I’m no expert on Alabama politics but I think we just lost our best chance to beat Senator Jeff Sessions in 2008. Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks has decided not to run for the seat. His reasoning is fairly solid and it relates to the open primary rules in the Cotton State. State Senator Vivian Figures (D-Mobile) has assured Sparks that she intends to run. Figures is an African-American woman, while Sparks is a white man. Sparks doesn’t want to divide the party along racial lines by, for example, asking African-American legislators to pick sides. In addition, Republicans and Independents can vote in the Democratic primary, and they likely will because Sessions is running unopposed. If history is a guide, the Republicans will show up to vote for Figures on the theory that she is the weaker candidate.
There is plenty of support for that theory. It’s not just Figures’ race that will be an obstacle. She will have to overcome the fact that her 24-year old son is a convicted crack dealer. From a July 19, 2006 Associated Press article.
The 23-year-old son of state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures has pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and could face 10 years to life in federal prison.
Akil Michael Figures, who was arrested in September, accepted a plea agreement Tuesday that could lower his sentence by cooperating with law enforcement in other cases. A sentencing date was not immediately set…
Akil Figures was arrested in 2002 for possession of marijuana and cocaine. He pleaded guilty to the cocaine charge in 2004, and the marijuana charge was dropped, according to court records.
In May 2005, he was shot several times in north Mobile on the day he returned home from Kilby Correctional Facility.
I feel a lot of compassion for Sen. Figures. But I can’t help but feel that this family history is a strong liability in her bid to win a state-wide race.
Ron Sparks, on the other hand, has already won and presently holds state-wide office.
In my opinion is should be possible for Sparks and Figures to run an amicable and non-racially based primary contest. As long as the candidates both pledge not to use race against each other and to enthusiastically support the eventual winner, a primary shouldn’t leave the party bitterly divided.
If Figures wins the primary she will be better primed to win the general. Primaries create a lot of free publicity.
The other concern is, of course, money. Avoiding a primary will save lots of money and Figures will have a better chance to compete with Sessions’ large war chest.
I’d like to get excited about Sen. Figures. We have very few women that are competing for the 22 available Republicans seats in 2008. But I think Ron Sparks would have a far better chance of winning.
National blogosphere should stay out of primaries. Let Alabama decide.
Thank you. It’s very annoying to get told how to vote by someone who doesn’t live here.
I was still in Louisiana for the David Duke vs Edwin Edwards goveror’s race. The whole country decended on us to tell us how to vote. Arsenio Hall had a whole week of it, maybe more, I quit watching his show then. Duke almost won because so many people voted for him just to be contrary.
One of my working theories for campaign finance reform:
Private individuals can contribute as much as they like to any candidate (Or write-in) whose race appears on the ballot that they personally will cast … and absolutely nothing to anyone else anywhere.
(The penalties for violations in my mind are somewhat past draconian, tending toward fines which are significant multiples of the illegal contribution AND permanent revocation of voting rights, but first we gotta get the theory worked out.)
Another issue to consider is Alabama’s open primaries.
Having lived in Alabama the last 30 years, I also think we have lost our best chance to beat Sessions with Ron Sparks bowing out. I understand why Figures wants to run, but I think she could have done well running against Bonner for the House where she actually has some name recognition if she really wants to go to D.C., because outside of her district, except for extremely well informed political junkies, no one in Alabama even knows who she is.
because outside of her district, except for extremely well informed political junkies, no one in Alabama even knows who she is.
the same was true of Doug Wilder in 1985 when he ran for Lt. Gov. Everyone thought he would lose and bring down the whole ticket. He won.
Let Alabama Democrats settle this, they know best.
I wish they had a choice.
Well thank you for dismissing out of hand the views of this Alabama Democrat who never said Vivian Figures would bring the whole ticket down. I was merely stating that I thought that Ron Sparks had a better chance and that Figures has no name recognition,mbut maybe we should just leave it up to people who want to discuss Virginia politics to decide which Alabama Democrat’s opinion is worthy.
We are talking about Alabama here, and while it would be denying reality to say that Figures will get fewer votes than Sparks would have because she is black, Alabama voters are going to by and large be voting either for Sessions or against Sessions.
And that is open party primary elections. Democrats in the South created them to pull independent voters in to select candidates who would appeal to independents. But they don’t make sense if they can be gamed by the opposing party.
My opinion is that what needs to happen is not fewer candidates in Democratic primaries but more candidates. The open primary effectively prevents that from happening.
If you want to start electing progressive Democrats from the South, state parties in the South are going to have to go back to primaries that require declaration of party affiliation.
Of course, then the registration system would be gamed.
Open primaries, have been tried as an attempt to fix this. In an open primary, you can vote for anyone. If a candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they win. Otherwise there is a runoff between the top two. It didn’t work so good either. The crazies often get big chunks of votes, while the tolerable ones split the rest of the vote.
I like Instant Runoff Voting. It has the best chance of electing a decent candidate. It gives third parties a chance because you don’t have to worry about throwing your vote away. And we only have to pay for one election, instead of two or three.
About the racial aspects of this, look at what Sparks says, from this source.
Reading between the lines (and this is an educated guess, I don’t know anything) Ron Sparks knows that if he runs in a primary against Vivian Figures, then Joe Reed will make sure that the ADC either doesn’t endorse him in the general election or does it in a very lukewarm fashion. Result: Sparks loses to Sessions because a big chunk of the black vote leaves his box blank. Hank Sanders is a black politician and he does have a lot of influence, but at least he’s responsible to the voters. Joe Reed is like a law unto himself.
Mississippi has an open primary system similar to Alabama’s.
On June 8, a federal district judge ruled Mississippi’s open primary law unconstitutional (Mississippi Democratic Party v. Barbour). The Virginia Republicans’ similar lawsuit– Miller v. Brown– is now in the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. I believe that the courts will ultimately outlaw the state-mandated open primary.
In Louisiana’s 1991 runoff for governor, Edwin Edwards defeated David Duke, 61% to 39%.
~~ Steve Rankin
Jackson, Mississippi