Shelby won an uphill battle to unseat Jeremiah Denton

Staff — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:23:29 +0000

Alabama’s leading Political Columnist Steve Flowers

Our Senior U.S. Senator Richard Shelby will begin his sixth six-year term in January. He is an Alabama treasure. Over the past 30 years as our Senator he has brought millions of federal dollars home to Alabama.
Richard Shelby currently reigns as Alabama’s most prominent political figure. He is one of Alabama’s three greatest Senators in history along with Lister Hill and John Sparkman. Shelby is easily one of the most influential political figures in the nation.
Shelby has had a perfectly scripted rise to political power and acclaim. In 1970 at age 35, he entered politics and was elected to the State Senate from Tuscaloosa. He ran for an open seat in Congress in 1978 and won. In 1986 he rolled the dice, gave up his safe congressional seat and took on an incumbent Senator.
In 1986, Shelby was a 50-year-old Congressman a Democrat who had a stellar conservative voting record. He was safe in his U. S. House seat. Therefore, his decision to challenge an incumbent U. S. Senator was a gamble. His friends cautioned him that it was an uphill battle and he should not risk his safe House seat. His basic reply was, “I’m one of 435 in congress, given the rules of seniority, it will be 20 more years before I can chair a committee or subcommittee. They don’t even know my name up here. I’m either going to the Senate and be somebody, or I’m going home and make money.”
One factor that the average political observer was not aware of that Shelby probably sensed was that his congressional district was destined to be the first African-American district after reapportionment in 1990. That is what happened to Shelby’s 7th District.
Although it would be a daunting task to upset an incumbent, U. S. Senator, Jeremiah Denton had written a textbook on how to lose a Senate seat during his six-year term. Denton was elected as Alabama’s first Republican Senator since Reconstruction in 1980. He was swept into office on the coattails of Ronald Reagan who carried Alabama in a landslide. Alabamians knew very little about Denton except that he had been a naval officer and a well-known national POW in the Vietnam War. His patriotic hero position sold well in Alabama, especially with Reagan headed to the White House.
Yet Shelby beat Denton. It was close and Shelby had to spend some of his personal money the last week of the campaign to carry out the upset, but Alabama has been the better for Richard Shelby’s 1986 gamble. He was been reelected in 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010 and now in 2016.
I had the opportunity to fly back from Washington with and visit with Shelby a few years after his 1986 victory. He told me the inside story of the last six days of that campaign that illustrates how important money and media are in today’s modern politics.
When he decided to run against Denton, he knew the importance of money to a campaign. He also knew that it was essential to get the best media guru regardless of the price. Therefore, he spared no expense and got the best pollster and media people in America. About six days out, he was six points behind. The pollster told him to put $100,000 of TV ads in the Birmingham market using a certain ad and it would raise him two points. He did and it did. The next day the media man and the pollster told him to spend $50,000 on TV ads in the Mobile market using a certain ad and it would give him a one point boost. He did and it did. The next day the pollster told him to run a certain ad in the Huntsville market and spend $60,000 and it would raise him a point. He did and it did. Two days out the pollster told him to run a certain ad in both Birmingham and Montgomery and it would raise him by three points. He did and it did.
He won by one point. I suspect the ad most suggested by the pollster and the media guys was the one where Denton was saying he didn’t have time to come home and kiss babies’ butts.
See you next week.

Our friend Steve Flowers’ column on Alabama politics appears weekly on ShoalsInsider.com.

This Week in Alabama Politics: “Shelby has been stalwart appropriator for Alabama”

Staff — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 00:07:39 +0000

Alabama’s leading Political Columnist Steve Flowers

We are only a few weeks away from our March 1st primary. We have an early primary date this year due to the fact that we are in the SEC Presidential Primary. Therefore, we will have some say in who will be the GOP and Democratic nominees.

Indeed, the presidential fray, especially on the Republican side, has been the center of attention. However, we do have some statewide races on the ballot this year. Albeit they are not very interesting or competitive.
Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh should waltz to reelection to her post. She has served six years on the PSC. The last four as president of the utility regulatory panel.

Only one member of our super Republican State Supreme Court is up for election and has opposition. Justice Tom Parker should coast to reelection.

In the second congressional district, Rep. Martha Roby is running for her fourth term. She is facing a challenge from Becky Gerritson, the founder of the Wetumpka Tea Party, as well as Bob Rogers. The winner will face Nathan Mathis of Houston County in the fall. However, this is a Republican seat. The primary could offer a challenge for Roby but probably not.

In the third district, Rep. Mike Rogers is being challenged by former Phenix City School Superintendent Larry DiChiara. The winner of the Republican primary will have a Democratic challenger, Jesse Smith, also of Phenix City.
Alabama’s lone Democratic U.S. Representative, Terri Sewell, has no Democratic challenger. She has a token Republican opponent, David Williams.

In the South Alabama Mobile/Baldwin first district, Congressman Bradley Byrne will face a familiar primary opponent in Tea Party activist Dean Young.

Our senior U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby, is running for his unprecedented sixth six-year term in the Senate. He has been in the Senate for 30 years and the U.S. House for eight years prior to his election to the Senate in 1986.
Shelby’s seniority is invaluable to Alabama. Seniority equates to power in Washington. Sen. Shelby is Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He is also Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, which includes NASA.

Shelby has been a stalwart appropriator for Alabama, showering the state with federal money to finance buildings and biomedical research centers on college campuses. He has been the primary advocate for the Marshall Space Flight Center and defense community around Huntsville. He still holds a public meeting in each of Alabama’s 67 counties each year.

Shelby has a campaign war chest of over $18 million to ward off his unknown opponents. There are four folks brave enough to challenge him, ex-State Senator Shadrack McGill of Jackson County, along with Jonathan McConnell of Birmingham, John Martin of Dothan and Marcus Bowman of Fairhope.

Sen. Shelby and junior Senator Jeff Sessions have teamed up with Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson to try to put a final resolution to the decade-long battle with Georgia over the so-called water wars. These four senators, led by Shelby, have asked a senate panel to intervene in the Army Corps of Engineers mismanagement of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. They have asked the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development to protect users of the River Basin in Florida and Alabama from disproportionate water use by Georgia.

This water war with Georgia has been ongoing since 1990. Since then, the three states have argued and battled over the river system as metro Atlanta’s need for drinking water has skyrocketed. The Corps of Engineers has the authority to control the flow in the tri-state river system. A 2011 federal appeals court ruled that Georgia has a legal right to water from Lake Lanier, at the top of the system near Atlanta. However, Florida political leaders see the united front and power play of our Senators Shelby and Sessions and their Senators Rubio and Nelson as a game changer. We will see.

See you next week.

Our friend Steve Flowers’ political column appears weekly on ShoalsInsider.com

Richard Shelby – Shoals Insider

Shelby won an uphill battle to unseat Jeremiah Denton

This Week in Alabama Politics: “Shelby has been stalwart appropriator for Alabama”