Thursday Carl Carter (D) kicked off his general election campaign for state Senate in his hometown of Moody with a pizza and cookies party at the Moody Civic Center. U.S. House candidate and 2013 Miss America Mallory Hagan (D) also attended the very rare Democratic Party event in Moody.
Carl Carter is running for State Senate in District 11 against incumbent Senator Jim McClendon (R-Springville).
Carter introduced his wife, Kathy, “She keeps me sane.” “I am a public relation coordinator and strategist.”
“I have gotten tired of hearing that you can’t get St Clair County folks out for a Democrat,” Carter said. “The number of people voting in the Democratic primary 9in St. Clair County) was 51 percent higher than it was in the Doug Jones Primary. Somebody who asked for a Democratic primary ballot out here is really hardcore. I think we can win this I really do.”
“We have 117 days,” Carter said. “It is a challenge. I am running against the Chair of the Redistricting Committee so you can imagine how the lines are drawn. This district is just huge.” It goes from here, almost to Talladega, then down to Sylacauga and back to Alabaster. “They are not making it easy.”
“The current officeholder takes over $90,000 a year just in PACs,” Carter said. “The last time I looked he had almost $300,000. He has contributions from the Koch brothers, ALFA, the Business Council. He has $281,000 and nothing to do but bury me in signs. Even with all of that money he can’t stop people like you and me going out and knocking on doors and that is how we are going to win this election.”
“The number one things I am talking about is the grocery tax,” Carter said. “A lot of states don’t charge a tax on groceries. We have got 9.5 percent. I think that is immoral and I think that has got to change. A lot of that is city and county tax. Four percent of that is state. We can change that.”
Carter also said that he supports a lottery.
“I spent all day with Walt Maddox (Mayor of Tuscaloosa and Democratic gubernatorial candidate) on Monday and he is going to run strong,” Carter said. “He is going to make sure that we finally get our people a chance to vote on the lottery. That will give us the funds to finally give our teachers a decent raise. Jim McClendon and the other Senators gave them a 2.5 percent raise in an election year. One 2.5 percent raise in ten years.”
Carter added that the best teachers have left for other states to get more money.
“I think the kids in Odenville, Moody, and Springville deserve just as good a teachers as the kids in Mountain Brook,” Carter continued.
Mallory Hagan told Carter: “We appreciate all the work you have done to make this happen. I have not spent that much time in St Clair County to this point.”
On her campaign, Hagan said, “This has been the most fun experience that I have ever had doing anything in my 29 years.”
“It is amazing to see our country so energized particularly the Democrats,” Hagan said. “But that means that the money, the boots on the ground are tremendously fragmented. We need to make sure everybody gets out and everybody votes.”
Carter asked for volunteers and said, “We are going to be canvassing up and down Moody, Odenville, Argo every week. We will be having our first canvassing on Saturday the 21st in two different counties.”
