There is no good reason in Alabama ever to elect anyone but the most conservative candidate you can get socially and fiscally. I hope Mo Brooks is one of these.
First to Maelstorm:
That you said that shows that you aren’t really familiar with how Alabama politics has historically worked. Historically, social conservatism and economic populism have always walked hand in hand in this state. It’s how Wallace ran the state as his own dominion for 25 years and how Hubbert has also managed to for the last 20.
The 5th district is perhaps the best example of this. Everyone in that district gets their power from a federal agency (TVA). Scores of workers are employed in Huntsville solely because of government agencies and their contractors (Griffith switched because of Obama’s scrapping of a NASA program).
They are against abortion, gun control and all the rest but campaigning on lean government is not how you win in the 5th. Brooks has historically been more of a social conservative than a fiscal one (although he has been a fiscal one) but there is a limit of how far right he can go on fiscal issues before he starts losing the NASA/federal employee/government contract vote because people in this district love federal spending and they love federal pork, they simply want it on things that put money in their pocket books.
And Minus, I understand where you and the Phillips supporters are coming from, I really do. However, the black political leadership just did in the first competitive black candidate for governor in the state because of the unspoken belief they have that this state couldn’t elect a black governor.
Just because Phillips was a conservative and a Republican it doesn’t mean he would have avoided a similar fate. Against Raby, Phillips would have struggled to break 35% because tea party or not, Obama or not, North Alabama is North Alabama and North Alabama whites have never shown themselves as ones to vote for black candidates for anything.