Paul Sanford dominates straw poll
2009 March 21
A straw poll was held for the Alabama Senate District 7 race at today’s Madison County Republican Men’s Breakfast. Paul Sanford crushed Sam Givhan 110 to 25. Givhan even trailed the always competitive Mr. Undecided, who hauled in 33 votes on the strength of his ambiguous platform.
Givhan has clearly been damaged in the eyes of the Republican faithful by details of campaign contributions he has given and received from Democrats. I’ve been hearing more and more background chatter lately about local Republicans having reservations about Givhan’s authenticity and today’s vote underscores such talk. With over a month – and another campaign finance disclosure – to go before the runoff election will Givhan be able to undue the damage?
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If any GOP voter is basing their decision on pure conservatism I don’t see how they could pick Givhan over Sanford. Givhan is a risky choice; Sanford is not. I also didn’t like Givhan’s non-stance on illegal immigration that he presented on Dale’s show a couple weeks ago. No-brainer for me, but I supported Sanford in the original primary vote as well.
Sam did poorly in the last mens club poll too and ended up in 1st place. What did Ivey say?
I understand Kay gave a stump speech for governor and had very expensive full-clor brochures in everyone’s seats.
Talk about political tone-deafness. She is highly deluded.
Kay actually gave a pretty decent stump speech, although she did spend some time talking PACT. I was surprised at the non-partisan nature of her speech. Usually such an audience is the place to break out the red meat. She was complimentary of the entire legislature more than once. Reactionary may post more about her speech, I have family in town and time is scarce.
Wayne, that is a fair point inasmuch as this group represents a small slice of the overall vote. However, I think the straw poll is a dark harbinger for Givhan. All those Richardson, Hunter, and Rhodes voters seem to have gravitated towards Sanford. If that happens in the runoff then Givhan is toast. Sanford went from 21% to 65%, while Givhan only went from 8% to 15%.
I disagree with EW about Kay Ivey’s political savvy and mental state.
The PACT program is fairly big news now, but it will be resolved well before the voters of Alabama start paying attention to the Governor’s race. It also seems like a bi-partisan failure partly due to economic events beyond anyone’s control. If there is one positive to a downturn, it is that mismanagement and fraud gets exposed. In this case, the downturn exposed structural problems in the ‘Wallace – Folsom Prepaid College Tuition Trust Fund” (PACT).
IIRC there are 50,000 PACT policyholders. Even if them and their grandma voted against Ivey as a bloc that’s only a couple of percentage points of voter turnout - and half of them may not vote Republican anyway.
Note that I think the State has no choice but to make those PACT policyholders with ‘guarantees’ whole. The rest of the policyholders should’ve read the fine print, but I think they’ll come out OK – after all, they tried to do the responsible thing and trusted in the State. How the program will gain new subscribers is a challenge – the State may have to realize that it’s committed to ‘matching funds’ and restructure it to prepare for that – plus guarantee the program. Or it could eliminate the program while still paying out for the next 20 years.
Kay Ivey spoke about economic development, education, and management. She proposed economic development for existing small businesses in Alabama, not just big multi-national corporations. She spoke about K – PhD education, noting that Alabama needs to “shuck the corn” – the High School dropout rate is “unacceptable”. She noted her improvements in the operations of the State Treasurer’s Office, citing the availability of Alabama’s financial reports on-line. She described her management style as: “Work with people, not at them”.
Back on topic – Sam Givhan didn’t do well in the last Straw Poll either, but still ‘won’ the Primary. In fact, he almost doubled his votes from last time (15 to 25)!!! However, Mr. Undecided almost tripled his votes (12 to 33), as did Paul Sanford (42 to 110).
Reactionary - I understand your position and in most cases I agree with you. However, in this case I will refer you to the Birmingham News editorial out today (Monday). It mentions that they (the News) reported on problems with PACT as far back as 2004 and noted that other states started shutting down their programs as Ivey was aggressively selling ours.
Everyone I have spoken to in Montgomery believes this issue has legs. Long ones.
Guys – here is a key paragraph copied from the Birmingham News editorial:
“By 2004, we reported, the PACT program had a $50 million deficit. A number of other states in the same boat suspended enrollment in their prepaid college plans. Alabama state Treasurer Kay Ivey brought in new investment advisers, tried to lure more people to the program and assured the public: “The money will be there.” ”
Translation: the state’s largest daily will be a foe of Ms. Ivey in the governor’s race.