Democratic Platform Politics & Political News

By Jesse Chambers If you think of former Alabama governor John Patterson merely as a staunch defender of segregation in the state’s public schools during the tumultuous days of the Civil Rights movement, you may be surprised to learn that he was an enthusiastic supporter of Democratic nominee, and now President-Elect, Barack Obama in the recent presidential campaign. “I think the White House and the Republican leadership needs to be cleaned out, the quicker the better, and I think Obama is the guy to clean it out,” Patterson says. However, his support for Obama, the first African American elected to the nation’s highest office, should come as no surprise, according to Patterson. “A lot of people have me tagged as an arch-racist,” he says. “They’ve got it wrong. I have no problem supporting Barack Obama. I never grew up in a home with racist feelings.” Patterson also strongly defends the basic good nature of the inhabitants of the part of Alabama where he grew up in the 1920s and 1930s. “The country I come out of is Tallapoosa and Clay counties, and they…

While the national Republican Party steers a rudderless ship, can these young Alabamians craft a message for the GOP’s next chapter? by Atticus Rominger photos by Jason Wallis With a fading voice in the House and the Senate and a White House out of reach for at least four years, the Republican Party is struggling to find a cohesive message, a messenger, and an interested audience. In Alabama, a state still strongly in the red column, the next generation of Republican leaders has not lost hope. They are taking on the old guard, challenging old ideas and crafting a strategy for taking a new message to a new generation. Can these young Republicans gain traction fast enough to save the Grand Old Party? Name: Jeremy S. Walker Age: 28 City: Montgomery Profession: Attorney at Haskell, Slaughter, Young, LLC Republican Creds: Chairman, Capital City Young Republicans; Executive Board, Montgomery County, Alabama Republican Party His take: When this University of Alabama football player-turned-budding trial lawyer talks to other young Republicans, at a county meeting or a gathering in D.C., he says “It’s got to be…

The Plight of Tigers in Alabama By Keith Thomson Photos by Jason Wallis One sunny day last February, Joe Murphy, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society’s animal cruelty investigator, was called to Winfield, a town 80 miles northwest of Birmingham whose 4,700 residents live in relatively close proximity. In the backyard of a two-acre property there, he found a 500-pound tiger and a slightly larger lion. Both lay in cramped cages surrounded by mounds of excrement and old deer carcasses. The scene was nothing unusual. The California-based Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalitionestimates as many as 7,000 tigers are currently kept as pets in the United States—that’s more tigers than currently inhabit all the wilds of Asia. In addition, American homes host a total of as many as 20,000 big cats (principally tigers, lions, leopards and cougars), and, of note, 3,000 great apes. And those numbers would be far higher if most states didn’t require licenses to keep exotic pets. Alabama is one of ii states with virtually no regulation on the possession or care of such animals. Even within Birmingham city limits, if you…

Glen Browder thinks our civil rights history is missing something. According to the former Alabama congressman, assigning all credit for progress on racial issue to the movement of the 1950s and 60’s and subsequent organized human rights activities is to engage in gross oversimplification of deeply complicated matters. Now Professor Emeritus of American Democracy at Jacksonville State University, Browder points to what he terms “stealth reconstruction” as a prime factor in the South’s movement toward a new political order that has materialized, gradually and sometimes painfully, over the past four decades. That progress, he argues, has come about in part as a result of biracial accommodation and compromise—much of it outside the public eye—that followed the protests, boycotts, and marches. “The change we see in the South today was not produced by the Civil Rights Movement alone,” says Browder. “Throughout the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s there were conscious efforts by white and black politicians and activists to work together to change the Southern political system. To a significant extent, this was done by stealth, through quiet, practical biracial politics that achieved relatively progressive…

Why Artur Davis says that “The New Black Politician” is impervious to the old classifications By Atticus Rominger, Photos by Bryan Johnson THICKET: You’ve been labeled a “bipartisan congressman,” as well as a member of a “new wave” of black politicians, is that accurate? Artur Davis: I’m not big on labels. THICKET: Why not? AD: I don’t think they capture the complexity of the public debate. And yet, that doesn’t stop Artur Davis from riding a wave of public attention focused on the nation’s young African-American politicians. On the day of my interview with him, the Democratic Congressman from Alabama’s 7th District had just taped a documentary segment with former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel. The day before, PBS moderator Gwen Ifill interviewed him for a new book. The subject of both interviews: the Rise of the New Black Politician. Even Davis himself, Alabama’s only black congressman, is quick to compare himself with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, New York Governor David Patterson, and former Senator Harold Ford, Jr., of Tennessee. All are young, well-educated black Democrats (Davis graduated cum laude from Harvard). All, Davis…