The Alabama Second
Earlier, I wrote about the bizarre phenomenon of the actual prospect of party competition in Alabama’s Second Congressional District. The national Democratic apparatus has tapped this race as a potential swing and is supporting it generously. The Democratic candidate is Bobby Bright, current mayor of Montgomery and graduate of, yes, the Jones School of Law. He beat an entrenched incumbent to become Mayor and has been reelected successfully and is generally popular, although he has never had to declare a party. Both parties courted him to run for the open seat, but he opted for the Dems because he says that the GOP offered him talking points while the Dems offered him freedom of expression and a checkbook. The Dems want the seat, even if Bright will be among the bluest of Blue Dogs. For instance, he recently won an initiative in city government to start cracking down on illegal immigration from Mexico into Montgomery, red conservative meat. He is pro-life, pro-gun, tough on immigration, budget-balancing and Christian.
(UPDATE: For example, this is how a Democrat runs for Congress in AL-02.)
After a run-off this week, his Republican challenger is Jay Love, a member of the state legislature. Love just ended an aggressive and negative run-off campaign with Harri Anne Smith, also of the legislature, to see who could out-conservative each other. Love’s slogan is “Christian. Conservative. Republican.” He will “stand up the liberals in Washington” and bring “conservative, Christian values to Congress.” His ads feature the “Washington liberals” with phantasmagoric images of Pelosi and Obama. Love is running a legitimate, very partisan campaign, hard-right, anti-tax and pro-life. He aggressively identifies himself as a Christian (the most Christian?) candidate, which is to be commended in the Second Congressional District of Alabama.
So, the district may be in play. Bright is the only possible, but very promising, Democratic option in this blood-red district, and he is running a realistic, honest campaign as a conservative Democrat. Love is running a predictable, effective, realistic and honest campaign, although negative at times. They have not really started campaigning against each other so far this week.
Besides the mere oddity of competition down here, why is this so interesting to me?
They go to church together.
I might just move my letter over there.
(By the way, I love FBC Montgomery. We have friends and colleagues who worship and serve there, and they are mighty ministers in this town. Dr. Wolf is a godly pastor and preacher, and he has even preached to us. I imagine these next few months will generate challenges there that few churches ever witness, and I pray the Lord blesses them with peace. I also hope that Dr. Wolf is gently extolling his competing members to remember the greatest commandments. If they do, this might be a constructive campaign, maybe even a witness to the world.)
(UPDATE: For example, this is how a Democrat runs for Congress in AL-02.)
After a run-off this week, his Republican challenger is Jay Love, a member of the state legislature. Love just ended an aggressive and negative run-off campaign with Harri Anne Smith, also of the legislature, to see who could out-conservative each other. Love’s slogan is “Christian. Conservative. Republican.” He will “stand up the liberals in Washington” and bring “conservative, Christian values to Congress.” His ads feature the “Washington liberals” with phantasmagoric images of Pelosi and Obama. Love is running a legitimate, very partisan campaign, hard-right, anti-tax and pro-life. He aggressively identifies himself as a Christian (the most Christian?) candidate, which is to be commended in the Second Congressional District of Alabama.
So, the district may be in play. Bright is the only possible, but very promising, Democratic option in this blood-red district, and he is running a realistic, honest campaign as a conservative Democrat. Love is running a predictable, effective, realistic and honest campaign, although negative at times. They have not really started campaigning against each other so far this week.
Besides the mere oddity of competition down here, why is this so interesting to me?
They go to church together.
I might just move my letter over there.
(By the way, I love FBC Montgomery. We have friends and colleagues who worship and serve there, and they are mighty ministers in this town. Dr. Wolf is a godly pastor and preacher, and he has even preached to us. I imagine these next few months will generate challenges there that few churches ever witness, and I pray the Lord blesses them with peace. I also hope that Dr. Wolf is gently extolling his competing members to remember the greatest commandments. If they do, this might be a constructive campaign, maybe even a witness to the world.)
posted by JRB at 9:31 PM
7 Comments:
As I just posted in my final response to the "homily" post, the way we comport ourselves in matters of disagreement is one of the major ways that the church can be an alternative society in our culture today. Our politically charged dialog, guided by extremist pundits, fractures the ability of those who disagree to come tot he table. The church can and must model a different type of disagreement. Uniformtity and unity are different things. The church is called to unity in the midst of diversity, not to uniformity of thought.
Like most things in my life, my practice is catching up to my theology, but I keep saying this with and to people who love me and who I trust to hold me accountable to live into my theology. I hope and pray to hear good things about the way these two brothers comport themselves in the midst of this campaign season.
Bobby and several of his team members have become our good friends as well as friends of the law school (his wife, a retired judge, is also a JSL grad).
In fact, Bobby and Lynn are living in the downtown loft of my Hampstead colleagues, Anna Lowder and Harvi Sahota.
He's a huge supporter of smart growth and sustainable stewardship.
Which makes this race and especially tough one. Primarily because Montgomery has so few potentially equal options to replace Bobby were he to win the Congressional seat.
Much of the black community is in political disarray these days with other options being equally questionable. Meaning that, if Bobby leaves the Mayoral position, Montgomery is unlikely to get anyone close to a good as him for its new mayor (though current City Councillor Martha Roby would be a very interesting candidate).
The thing that I respect most of all about Bobby is that he really embodies the post-partisan candidate.
That is to say that, even though he opted to run as a party candidate (as opposed to being an independent which was on the table), he so defies the norms and party platform that he--regardless of affiliation--will be an independent voice that raises above inane party platforms and caucus line votes.
Tough call because, for those of us who love Montgomery and love post-partisanism, either way we lose...and win.
Chad, as much as it pains me to say it, I generally agree with you.
I don't think he's necessarily "post-partisan," he's certainly not a big-D Democrat and is not running a partisan campaign.
He will be hard to replace, and he's a good mayor. It's good for JSL to have him as mayor, but it'd be great to have JSL alum in Congress.
I'm supporting Bright for Congress, but it's an awfully red district for even the most conservative Democrat.
Roby is our council rep, and we like her a lot.
I have so little faith in we humans that when I got down to the part where JRB announced "They Go To Church Together" my only thought was something along the lines of this not ending well. I don't really want to be so cynical by I honestly can't imagine how a Democrat and Republican running against each other for a seat in Congress and attending church together doesn't somehow end in some heartbreak.
Please prove me wrong.
I'm holding out hope, but I see some danger coming. Ordinarily, we want to call for a campaign "about the issues," not the partisan politics. In this case, however, these guys have very little daylight between their planks.
They are both extolling the same virtues, but to win they must distinguish themselves. All they have to distinguish themselves are their biographies and personalities. Bright has the problem of being a Democrat running like Republican while JLuv is an actual Republican. JLuv is a Subway sandwich man, apparently with some generous family backing, while Bright is an up-by-the-bootstraps self-made man, from a cotton field, to the football field, to the police academy, law school and the mayor's office of the Capital City.
If they can stick to self-promotion, I think everything will be okay. The problem with personality campaigns, though, is the tendency to start observing the opponent's bio and personality. In trying to beat them, that almost automatically is negative, and that is the slippery, slippery slope.
It's especially dangerous, in my opinion, if JLuv sticks to his "Christian" theme, because the natural corollary is that the opponent is less Christian than he.
That's big trouble for the Sunday school class.
I just added an update in the post to Bright's first big TV ad, and, although the deep conservatism is striking for a Dem, I do think it is a very strong first outing, well produced, very well written and persuasive. If they can continue to strike this tone, it'll be a good campaign.
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