alabama, indeed!