Stephen Nodine almost ran for mayor of Mobile, Ala. last summer on a platform of eradicating an out-of-control increase in crime in the coastal city.
Fast-forward to last week, though, and Nodine, a Republican county commissioner who harbored aspirations for higher office, was named the only suspect in the murder of his mistress, who was found dead at her beach condo with a gunshot to the temple. That’s not to mention Nodine was also impeached by a grand jury in recent days after a months-long investigation into why marijuana was found in his county-owned truck. He has also been accused of using that truck to cross state lines to illegally buy nearly 2,000 painkiller pills. His wife filed for divorce last week.
Yet Nodine, whose nickname is “the hammer,” is not the only one who has made Alabama politics during an election year a spectator sport.
Take Judge Herman Thomas, a Democrat.
The former Alabama circuit court judge — after a summer trial that was the subject of both gossip in southern Alabama and national news stories — was acquitted of charges of checking male inmates out of jail for sex in return for reduced sentences. He was said to have spanked the inmates with paddles in a hidden private office at the courthouse. Semen from the male accusers was found in his office. Still, he was acquitted by an Alabama jury.
Fast-forward to now: Thomas may be disbarred from practicing law, but the former judge is now a candidate for the Alabama State Senate. On Tuesday, he was endorsed by the Alabama Democratic Conference, the oldest black political organization in the state.
On to the governor’s race. How can you not mention the TV ads?
Gubernatorial candidate Tim James, whose dad Fob served as governor for years, fired up MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and members of the liberal blogosphere with his English-only ad.
“This is Alabama. We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it,” James says in the ad, criticizing the state for offering driver’s license exams in 12 languages. His poll numbers in Alabama immediately increased.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ohsvJHkbYThen, his chief rival for the Republican nomination for governor, Bradley Byrne was attacked in an ad by the True Republican PAC for his views on religion, including his support for the teaching of evolution in schools. Byrne claimed the PAC was phony — an invention of Democratic Party and education union in the state trying to keep him from winning the primary.
The national media had a heyday with the story that a candidate in Alabama was accused of not being supportive enough of creationism.
And then there’s Dale Peterson, a Republican candidate for agricultural commissioner. In an ad that went viral across the internet this week, the gun-toting, horse riding Alabamian says he’s taking it to the “thugs and criminals” who wastefully spend the commission’s grant money. “Alabama ag commissioner is one of the most powerful positions in Alabama,” Peterson says in Alabama twang. “Responsible for $5 billion. I bet you didn’t know that.”
Also in the governor’s race is Rep. Artur Davis, a Democrat aiming to be the first black governor of the state. You may recall Davis was told by black leader Jesse Jackson that he couldn’t call himself “a black man” after the congressman voted against President Obama’s health-care bill.
“We even have blacks voting against the health-care bill from Alabama,” Jackson said. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
Jackson later walked back the comments.
And how can you forget Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore, who is also running for the Republican nomination for governor? Moore, of course, was removed from office as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court after refusing to move a large, stone Ten Commandments monument he placed in the state judicial building.
Alabama Democrat turned Republican, Rep. Parker Griffith, managed to do something not many in the state could do: He brought together strange bedfellows, like the Huntsville Tea Party, the Alabama A&M University Democrats Student Club, the Madison County Republican Executive Committee and the AFL-CIO.
Why? Griffith became a Republican in December, alienating a host of people in the process. With differing reasons — but aligned with discontent for Griffith — the groups united in March to protest a Huntsville fundraiser for the party switcher, hosted by House Minority Leader John Boehner.