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Take Out Bonner and Bachus in Alabama

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 9th, 2012 at 02:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Last week, I bemoaned the fact that Alabama is one of the most conservative states, yet it sports a mediocre congressional delegation.  Alabama has one of the earliest congressional primaries; they will overlap with the presidential primary this coming Tuesday.  It turns out that several of the incumbents have primary challengers.

The one sane Republican in the state, Mo Brooks (CD-5) is being challenged by former Congressman and former Democrat Parker Griffith.  Obviously, we must support Brooks over Griffith.

In CD-1, Jo Bonner has several primary challengers.  This 5-term moderate once called the RSC budget cuts “misguided”  and eventually terminated his membership with the RSC.  He scored a 54% from Heritage Action last year.  The only challenger who has spent some money and has gained any traction is businessman Dean Young.  Although he has no record as an elected official, he has successfully fought against tax increases on  a local level and will clearly be more conservative than Bonner.

Then we have Spencer Bachus in the 6th district.  We don’t need an ethically-challenged supporter of big-government as the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.  This central Alabama district is perhaps the most conservative congressional district in the country.  If we’re going to reelect folks like Bachus from this district, we should just fold up shop.

The only viable candidate against Bachus appears to be state senator Scott Beason.  Beason has amassed one of the most conservative records in the Alabama legislature and is the sponsor of Alabama’s HB 56 anti-illegal immigration law.  His entire career has been marked by challenging the Republican establishment; he beat moderate incumbents for his house and senate seats.  He is not the type of guy to fall in line with leadership.

We learned last week from the defeat of Jean Schmidt that a small amount of effort can go a long way in a low-turnout primary.  It is in these districts that we must elect conservatives if we have any chance of securing a conservative majority to Congress some day.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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  • http://ridersonthestorm101.blogspot.com/ SE-779

    n/t

    • stumpy

      Some liberal is challenging her in the general, but Roby has no primary challenge.

  • Viet71

    n/t

  • tdwatts Watts

    There almost zero chance a Dem could get elected here in the 1st congressional district of Alabama, so it is a shame we can’t use William F. Buckley’s idea to choose the most conservative person that can get elected and have the House’s most conservative voice.

    The ony reason Bonner got the spot was that he was our previous represantive’s (Sonny Callahan’s) closest aid and personal choice.

  • votesmart

    Agree that Mo Brooks is the best Congressman in AL. His opponent thinks so too. See the cameo at the end of this short video on youtube.
    http://youtu.be/MTUBhn-KNdo

  • Jill1066

    I don’t know how Parker Griffith is funding his ads, but he’s been up on the air for weeks carpet-bombing Mo Brooks with negative ads using the tagline “Mo’s gotta go” very cleverly. Griffith was in the seat for one term, flipped from Democrat to Republican over Obamacare and then lost the last primary to Brooks who went on to win the seat. Brooks has only started to go up on air with fairly mild positive biography ads in the last week or so. He’s being drowned out on TV. Not sure how it will work out in the end, but Griffith is throwing a lot of stuff at Brooks and some of it is bound to stick.

  • stumpy

    floor with Griffith. He won handily last time in a three-way race, vastly outspent by Griffith, with Griffith having the power of incumbency and almost unanimous support of the national Republican leadership. That said, take no chances, get out the vote for Brooks.

    Beason has an uphill battle against Bachus’ money, but he has high name I’D, even though the establishment and media despise him.

    I wish we had a better conservative in the 4th. Aderholt is better than Bonner and Bachus, but not as good as Brooks. I haven’t heard about Toby, but I’ll find out. She beat a blue dog in 2010 and her district isn’t as Republican as some others.

    Unfortunately Alabama has historically been extremely resistant to changing politicians. I believe this is a caused from historically well entreched Democrat establishment and corruption and weak Republican party. The Republicans spent the period from the end of reconstruction to the mid-80′s as nonexistent, only revived by the radical liberalization of the national democrat party and state level corruption.

    We are again headed for decades of one party rule. There is only one democrat in star-wide office and she’ll be out this year. We have politicians switching parties like mad. This is all the more reason we need to cleanse and purify the Republican party. It will get harder as the dems keep switching over.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    I just got home from what was supposed to be a Townhall type meeting for Scott Beason that turned into more of a planning meeting for various reasons. Conventional wisdom is that the vote between Beason and Bachus will be close enough to cause a run off. If that happens, Beason should have the edge. Bachus has a lot more money and endorsements from around the state, but Beason has door knockers who are hitting areas hard. I’m walking for him tomorrow. Bachus has gone extremely negative on Beason – into smear territory on a personal level. Beason has attacked Bachus’ record, but is also running some good positive ads touting why you should vote FOR him. I am taking a little satisfaction in the fact that Bachus is having to spend part of his $1 million war chest on his campaign rather than save it for retirement.

    It appears that support among the group of very likely voters is split between Newt and Santorum, with Rick having the edge. I didn’t talk to anyone who is supporting Romney. There is a GOP event in Birmingham on Monday evening which Newt and Santorum both agreed to attend, and Romney and Paul declined. If I get to attend the event, I’ll comment on it Monday evening.

    Romney had a rally at a tractor supply company yesterday at which he was introduced by Randy Owens of the country group, “Alabama”. who got choked up and told the attendees that Romney was “one of us.” Romney immediately proved him wrong by thanking Owens and telling the crowd the only thing better would have been if Owen had sung his hit song “Sweet Home Alabama.” Any self-respecting Southerner knows the song belongs to Lynyrd Skynyrd even though Alabama recorded a version a few years ago. You’d think he could at least make a better effort at pretending. On a side note, Owens’ endorsement solidifies my distaste for Romney. I used to be a fan of the group until Owens’ associated himself with the ringleaders of those involved in the corrupt gambling mess over the last couple of years.

    Newt is holding a rally here in Birmingham this evening which I plan to attend. Santorum will be back in the state on Monday.

    Reports from friends across the state who have attended events for both Newt and Santorum say they’ve had good crowds.

    • westcoastpatriette

      The Monday evening event should be interesting. Look forward to hearing your analysis.

  • tigerwookie

    No primary surprises in either Alabama or Mississippi.
    See This news report