LocustFork.Net Independent Online News Endorses Lucy Baxley

Gleaming casinos, jackpot gambling joints, rip-off check cashing outlets and the shells of pawn shops dot Alabama's growing suburban sprawl, while the countryside is a virtual pine plantation, except for the shiny new Wal-marts and auto plants, where non-union workers punch a clock and sell China's cheap goods and work the assembly line.

There are so many unemployed, underemployed and underpaid people in Alabama - with no form of health insurance at all - that the official unemployment statistics do not take them into account. Neither do most of the candidates running for public office in the June 6 primary, with one possible exception: Lucy Baxley.

This is a good time to be governor of Alabama? Maybe if you keep a strong drink close at hand and sleep well at night oblivious of guilt at the crumbling thing called American Democracy on your watch.

Alabama's next governor will face serious challenges, more serious than any of the pundits yet know, because there has been no serious discussion of the coming economic crisis, which will inevitably affect the state's economy, or the global warming crisis, which will impact the state's coast.

Gov. Bob Riley may be lucky, according to the Birmingham News, but if he is reelected, he might turn out to be unlucky. We suspect there is more to the Abramoff scandal than has come out to date, although we know Bob Riley's campaigns have been connected with the Native American casino money scandals. No news outlet in Alabama or the country has yet fully explored this scandal and all its tentacles.

Former Gov. Don Siegelman has been talking about it, and former Justice Roy Moore did make a stab at spelling it out on his Web site early on.

There is no doubt truth in Siegelman's claim that the prosecution against him is political, although we suspect he is responsible for bringing some of his troubles on himself by the way he did business. Maybe he did business the only way he could in an office he inherited from Fob James, and before him, Guy Hunt. And let's not forget George Wallace. The remnants of his political infrastructure are still evident in this state, and it can be found - if you get off the phone and pound the bushes in Alabama's hinterlands.

Riley should share no credit for saving the state's four major military bases, since Bush would have saved them in any event, considering his historical if sorted connections to Alabama dating back to 1972. Riley did stand up in the aftermath of Katrina, and no news organization has dug up any significant dirt on him ethically, except for some minor stabs at documenting his campaign contributions and connections to Abramoff.

To his credit, he did sort of shame the Legislature into giving a tax cut to the state's poorest citizens, but his administration seems ill-suited to mounting a massive effort to re-write the state's antiquated Constitution. With a Democratic Governor and majority Democrat Legislature, perhaps that challenge could be accomplished.

Riley may be the far better choice for Republican voters, maybe the only choice, but many of the out of touch with reality religious fanatics will vote for Moore.

In fact, we have it on good authority that some of Baxley's supporters are planning to cross over and vote for Moore, since he would be easier to beat in November. We think this is a dangerous strategy, since electing The Ten Commandments Judge would be an absolute disaster for the state in every embarrassing respect. And Ms. Baxley may need every vote she can get to beat Siegelman in the primary. From our forays into the hinterlands, Siegelman generates serious hardcore support.

Ms. Baxley is a strong, intelligent and experienced candidate who has served well as lieutenant governor and state treasurer. Many think her former husband, Bill Baxley, should have been elected governor in 1986, when he became embroiled in the scandal caused largely by Mobile's Charlie Graddick and the Birmingham News that resulted in the fluke election of Guy Hunt, surely one of the dumbest hicks to ever hold public office in Alabama.

Critics have pointed out rightly that Ms. Baxley's campaign so far has been short on specifics, and we hope that Ms. Baxley will learn the lesson between now and November that Democrats cannot reach high office without taking clear stands on key issues. She has proposed a ban on PAC to PAC transfers, where the lobbyists hide a huge chunk of the political money these days. We suggest a bold step toward public financing of elections at the state level. That is the only viable method that has been studied and would work to clean up the corporate dominance and corruption of our national and local politics.

Ms. Baxley has promised a Cabinet-level position to help small businesses and an expansion of state health insurance benefits for low- to moderate-income families and children.

She has agreed to consider a new technology initiative as part of the small business plan, and she has said she will fight for a clean environment when the battles come up with Republicans. We will hold her to those commitments if she wins the primary June 6 and the general election in November. We expect she will win the primary, and give the general election a good run. So we whole-heartedly extend our endorsement to Ms. Lucy Baxley in the Democratic Party primary on Tuesday.

As the second woman governor of the state and the only independent woman not connected to Wallace and the like, she just might be able to lead Alabama out of the dark ages of American politics into what historians and journalists have longed for since the early 20th century: A New South.