The congressman might want to get some advice his good friend the president, who ran a very highly-focused, superbly directed issues-focused campaign.

If we’re two years into a recession, as is likely in 2010, “just because” will not be enough.

Folsom has some of the best and brightest advisers, starting with his wife, in the state. And, he listens to them.

I think his responses to Davis yesterday were masterful.

Davis is running to make history, Folsom is running to solve problems. He is clearly not running away from Davis. Watch for him to be a lot more visible during this legislative session. I think he is our best hope this time around.

Jim

Justice Off the Tracks in Alabama

But Folsom comes from a Populist tradition, which if you go back and read about the history of that movement, you will also see the term “progressive” all tied up with it. You will also encounter the term “New South.”

Nobody has used that term much since Siegelman was elected governor of Alabama in 1998. He was called Alabama’s “First New South governor” by Governing magazine and the New York Times. I covered his inauguration for The Southern magazine online, and tried to define it with the help of academic experts.

It’s a tad over the head of the mass audience in Alabama, but if you are interested, here’s the link.

The New South Rises, Again: Alabama Gets Its First ‘New South’ Governor

OK, Progressive E, that’s a start. At least you have thought about it some.

Let me add this: Some people look at this Web Journal and see a progressive news operation online. It has even been called that on one Birmingham progressives’ e-mail signature. A progressive newspaper, that is, even though there’s no paper or ink involved, unless you print it out at home : )

What I think that reader sees here is something that is new and forward-looking and perhaps solution oriented.

The reason I threw out the Southern Progress Corporation is that for some of us hard news journalists, Southern Living tends to perpetuate an old fashioned view of the South. By focusing on food and home and garden stuff and avoiding journalism about politics or the environment, it tends to contribute to keeping the population of the South in the dark.

When Time magazine bought it out in the late 1980s, that corporate news empire also bought and killed another magazine called Southern Magazine out of Little Rock Arkansas, which had started to compete with Southern Living and challenge it’s view of the South with a more progressive outlook.

We tried to do the same thing when we created The Southerner magazine out of Knoxville, Tennessee in the late 1990s. But there is a long history throughout the 20th century of publishers trying to create “progressive” publications, but failing economically. Why? Because the conservative, corporate money has never supported such an endeavor.

There is even a magazine called The Progressive, but it has to be propped up by foundation money. Nothing wrong with that. Non-profit media plays an important role in the new media mix these days. That’s how Harper’s magazine survives.

Let me ask you this: Do you consider alternative, renewable fuels to be a progressive idea? We do, which is why we support that.

I noticed the ABC affiliate in Birmingham picked up that line Davis used about “renewables” from his speech. We have seen many a commentator call Obama a progressive. That’s a better term than “moderate” in our view, which has simply seemed to mean “do-nothing” to offend on the part of some politicians. It’s certainly boring, and there are not many real moderates around in politics anymore because of the over-hyped liberal-conservative divide that has derailed real progress in this country on many fronts for a number of years.

Since the talk radio crowd has bashed the word “liberal” into submission for so many years, nobody seems to want to be one anymore, even though the root meaning is “open-minded.”

That would make the opposite word, conservative, mean “closed-minded,” which seems to be the case much of the time.

As for me, I call myself a “liberal-tarian,” meaning an open-minded person who actually believes in real freedom, as in “civil libertarian.” That is opposed to another definition of conservatism. Mostly I see conservatives who scream about taxes and freedom really do not stand for freedom at all, but “social control.”

The religious right does not believe in freedom. They believe in controlling your behavior. They don’t want you to be able to decide for yourself whether you should be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, use a condom — or smoke a joint. They go right along with the fake “war on drugs” all day long every day, as well as allowing the “drug” companies to peddle heavy duty pharmeceuticals in “drug” stores on every corner.

The hypocrisy is enough to make one’s head swim.