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The chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party bristled at the notion that ADP is “a disaster,” and that he should resign or be replaced, and said that in reality the party’s in its best shape in years and has “more money than ever before.”
Randy Kelley’s comments came in response to criticisms of party leadership made by former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones last week, and Kelley had choice words for Jones. During an interview on the Alabama Politics This Week podcast, Kelley called Jones “nothing but a hustler” and said that after his orchestrated takeover of the party, there was little progress made.
“All of them … it was just a gravy train for them,” Kelley said of the ADP staff between 2019 and 2022. “If they had director behind their name, I was informed that they had a six figure salary and the (former executive director) was making $150,000. They had no get-out-the-vote strategy. They had suffered a terrible election during that period of time where they didn’t win anything.
“So, here you got a man here is condemning my leadership where I took over the party, didn’t have no money. No staff, no get-out-the-vote mechanism. In fact, the first day we did more than they did in four years. We have now a good staff. We have more money than we ever had in the history of the party.”
The back-and-forth between Kelley and Jones is the latest in a long-running saga that has enveloped the ADP and left it – in the eyes of many outsiders – a smoldering mess. And there seems to be no end in sight – to either the infighting or the party’s irrelevancy.
Asked about a noticeable lack of Democratic candidates on the ballot in November’s general election, Kelley chalked it up to good candidates not being willing to run because of Alabama’s racism and gerrymandering.
“No one wants to run in a district where they don’t have a chance,” Kelley insisted.
When pressed on how the party could ever regain relevance without candidates venturing into all areas of the state to spread the party’s messages and lay the necessary networking and fundraising groundwork for future successes, Kelley responded: “Have you ever thought about running? Why don’t you try running and see if you can win?”
Candidate recruitment and fundraising have each suffered, at least in part, due to the continued bickering between the warring factions of ADP, with Jones and his supporters on one side and Kelley, Alabama Democratic Conference chairman Joe Reed and their supporters on the other. And in the middle, held hostage by the situation, are the rest of the Democrats, several independents and disillusioned centrist Republicans.
That doesn’t appear to be getting better anytime soon. When asked if the party currently has a plan to fight back against the decade of supermajority rule by Republicans and start to turn the tide, Kelley responded with a question of his own: “When has there ever been a plan?”
To hear Kelley’s interview, go to the Alabama Politics This Week website or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
