Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of … Davis?
January 22nd, 2009by Glynn Wilson
THE BUNKER, Jan. 22 — What’s left of the Newhouse bureau in Washingon, D.C., managed a story today for the Birmingham Snooze on the new book out by Gwen Ifill of Public Television on politics and race, which includes a section on Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis.
A new book about politics and race includes a chapter on Rep. Artur Davis in which he bluntly lays out his strategy for running for governor of Alabama in 2010 and how it is similar to President Barack Obama’s campaign.
“It’s going to require me going into communities that have not typically had black politicians on the ballot,” Davis told the author. “It’s going to require me going into places all around the state and saying, `Look, I’m not that different from you.’”
The book, released Tuesday, is The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. Its title ignited a controversy during the presidential campaign because Ifill, a PBS journalist and moderator of “Washington Week,” was a moderator of the vice presidential debate, and critics questioned whether her forthcoming book signaled a bias toward the Democratic ticket.
The chapter on Davis is partly a political biography of the fourth-term congressman and partly an analysis of how Obama’s historic election affects Davis’ desire to be Alabama’s first black governor.
Ifill declares it a “tall order” for Alabama, where Obama won only 10 percent of the white vote in November.
She calls Davis a “political junkie” who has calculated that he needs 38 percent of the white vote plus a higher-than-normal turnout among black voters to win a general election.
Ifill also quotes Washington, D.C., delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a black Democrat, as being skeptical that Davis will wind up in the governor’s mansion in Montgomery.
“Of all states, that’s the worst state I could think of now to run in. A terrible state,” she told Ifill in an interview before Obama’s nomination.
But the book also discusses how Davis’ moves so far are calculated to improve his chances: He won his congressional seat by breaking with established black political leaders and appealing to white voters; he broke with them again by backing Obama early in the Democratic primary; and he built a more moderate voting record in six years in Congress.
“I have a very strong commitment to expanding opportunities for excluded people, whether they are black or white, whether they live in urban areas or rural areas. Does that make me a new leader?” Davis asked.
“It did, and it does,” Ifill wrote.
Sharpton, Siegelman:
Two other items in the chapter stand out. First, Ifill asked the Rev. Al Sharpton why he went to Alabama in 2002 to tell voters that Davis couldn’t be trusted, and Sharpton said he did it because he had family members in the state who asked him to help the incumbent Rep. Earl Hilliard. Davis won the race.
Second, Ifill writes that Davis said he “had no choice” but to support a congressional inquiry into the criminal case against former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who claims he was targeted by politically motivated Republican prosecutors.
Davis told Ifill that he worried it would “smell of the old-fashioned partisan politics he claims to eschew,” but he was the only Alabamian on the committee leading the investigation.
“Barely know him, barely know him,” Davis told Ifill. Davis also said he expected most Alabamians to ignore the Siegelman controversy and that he was “counting on it to fade away well before 2010,” Ifill wrote.
The story was immediately sent out all over the state via e-mail over the Net, and generated some strong reactions from liberal and progressive Democrats and Siegelman supporters.
“I had mentioned before that Artur Davis had to be forced, kicking and screaming, by us, to help with the investigation into Governor Siegelman’s political prosecution,” wrote Pam Miles. “Now excerpts from Gwen Ifill’s new book confirms it. Plus he obviously thinks Alabamians are so ignorant that we wouldn’t notice the total corruption of the Department of Justice! MY GOD! Just how stupid does he think we are?”
“I told Artur, again, Sunday evening, ‘that we WOULD hold his feet to the fire’ just like we do everyone else,” Ms. Miles continued. “For some unknown reason, I guess he thought that he deserved a pass. I DON’T THINK SO!
“These quotes prove to me that we were right, all along, and we must begin again, to call for a full investigation and make sure everyone involved is held accountable,” she said. “And as much as Davis is ‘counting on it to fade away well before 2010,’ I don’t think the entire population of Alabama will suffer short term memory loss in the next few months.”
Chris Mosley, who recently posted a message on a Democrat listserv giving the top ten reasons to support Davis for governor, also chimed in.
“Is Artur saying he ‘barely’ knew Don Siegelman?” Mosley asked. “It is sad that he has taken his BS to a new level by attempting to re-write the true story. I wish him luck in Alabama on attempting to build a progressive coalition in this state (but) who is he going to do it with? Alice Martin, Bill and Leura Cannary? He is going to need to the Netroots nation of Alabama and I think we should show him forcefully that we have no interest in his bid for Governor. At this point in time, even though I once backed Davis, I say DUMP DAVIS!”
Another Democrat and lawyer added: “Davis is also AIPAC’s best friend.”
That would be the Isreal lobby, in case you didn’t know, which has been a big source of campaign cash for Davis since he first ran for Congress in 2000, as we reported recently in this story.
It was attacked on another so-called progressive blog run out of Huntsville, Alabama, where the LeftInAlabama gang of “kats” say they are trying to bring progressives together yet gush over any news about Davis, who is running as a conservative, as if they have already decided to endorse him.
They carried an item this week saying Davis was really close to Obama, because his name appeared on an invite list for one of the inaugural balls. But I watched all the coverage of the inauguration flipping around from channel to channel, including a lot of the raw coverage on C-SPAN. Funny, but I didn’t see Davis’s face once in the company of Obama, a cohort of his from Harvard law school.
Davis was not offered the job as attorney general or even education secretary in the Obama administration, and he was recently booted off or stepped down from the House Judiciary Committee, where chairman John Conyers is still investigating the Bush administration and the Siegelman case.
Did he just not have the stomach to continue the investigation? Or, is it all about politics for Davis?
Running as a “new kind of Democrat” is not knew to Obama. That’s how Clinton got elected in 1992. And Davis is no Obama. He doesn’t have the charisma or the technological savvy to pull off in a backwards state in the Deep South what Obama did in a nation where the mass population in America’s cities now get most of their news online.
I think Davis had a chance to be an influential Congressman or even a Senator from Alabama. But the evidence shows me he has no chance to be the next governor and may do egregious harm to the two party system in Alabama by running now. In fact, I think he’s getting some pretty bad advice to run this race and may very well doom his own political career because of it.
He still has a chance to back out. So far, he has only floated a lot of hot air trial balloons. Maybe his “committee” will conclude in February that he has no chance and he will find a way to gracefully decline to run.
If he doesn’t, it could be an interesting race to cover from a news standpoint — if he will actually run an open campaign and allow access. So far, he and his staff have not demonstrated a grasp of how to answer questions of real journalists working on the Web in the Internet Age.
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments
Tags: Artur Davis, Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
This just in via an e-mail list from Anna Ruth Williams, the new campaign spokeswoman for Congressman Davis’s campaign for re-election to Congress:
I want to introduce myself – I am the new campaign spokeswoman for Congressman Davis’s campaign. I am including a copy of a letter to the editor that we have submitted to the Birmingham News. We recognize that today’s article in the Birmingham News regarding Gwen Ifill’s book does not accurately reflect comments made by Congressman Davis. If you have further questions, feel free to contact me.
–
In a recent story, the Birmingham News carried excerpts from comments I made during an interview with Gwen Ifill for her recent book on emerging black politicians. At one point, the story carries the quote that I “had no choice” but to support a congressional investigation into the prosecution of Don Siegelman. A reader might well assume that this quote is a statement that I made. However, pg . 104 of the book makes it clear that the quote is actually of Ms. Ifill’s paraphrasing of what I said.
What I said to Ms. Ifill is what I have said to various interviewers: Initially, I was concerned that the allegations of political interference were unsubstantiated and that there was no way to resolve the credibility dispute between the participants in this controversy. I also had concerns that weighing in on Siegelman’s behalf could be dismissed as either a partisan political maneuver or, much worse, as a defense of corruption. I decided to call for an investigation, however, because the allegations of political involvement with the case were too serious to be ignored, and because there was no forum for an inquiry other than a congressional committee.
I told Ms. Ifill that given these factors, there was no real option for me other than to take the political risk of entering this controversy. I also pointed out that as the only Alabamian on the House Judiciary Committee, it was not realistic for me to stay out of the affair altogether. In response to her questions, I noted that I barely know Mr. Siegelman personally, and that I believed that the controversy and its complicated facts would fade before the 2010 Governor’s race.
I was pleased to be included in Ms. Ifill’s very insightful book, but I write this letter to avoid any confusion over my own views on an important matter.
–
Anna Ruth Williams
Communications and Outreach Coordinator
Committee to Re-elect Congressman Artur Davis
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
From James Gilbert via e-mail:
How does this alleviate confusion? Seems to me he is not stepping up to the plate.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
From Dr. Alan D. Kardoff via e-mail:
This is a very shallow attempt by a new public relations assistant trying to correct one of her employer’s many sins, using Mea Culpa. It is hogwash.
Does she actually think it is acceptable or believable?
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You know, I’m beginning to wonder if Davis is even re-electable to his U.S. House seat. Anybody out there running against him?
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
i agree davis is getting bad advice as you call it about running for governor. but the advice is coming from inside his own head.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I think are right, swift. Sources say he makes all the decisions like any authoritarian personality type. It is not screening by his staff, in other words, keeping information from him.
When I ran into him at the Civil Rights Institute recently, I asked him a perfectly legitimate question about why he wants to run for governor and move to Montgomery when he has a safe and potentially powerful seat in Congress and gets to work in that beautiful Capitol building every day. It was a broad question that literally begged for a narrative answer, a wide open door for any gifted politician to use as a way to reveal who they are to readers and voters, something Davis will have to try to do if he really wants to be governor.
The one answer that dawned on me later he could have used would have been this: He could have smiled graciously, instead of condescendingly, and said something like, “I want to move to Montgomery because my momma needs me now” or something. He is from Montgomery. Maybe he is homesick. He just got married down there Jan. 1. Maybe he’s in love and wants to be there.
Was it his childhood dream to be the first African American governor of Alabama or something? I mean all you have to do is say something quotable, you know. That’s all we ask…
If he can’t do that, well, how do you get elected in Alabama without being able to do that? You will remember Howell Helfin and his ability to play to the home folks in Alabama, while being considered “the Judge” in the U.S. Senate.
Perhaps Folsom has that kind of appeal. We will see…
We are in a different world nationally where that stuff doesn’t necessarily play anymore. It worked for awhile for Bush, but by the end, almost everybody was finally convinced there was no “there” there : )
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
A note about the public memory, one of the things Pam mentioned.
All of these politicians who remember a time when the public had a short memory and believe it still exists are kidding themselves. You may recall when Wallace won his elections, he would raise “sin taxes” the first year in office. Three years later, he would run against taxes.
But that won’t work in the Internet Age. We have blog archives — and the ability to constantly link back to things.
That is when people need reminding : )
On one of my first Web home pages when I was teaching and doing research in Knoxville in the late 1990s, I remember calling the Web “a second brain.” It’s better than any single library, because there is way more information available in a few clicks from the comfort of your own home, if you have an Internet connection.
For all the boo-hooing that goes on bashing the “Internets” and “bloggers,” we could point to millions of examples of how good information trumps bad.
As the saying goes, “truth will prevail in the end…”
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
From Al McCullough via e-mail:
I recommend people check out what The Black Commentator has had to report about Davis. Davis rise to political prominence in Alabama smells worse than Smithfield’s corporate hog lot lagoons.
- Peace, Al
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
From J Zylman via e-mail:
Davis in fact was financed by AIPAC and the Alabama Banks, mostly – We’re talking about Mountain Brook funding a Birmingham/Black Belt politician to defeat a grassroots civil rights Congressman. And yes, he has been reluctant to support Don. It is Conyers who has carried the ball on that one, and keeps carrying it.
From Occupied USA
Rev. Jack Zylman
Southside, Birmingham
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Has anyone else run across any connections Davis has with Bill and Leura Canary?
LegalSchnauzer has a very interesting post about this topic:
Does Artur Davis Care More About Politics Than Justice?
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Yes, we broke that story awhile back and linked to it in this story, but here it is again:
Fighting the Final Battles of the Civil War
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
From Ivan via e-mail:
Re-reading all the commentary on Artur Davis (I’m a glutton for punishment) I’m still amazed that he got away with resigning from the Judiciary Committee (where he could have really helped Don) and his reason for resigning — to allow more time to campaign. What he said, in effect, was I’m slacking off on my congressional duties that you taxpayers are paying me for to campaign for governor. Ridiculous.
ivan
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
From William Crain of Montana via e-mail:
I said before – he’s NO LOSS to the Judiciary Committee. He’s DLC just like all the other DLC corn-dogs. I feel bad for the folks who had to work in his office.
William
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
This just in from Roger Shuler via e-mail:
Why I’m P—-d Off at Artur Davis
January 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Apologies for lagging so badly to comment – but I’ve been aware of Mr. Davis for a good while now , and think of him not as a “new kind of politician in Alabama ” ,but as a type we have seen here all too often for as long as my several decades of memory serve. Most of his type , to my knowledge have been white but he is nothing new , in my opinion.