MOBILE — If Sam Jones‘ election in 2005 as Mobile’s first black mayor offered a preview of Barack Obama‘s national future, the question hanging over a reception at the International Trade Club was whether Obama’s victory had, in turn, opened a path for U.S. Rep. Artur Davis to become Alabama’s first black governor.
Davis had made his plans public in Birmingham days earlier. He followed that appearance with the Mobile reception, where roughly 100 area Democrats and members of the news media gathered to hear his introductory campaign address.
‘Alabama’s past does not have to dictate its future’
A skilled and at times eloquent speaker, Davis delivered a talk of 20 to 25 minutes that could fairly be distilled into a single sentence: Alabama’s past does not have to dictate its future.
His central theme was education. He called for a deeper commitment to the state’s schools, with corporations carrying a heavier share of the burden in exchange for a better-trained workforce. He returned repeatedly to a comparison that Alabamians feel in the bone.
“Alabama’s children deserve the best public school system we can possibly provide,” Davis said. “We can’t if we’re 42nd in the nation and bragging because we’re not 48th. That’s not the standard we have for our football teams. What we ask of our football teams is more rigorous than what we ask of our schools.”
If a parent chose a private school, he added, the reason should not be the failure of the public one. “It will be my job to see that the reason is not because the public school, the neighborhood school, is not good enough.”
The line that drew the warmest local applause was about the tanker: Mobile should and would get at least part of the $40 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. military.
The Obama parallel, spoken and unspoken
Davis did not draw the comparison explicitly, but it hung in the room. Many Alabama Democrats, including prominent African-American figures, had backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries because she could win. Now some Democrats expressed frustration that Davis might spoil the party’s chance to reclaim the governor’s office from two-term Republican Bob Riley behind a more conventionally electable nominee — Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. or Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks.
In both cases, the doubters skewed older and more established; the enthusiasts were newer to the political wars.
Davis’ answer was that he was not Obama, that Obama’s Alabama numbers were not his numbers, and that Obama’s Alabama campaign — in a state that never figured in the electoral college math — was not his campaign. Though Davis had chaired Obama’s Alabama effort, the nominee had brought neither his presence nor his money to the state.
Why Mobile
Davis said plainly that the Mobile area was crucial to his strategy, and the arithmetic supported him. Lt. Gov. Folsom arguably owed his 2006 victory over Republican Luther Strange to Mobile County, where his margin nearly matched his statewide margin of about 20,000 votes. If Davis could neutralize Folsom in Mobile, the congressman would likely be the Democratic nominee. And with prospective Republican candidates — Bradley Byrne, Jack Hawkins, Kay Ivey and Tim James — all carrying ties to Mobile, Baldwin or southwest Alabama, the region’s importance would carry into the general election.
The room
Longtime local Democrat and staunch Clinton supporter Pat Edington hosted the meet-and-greet. Davis paused his remarks to greet retired state Supreme Court Justice Douglas Johnstone, and credited him for service on a committee the congressman had assembled to recommend nominees for federal posts in Alabama under the new administration. He asked for applause for that committee’s recommendation for U.S. Attorney in Mobile: Vicki Davis (no relation), a former state district judge then serving as an assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. — Vicki Davis’ former boss — was among the few Democratic officeholders present, along with school board member Reginald Crenshaw and Chickasaw City Councilman Adam Bourne, who holds a nonpartisan seat. Former officials were plentiful: Johnstone, former Circuit Judge Herman Thomas, ex-Prichard Mayor A.J. Cooper, former Sheriff Tom Purvis, former county commissioner and state Sen. Gary Tanner, and former state Sen. Bob Edington. Republican school board member Judy Stout attended at the invitation of her churchmate Pat Edington, saying she had heard Davis speak on education and had been impressed.
A campaign, he said, unlike the others
Davis said his campaign would not be traditional, that he would not chase endorsements, and that his beliefs were partly conservative and partly liberal — so that hardcore partisans of either stripe would find something to dislike. He would settle for the 80 percent in between. Among the state’s urgent problems, he said, was its reliance on unpredictable revenue to fund basic services, a weakness the collapsing economy had thrown into glaring light.
And there was one more piece of business. The would-be historic candidate intended to imprint on the tongues of every television anchor in the market that the name is Artur — not Arthur.