I am tired of the Alabama Democratic Party.
So tired.
I’m tired of writing about the absurd things the Party leadership does. I’m tired of hearing about silly, petty squabbles. I’m tired of watching grown people argue about who will be captain of a ship that sank long ago and is now sinking in the mud at the bottom of the ocean.
I’m sick of the crazy headlines. I’m sick of the ridiculous press releases. I’m sick of the never-ending correspondence between the party and the Democratic Convention.
I’m fed up with it.
The power struggles within this party, which is a disaster, have been going on for over a decade now, with the last five years being the worst. And all of this is absurd. And unhelpful. And embarrassing.
Last week was a microcosm of the whole mess.
It began with a challenge from Chairman Randy Kelley to the DNC regarding the selection of delegates from Alabama. It was a worthless letter that, of course, contained a threat. Kelley said he would bring a second slate of delegates to the convention in Chicago next week to “challenge” the slate selected by the Harris campaign.
I don’t know what that “challenge” would entail—perhaps a street brawl between the Jets and the Sharks on the convention floor—but rest assured that the threat to that effect is as silly as anything you’ve ever heard.
But that’s just how this party works – as silly as possible.
Because the party leadership, with Kelley at the helm and Joe Reed, the vice chairman for minority affairs, pulling the strings, is constantly angry. There is always a plot to undermine them. There is always a secret feud going on between whites to wrongfully wrest control of the party from them.
It’s ridiculous.
How far has it gone? Consider this: During a phone interview with me, Kelley called former Senator Doug Jones a “Confederate Democrat” and stuck to it when I asked him if he could repeat his statement. He then called DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison a “token black man” who is “afraid for his position” and instead of doing the right thing, Harrison instead does “what white people tell him.”
Kelley said all this after I told him that his accusations of racism — which he made in his letter to Harrison and others at the DNC — rang a little hollow considering he had complained to the party’s black chairman about the campaign’s selection of a black woman.
So we finally got to this tricky point. The Biden team – and since then the Harris team – initially rejected several delegates proposed by the state party and instead selected their own slate of delegates from Alabama. To do this, the Biden/Harris team turned to Jones, Rep. Terri Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin.
The way Kelley and Reed tell it, the whole thing was a sinister plot by a bunch of white guys to undermine the black people of Alabama. It’s a story that might ring true if you forget that everyone involved, except Jones – the man who sued the Ku Klux Klan for the Birmingham church bombing – is black.
But the reality is much harder for the ADP leadership to bear. Because actions have consequences, and this is the embarrassment for the ADP.
Reed has thumbed his nose at DNC leaders for years, rebelling against the status quo and doing what he thought was best for him and the group of people loyal to him. I understand that, and on some level, it’s almost admirable to watch a man go against the grain so brazenly, choosing Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in 2008 and Michael Bloomberg over Joe Biden in 2020.
But such decisions have political consequences. That includes decisions to essentially give the DNC the middle finger on the entire charter issue while simultaneously attempting to disenfranchise several minority factions within the party.
The consequences of doing this are that you lose the trust of the top candidates. And if they can’t trust you, they can’t trust your delegates. It’s that simple.
But let’s put all that reality aside. Instead, we have to listen to yet another embarrassing show from ADP. Another chance to make headlines for the wrong reasons. Another chance to call each other names and denigrate people who are in the same boat.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in this state appears no closer to winning major offices in the state. That’s a shame, considering that there are numerous issues on which the party currently takes positions that are most popular with large numbers of Alabama voters. We could talk about the amazing gains the ADP is making among suburban women and white men and young people from working classes.
Instead, Alabama’s Democratic Party is making headlines for arguing with… other Democrats.
It. Is. Exhausting.
