According to Ed Kilgore of the notoriously right-wing Five Thirty Eight, Alabama's Democratic primary for governor was somehow impacted by a previously-little-known and notoriously ineffectual player:
It didn't hurt that the winner [Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks] also got considerable help from the Alabama Education Association, the big dog in Alabama Democratic politics.
I don't see how this can be the case. We've been assured by Kevin Drum, an expert on all things Southern, that the AEA is "weak." How on Earth they could be "the big dog in Alabama Democratic politics"--particularly considering that the Democratic Party has maintained uninterrupted control of the Alabama legislature for nearly 140 years--is just inexplicable.
An investigation is clearly in order.
UPDATE: Gloat? Moi?
Time to report Kevin Drum to the FTC, eh?
ReplyDeleteBeen saying it for years now but Kevin Drum is just not nearly as smart as he'd like to think...
ReplyDeleteSince you are quoting my reference to AEA as evidence that Kevin Drum's wrong (or even "dumb") about "weak" teachers unions in the South, you might want to note that he's talking about the power of unions to affect school policies, while I'm talking about politics. In Alabama, as in most other southern states, teachers do not have collective bargaining rights. That's what makes their unions "weak" (and barely unions at all in any traditional sense of the word). And in fact, that's partially why they are so active politically, since it's their only avenue of influence over their workplaces.
ReplyDeleteEd Kilgore
@Ed Kilgore: Why of course!!! That's why the teachers' unions in Michigan are so different from those in the South. /sarc
ReplyDeleteOh, and we *all* know that elected state officials have next to no influence on the workplaces of teachers.
ReplyDeleteOkay, pull the other one.
If you and Drum actually believe that you're both even dumber than I thought. I originally thought it was the ideological beer glasses that were warping your view, but now I'm not so sure.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteHaving lived the first 22 years of my life in Alabama and been entirely educated in public schools there, the notion that public school teachers in the Yellowhammer State have only the AEA's heavy arm in Alabama politics as their "avenue of influence over their workplaces" is thoroughly laughable. That's a statement which could only be written by somebody with no experience whatsoever inside the state in question. The AEA is a pervasive power from the smallest first-grade classroom all the way up to the statehouse.
But thanks for the comment.
I'm in Alabama and Will is 100% right.
ReplyDeleteFer chrissake's, we have several public school teachers and admn types *in* the legislature.