I wonder what issues Shelby ran on, and whether he ran to Denton's left or pretended to be as conservative or more conservative than him, despite being the RAT party nominee.
In any case, Shelby showed his true colors pretty quickly, joining the national Dems efforts to destroy Robert Bork in '87.
Sucks we've been stuck with this turd for 30 years. Shelby is a classic example of a finger-to-the-wind politician who only cares about doing what is 'popular at' the time.
1986 was when a lot of Class of ‘80ers were brought down, unfortunately. Republicans Mack Mattingly, Jeremiah Denton, Paula Hawkins and James Broyhill (appointed after John East’s suicide) were all the Southerners who lost (the other 3 were from the Dakotas and Slade Gorton in WA, who would reclaim the other open seat 2 years later).
Shelby lucked out partly by keeping then-Sec of State Don Siegelman out of the Dem primary race and then went nuclear on the son of the previous occupants, Jim Allen, Jr. (although still barely avoiding a runoff). Because Denton was untouchable as a war hero and POW, he had to attack him on other issues in the general, and went after him on the usual boilerplate Democrat issues of class warfare (cutting Social Security, voting to raise the pay of Senators), but he hammered the Admiral for (gasp !) owning TWO Mercedes-Benzes. Ironically, 7 years later, Mercedes-Benz would announce its intention to open a plant and its international HQ in Alabama. Shelby won by just over 1%.