Artur Davis for Governor of Alabama?

Annie Johnson writes in the 28th November edition of CQ Today Online News:

“The first barrier is, according to the exit polls, there are more Republicans than Democrats in Alabama. For a Democrat to win, you have to win virtually all the Democrats and then get a huge majority among the independent voters,” said Merle Black, the Asa G. Candler professor of politics and government at Emory University in Atlanta. “It may be tough for any Democrat.”

The Democrats’ performance in this year’s congressional races could provide some ground for optimism within the party’s ranks. Conservative Democrat Bobby Bright, the mayor of the state capital city of Montgomery, won the seat in the 2nd Congressional District — usually a Republican stronghold — left open by retiring eight-term Republican Rep. Terry Everett ; state Sen. Parker Griffith staved off a fierce Republican challenge to hold the 5th District seat of retiring nine-term Rep. Robert E. “Bud” Cramer in Democratic hands; and lawyer Josh Segall, a political newcomer, staged a narrowly unsuccessful bid to unseat Republican incumbent Mike D. Rogers in the 3rd District.

And Davis, who is more conservative than many Democrats on social issues such as abortion and gun owners’ rights, also insists that the next governor of Alabama will be dealing with issues such as education and balancing the state’s budget, issues that transcend politics and race.

While Davis admits a win for governor would be historic, he says that is not why he wants to run.

“If I run a campaign that’s based on race I will lose, more fundamentally I will deserve to lose. If I run a campaign that is as empty as ‘we need to make history,’ I’ll lose and I deserve to lose,” he said. “I will and should run a campaign based on my ideas about where my state can be and where my state can go.”

Social justice, family values, no harvesting of black people in needless wars, strictly limited and strictly legal immigration, America as an English-speaking country: those are the agenda of African-Americans, ninety-five, or possibly even ninety-seven, per cent of whom voted for Obama. He owes them. They know it. They should let him know that they know it.