Taking the black vote for granted Alabama Democratic Party style

Kennedy has my support as long as he's opposed to Reed. Reed is the problem and as long as he's there, white Democrats in Alabama will continue to be on the endangered list. What Reed doesn't realize is that the money that used to come to the party is drying up and there is no budget for useless staffers any more.  yellerdog

What's down is up, what's up is down.  The republican party is reaching out to black voters while the Alabama Democratic Party is trying to figure out how to get rid of them.  It seems the Alabama Democratic Party is doing more than its fair share to ensure that Alabama remains a de facto one-party state under GOP dominance for decades to come.  Sigh

This is the headline that greeted me on al.com this morning.


Democratic Party Chair Mark Kennedy not bowing to Joe Reed's demand to rehire fired staffer

Reading past the headline,  ADP Executive Director and Kennedy confidant Bradley Davidson fired Felix Parker Jan. 7 from his $30,000 a year job as director of voter management. According to sources familiar with the firing, Parker was fired for several reasons but the only one Davidson would confirm was Parker's chronic absenteeism from the job, with Kennedy's blessings. 

Since efforts to reach Reed and Parker were not successful, and reporter Charles Dean couldn't wait to hear from them we don't have both sides of the story.  A quick google search for information about Felix Parker led me to this March 22, 2011 post/comment at Left in Alabama where it appears to have something to do with Kennedy's decision not to sell the voter list.

It may not make him popular with the insiders (4.00 / 1)

But the decision not to sell the voter list to candidates may help both candidates and the ADP. Candidates who have bought that list tell me it's full of holes and inaccuracies. Here locally the candidates have been working with OFA and hope to use THAT list in 2012.
Ideally, some campaign will merge the ADP and OFA files at some point, providing a more complete picture of Democratic voters throughout the state to the benefit of both organizations.
I know I have heard tremendous dissatisfaction from candidates about the fact that in the past, not only did they get little/no support from ADP, they had to pay for the voter list and it was not as advertised when they got it. More than one person has wondered in my hearing "what exactly Felix Parker does all day, because it sure isn't manage the voter file"
By providing the voter file gratis, Judge Kennedy starts off on the right foot with those who would run for office and helps make the Democratic party a positive presence in this state.

 So now we get down to the real nitty-gritty. It's about paying for the voter list, and it's about reaching out to donors who might be willing to give money to a reinvented Democratic Party.  Keyword reinvented.  And what does that mean exactly?  It means, getting rid of Reed and his bunch of people.

And what do you have if you get rid of Reed and his bunch of people?

The Dixiecrats were a political party organized in the summer of 1948 by conservative white southern Democrats committed to states' rights and the maintenance of segregation and opposed to federal intervention into race, and to a lesser degree, labor relations. The Dixiecrats, formally known as the States' Rights Democratic Party, were disturbed by their region's declining influence within the national Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats held their one and only convention in Birmingham.

What do black folks have to do to be included and treated as equals in the American political process?

The fight between Reed and Kennedy comes at a time when the party is struggling to find its way in a state that has now turned deep red. Republicans hold all state-wide elected offices for the first time since Reconstruction. Six of seven congressional seats are in the hands of the GOP and both state senators are Republicans.
Kennedy, a former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court and a man who had little history of deep involvement in party politics, was a surprised choice for chairman when he was tapped for the job two years ago. Kennedy inherited a party in financial debt and seemingly politically bankrupt in terms of its appeal to a majority of voters.

I guess it depends on what your definition of politically bankrupt IS Mr. Dean.  If standing up for democratic principals, i.e. equal rights, human rights, civil rights, women rights, LBGT rights, public education, and labor don't appeal to the majority of voters in Alabama that's too bad.  You get the Bats#it crazy you vote for.

What to do, and where to go? 

Ours is a different era, and I'm not suggesting that the old Southern strategy persists in unreconstructed form. The Republican Party's dominance among white Southerners is not based on the kind of raw, unambiguous race-baiting that we saw decades ago.
What I am saying is that the Republicans have made no serious effort to appeal to black voters. Such an initiative would begin with an acknowledgement of the specific problems that African Americans face -- including the legacy of centuries of oppression and discrimination -- and a proffer of policies to address those problems. But this would contradict the GOP's dogmatic stance that government should be severely limited in its ambition.

“It appears that my worst fears have been realized: we have made progress in everything, yet nothing has changed.”~Derrick Bell