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On the ballot in Limestone County on Tuesday, aside from the race for president of the country, there were two Democrats running for office.
In Madison County, there were three Democrats … and six Libertarians.
There was no one to challenge Republicans for state judgeships. Six different appeals court judgeships went unchallenged. Four Alabama Supreme Court associate justice positions were left unchallenged by Democrats. Remarkably, no one challenged Public Service Commission president Twinkle Cavanaugh after a few years of everyone in the entire state complaining about high electric, gas and phone bills.
This is not the way to regrow a party.
Of all the complaints I have with the Alabama Democratic Party – and there are many – there is one that stands above all others: The apparent inability of party officials to recruit and run candidates.
Any candidates.
Hell, I’m not even asking for qualified candidates, although they would be preferred. Just give people an option. Let them know you’re alive and trying. Give the folks who keep sticking with this party a little hope that maybe the future holds something better.
Because those blank spots on the ballot underneath all of those Republican names, whew, that’s a tough pill to swallow. And an even tougher check to write for most people.
Donors can accept fighting and losing. They can’t accept not trying.
After all, who wants to support a party that can’t field candidates? It’s like supporting a football team that consistently fails to recruit enough players.
But it’s also about more than just party health. It’s about the state of life in this state.
We have a lot of problems in Alabama. From education to health care to prison abuse to gambling, we’ve screwed up pretty much everything in one way or another. And it is more than apparent that the conservative lawmakers running this joint can’t fix it.
They’ve been in power forever – no matter if they once called themselves Democrats and are now Republicans – and we’ve always been, as one former Republican governor put it, last in everything good and first in everything bad.
Just look at health care. Ever since the passage of Obamacare, the Republicans in this state have been steadfastly opposed to Medicaid expansion and have promised endlessly to concoct a better system that can be utilized in this state.
More than a decade later, we’ve got nothing but empty buildings where hospitals once operated. We’ve lost astounding numbers of doctors and nurses to neighboring states. We’ve allowed treatable illnesses among the working poor to fester into debilitating illnesses, hurting our workforce and leading to the senseless deaths of thousands.
And still, here we sit, with 19 more hospitals operating at a loss and on the verge of closure, and no hope in sight from the ruling party.
I’d bet at least some of the folks in the towns where all of those hospitals have closed would like to have an option on their ballots for a candidate who might address that issue, who might have better ideas, who might explain that there are better ways.
Will that Democratic candidate be elected? Maybe, maybe not. But each time you hammer that message, each time you engage with voters and they learn of other options out there, each time you bring in money from new donors, you spread that message a little farther. You push people to start asking questions.
Just look what happened in the race for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic candidate Shomari Figures beat Republican Caroleene Dobson. With Figures pushing the issue of expanding Medicaid, leading conversations about it on the campaign trail and informing voters of the way his plan would benefit them and their towns, Dobson eventually agreed and said she, too, wanted Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to explore expansion.
Even had Figures lost, that solution to a serious Alabama problem would not have been lost. The people would know that there’s another option.
But if there’s no one out there spreading that message, nothing gets done. Ever. Because complacency is the normal setting in this state.
Alabama has struggled with one-party dominance for decades now, and it’s a big reason why the state has so many issues. Too many people are forgotten and marginalized because we don’t have competitive political races that force candidates to listen to a wide range of views and work to solve problems that face all voters. Those conversations are vitally important in a representative democracy.
But you’ll never have them if one party can’t even put candidates on the ballot.
