It cannot get much worse for Democrats in Alabama.
The November elections confirmed what many already knew: Alabama is as close to a one-party state as any in America. In Massachusetts and Maryland, Republican candidates for governor bucked longstanding statewide political trends to win four years in the governor’s mansion. In Virginia, a has-been former RNC chair came within a hair’s breadth of upending one of the most popular politicians in the Commonwealth’s history in the U.S. Senate race there. In West Virginia, Republicans ended the Democratic hegemony in the House of Delegates, which had gone unbroken for 80 years (also noteworthy for an 18-year old being elected to that body).
In each of these states, the party out of power either stormed to victory in the general election or made the race competitive. It would have been nice to see something like that in Alabama, but it was not to be. Of course, how could it have turned out any different? There was no Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat. There were no Democratic candidates for any of the seats on the Alabama Public Service Commission. There was no Democratic candidate for State Treasurer. And while there was technically a Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, she had no campaign, no signage, and no visibility. There was an organization called the Alabama Democratic Majority which promised to target legislative races to break the Republican supermajority….and then they folded. And in a predictable move, the Democratic National Committee said “thanks, but no thanks” to hosting their 2016 convention in Birmingham.
Just when you thought it could not get more embarrassing to be an Alabama Democrat, news comes out that the state party chair, former State Treasurer Nancy Worley, did her best Cousin Eddie impression in the end-of-the-year message that she sent out to Alabama Democrats.
Kinda makes you wonder about the people who put her in the position to be party chair in the first place, huh?
The South Lawn 