Local Democrats crank up the campaign engines
By Chip Drago
Mobile Bay Times
Out-takes from the Saturday, Jan. 12 meeting of the Mobile Area Democratic Association monthly meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) 505 on Halls Mill Road.
Speaking for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were:
- Dr. Joe Reed, longtime head of the Alabama Democratic Caucus and second banana to Dr. Paul Hubbert at the Alabama Education Association;
- Pat Edington, Democratic stalwart and longtime Clinton ally;
- Prospective Clinton delegate in the upcoming presidential primary Skip Brutkiewicz, a local attorney;
- Bill Clark, retired state legislator and educator who is also running as a Clinton delegate;
- Pamela Modling Baker, school teacher and former official in the administration of former Gov. Don Siegelman, and another Democrat hoping to attend the party convention as a delegate for Clinton.
Brutkiewicz said he cast his first presidential vote in 1972 for George McGovern and "I've been voting for Democrats ever since." He lauded Clinton's familiarity with foreign leaders as key to "ending this horrible war in the Middle East" and restoring U.S. credibility in the world.
"Personally, for me I would love to go to the Democratic National Convention and be able to tell my grandkids I was there to nominate Hillary Clinton as the first woman president of the United States," he said.
Reed delivered a lengthy discursion on the achievements of the Democratic Party over the years -- students loans, the GI bill, labor laws, Medicare, Medicaid -- and the often crucial role played in those achievements by Alabama Democrats, among them John Sparkman and Lister Hill.
He said nay-sayers have criticized some of the social programs as "tainted," to which one beneficiary reportedly responded, "Yeah, just t'aint enough of it."
"The reason we organize is to achieve goals together that we can't achieve alone," he said. "The Democratic Party is the party of working folks, not the rich and the wealthy. Mind you, I'm not saying that Democrats need to be poor."
All Alabamians, not just Democrats, ought to make a pilgrimage of thanks to Sparkman's grave, said Reed, because his efforts and those of the Democratic Party are "how we've got what we've got."
"George Wallace said 'there's not a dime worth of difference' between the two parties," said Reed. "I say there is a dollar's worth of difference and that's why I'm a Democrat."
Jim Allen, Carl Elliott, Frank Boykin -- the list of Democratic leaders in Alabama runs deep, said Reed.
"Alabama has benefited from the Democratic Party and Alabama could benefit now," he said.
Reed said he was pleased that the presidential race remained wide-open even after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.
"I never thought one or two states could or should decide who would be president," he said. "I don't think two should make or break anything. All 50 states ought to decide (the issue)."
"I remember when Paul Hubbert told me he was running for governor," Reed recalled. "We'd been together 30 years. I told Paul he was not my first choice for governor. He said, 'what do you mean I'm not your first choice?' I said, 'I'm my first choice for governor. The only reason I'm not running is I can't win.'"
That anecdote, he said, explains why the ADC is backing Clinton.
"First, because she can win; and second, because it would be good for Alabama and good for the nation," Reed said. "She knows the land, the international land. She has a record of good service to common people. There's no harm in it that she can talk to a former president everyday if she wants to."
Clinton's ability to win the White House was paramount, he said.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing's more important than beating the Republicans," said Reed, noting that he would be attending his 11th convention since 1968 in Chicago. "It's much easier for a black to be for Obama than for Hillary Clinton, but I'm for this country first. I'm for someone who can beat the Republicans. I believe I know who the Republicans would rather run against and it's not Hillary."
He encouraged the 60 or so in attendance to maintain faith in the political process, but reminded them that with "all faith and no work, you're lost."
Edington recounted her chilly experience in Iowa on behalf of Clinton.
A member of the Clinton steering committee, Edington said she instructed the campaign to send her anywhere to work for Clinton. They took her at her word and off to Dunlop, Iowa, went Edington.
"We (she and Darby Luxenberg) said send us anywhere and that's where they sent us -- Dunlop, Iowa," she said. "It was one of 36 field offices and it covered six counties. It was like having a big headquarters in Atmore with no big towns anywhere around."
"Next time I'll ask that they send me to Florida, not Iowa," she said. "I'm glad I went but I don't want to go back again."
Edington suggested the snow drifts and the one, two and three degree temperatures especially suppressed the Clinton vote because her support was much greater among older voters who were more hobbled by the harsh weather.
One positive she took from the Iowa experience, said Edington, was the degree of organization of the Clinton campaign.
"Hillary Clinton is really organized and her campaign will be organized everywhere," said Edington.
What has become apparent to the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire is the importance of mobilizing women voters for Clinton, said Edington.
The female vote is critical to the Clinton campaign which will not make the blunder that the (John) Kerry campaign made in 2004, she said.
"Kerry needed to stop talking about Vietnam," Edington said. "He needed to talk to women about what they wanted to hear about -- education, children's rights, health care."
Ex-state Rep. Bill Clark said, "Hillary Clinton is the best bet to win and rule number one is to win and put a Democrat in the White House."
Democratic congressional hopeful Ben Lodmill addressed MADA.
Advice that he would be merely "a sacrificial lamb" on the altar of Republican U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner's re-election had only "stiffened my spine," said Lodmill, 36, who spent his formative years in Alabama but is a political newcomer to the area.
"I've called myself a moderate Democrat," said Lodmell. "I believe in a balanced budget. I believe in a sound economic policy. I believe that free trade in general makes the economy grow."
Lodmell said the media, white churches and the chamber have slammed doors in his face. A local civic club refused to accept the transfer of his membership, he said. (A black church in Prichard, however, granted him the pulpit recently.)
"I am for social justice and I'm against corruption," said Lodmell. "There is no social justice and there is no sound policy in Washington."
Lodmell said political action committees were integral in corrupting the democratic process, so he would accept no PAC dollars.
"I believe in people," Lodmell said. "Jo Bonner believes in money. That's the difference between us."
Lodmell, who has been an executive in international banking and with a children's charity, said he had been campaigning full-bore since July.
"I don't have a day job," he said. "I spent Christmas Day at the Food Tiger in Monroeville. Isn't that right, honey? (acknowledging his wife, Leleca, in the back of the union hall.)"
"It's a ridiculously corrupted system, but that's going to change," Lodmell said. "There is a long tradition of Dixiecrats and I'm going to defy them. I'm not going to be talking like some mealy-mouthed politician. I'm going to answer your questions even if you don't like what I have to say."
Lodmill said he was "focused on Jo Bonner's throat" and he wasn't in the race to become "a socialite."
"I'm going to send Jo Bonner back to that 3,000-acre farm he bought," said Lodmell. "Money has corrupted the political system."
Bonner had no immediate response to Lodmell's remarks, but his camp has previously declined to "dignify" the opponent's attacks.
Chris Liddell-Westefeld, an articulate young native of Auburn just in town from Iowa, attended and spoke on behalf of the Barack Obama campaign.
A field organizer, Liddell-Westefeld said he had arrived to open the Obama campaign office here.
He said Obama's victory in Iowa proved beyond all doubt that the senator's appeal was sufficient to win a national election. Further, his early opposition to the war in Iraq and his commitment to social justice were qualities that would incline voters to send him to the White House.
"Race is no longer a barrier to election," said Liddell-Westefeld. "If he can win in Iowa, he can win anywhere."
When political common sense argued for silence on U.S. involvement in Iraq, Obama had "the political guts to say we shouldn't go in there," said Liddell-Westefeld.
Liddell-Westefeld said the Obama headquarters would open shortly.
MADA President Vance McCrary said state Sen. Vivian Figures was unable to attend the meeting Saturday because it conflicted with a Talledega fundraiser that was not related to her Democratic bid to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions.
