Real Time With Bill Maher

He ain’t far off … except for that misplaced Roll Tide! If he had said War Eagle, it would have been perfect. Well, except for getting the bit about the Ten Commandments monument wrong…

by Glynn Wilson

Just as Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa was positioned to have his name on the Alabama Republican Party runoff ballot to run head-to-head against front runner and GOP establishment candidate Bradley Byrne, the entire campaign team that got him into that position was fired en mass today, according to a source close to the campaign.

Bentley is apparently bringing in a team associated with presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the affable Arkansas Baptist.

Lame duck Troy King, who lost in the Republican primary to retain his seat as attorney general, ruled in an opinion today that Bentley’s name would remain on the runoff ballot since he won by 167 votes, in spite of a challenge by Tim James, who had requested a statewide recount.

Alabama Republican party chairman Mike Hubbard blasted King’s opinion, according to a Birmingham newspaper, calling it “ridiculous.”

Hubbard said the opinion has made it almost impossible to pursue a recount of the June 1 GOP primary for governor.

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by Glynn Wilson

After Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis tried to make friends with the man who might be his Republican opponent if he were to win the Democratic Party primary next June, praising Bradley Byrne for his proposed ethics plan, Davis’s primary opponent Ron Sparks immediately called him a hypocrite.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for Artur Davis to bemoan what he called ‘the unlimited power of a few special interests’ to dominate Alabama politics by writing big checks, while, according to ConsumerWatchdog.org, Artur Davis received $364,000 from health-care special interest groups and then voted against President Obama’s health-care bill, despite the overwhelming support for Obama and health-care reform in his district,” Sparks said in a press release.

According to a blogger at al.com, Davis welcomed Byrne’s endorsement of several ethics proposals this week.

“While I am pleased that unlike Ron Sparks and the other Republicans in this race, Bradley Byrne has put forward an ethics proposal, I am mystified that he does not go further, to root out the real abuses that are breaking down trust in Alabama politics,” Davis reportedly said.

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