EYE don't condone the Bloomberg endorsement but EYE understand the Bloomberg endorsement

By J.D. Crowe | jdcrowe@al.com

So, the white male-dominated Alabama media have their knickers in knots because Joe Reed's ADC endorsed former New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg for President in the Democratic primary.  The same white male-dominated media who give Senator Doug Jones a pass for voting to confirm William Barr Attorney General of the United States of America and who bucked his party to vote with Republicans 53% of the time his first year in office and 36% of the time his second year in office.  The same Senator we have to wonder if he is going to pander to the right and throw his base under the bus every time there is an important vote.  But EYE digress.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

With the prodding of Sen. Doug Jones, the national party ordered the Alabama party to change bylaws that ensured Reed’s permanent lock on the executive committee. England’s son, state Rep. Chris England, won a party election for chair, which most ADC members boycotted.
It seemed, for a moment, Reed’s hold on the state party had broken.
Then comes Bloomberg.

Let's recap 

This whole saga started last August, when Jones led a failed coup of the Alabama Democratic Party during its election of officers, including an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Chairwoman Nancy Worley. Worley was the preferred choice of the Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC), which is known as the “black political caucus” of the state party.
Since then, formal challenges about that election were filed with the DNC, which is now attempting to force the state party to hold a new election of officers and drastically change the structure of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) in a manner which would include less African Americans.

Fast Foward 

The two sides in a dispute over the leadership and governance of the Alabama Democratic Party will go to court-ordered mediation next week.
Representatives of factions loyal to Alabama Democratic Party chair Christopher England and former chair Nancy Worley should meet for mediation in Montgomery on Feb. 6. Meanwhile, Worley, who does not recognize the actions of the England group, has called a meeting of the executive board of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) on Feb. 7.

 Back to the future

Joe Reed, the chair of the Alabama Democratic Conference and vice-chair for minority affairs in the state party, said he believed the State Democratic Executive Committee's (SDEC) move in November to elect new leadership and remove Worley and vice-chair Randy Kelly violated a 1991 agreement governing the representation of African-Americans on the SDEC.

"I think it's time for us to go into federal court, because they're violating a federal court order," he said.

The past is prologue 

The feud began last August, when Jones made known he wanted Worley to step aside. But Worley ran for another term — beating back the entire slate Jones supported.
“He went after Nancy’s seat. He lost,” said Joe Reed, a civil rights veteran who heads the Alabama Democratic Conference, the state’s principal African American Democratic club, and Worley’s most powerful ally. “Doug’s slate lost. He came back. He got with Perez. They then came up with a scheme to challenge Nancy’s election.”
Two groups of Alabama Democrats did challenge the election results, and Worley’s handling of the meeting, in an official complaint lodged with the DNC. A detailed report found a series of rules and parliamentary violations and raised questions about the accuracy of the vote count.
In February, after that investigation, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee vacated the August election results and ordered the state Democratic Party to come up with new bylaws meant to increase representation of minority and members of the LGBT community among party leadership.

It's about controlling the black vote

But in Bloomberg, Reed has a special opportunity: A viable candidate who needs his help.
Bloomberg has bypassed the first four states, putting all his effort into Super Tuesday states, of which Alabama is one.

The Alabama Democratic Conference which represents the majority of the membership of the Alabama Democratic Party is under constant and sustained attack from the minority.  evidently, Mike Bloomberg offered a lifeline.

I have spoken to three black NYC political operatives who are quietly thinking about joining the campaign, which is gaining momentum, hiring nationwide, and paying top dollar. These aren’t mercenaries but self-defined pragmatic progressives who believe Bloomberg has the best chance at an electoral victory against Trump in November. I have spoken to a friend who says his black fraternity’s message boards—full of college-educated black men of diverse financial backgrounds, in various professional sectors, living in towns and cities across the country—are full of favorable talk about Bloomberg. As I’m writing this on a trip to Los Angeles, I was surprised to hear my friends here—a diverse group of fortysomething progressives in different professions and from different backgrounds—saying not only that they thought Bloomberg could win but they were inclined to support him."

"A lifeline is not pretty or perfect "

EYE am just saying