What a strange headline.  Anyway, according to Dale Jackson at WVNN Senator Jeff Sessions will be at an area Kangaroo gas station today.  The event is open to the public.

What: Pumping Gas and Speaking To Huntsville Area Drivers about High Energy Costs

When: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 7:30 a.m. CT

Where: Kangaroo Gas Station, 540 Jordan Lane

The Tennessee Valley Vipers, Huntsville’s arena football team, went on the road to Spokane, WA as heavy underdogs and won the championship game in overtime.  Congrats!

I was perusing the Washington Post’s Congress Votes database and guess what I realized…

Parker Griffith - the self proclaimed independent state senator - voted with his party (that would be the Democrats) more than Nancy Pelosi.  As a state senator Griffith voted with his party (again, the Democrats) 99.2% of the time.  Nancy Pelosi has only voted with the Democrats 98.2% of the time - and she’s the Speaker of the House.  And Griffith has the nerve to tell north Alabama voters that he is an independent!

I had a hard time choosing who to vote for in the Huntsville mayoral race on Tuesday, Aug. 26.  Loretta Spencer has been a fine mayor and will likely go down as one of Huntsville’s best.  However, in the last few years her administration has made some mistakes and decisions that make me question whether she is the right person to lead our city for the next four years.  Tommy Battle has experience as a city councilman and has been successful in the private sector.  His campaign has been message oriented and he is eager to address some of the issues that have come about recently.

I’m voting for Tommy Battle.

As I said earlier, Spencer has served Huntsville admirably.  She was instrumental in creating the Research Park - the 2nd largest in the country.  Her tenure has been largely free of scandal.  The list could go on, but this election isn’t a lifetime achievement award.  We have to vote based on the best choice looking forward, not backward.

One of the biggest issues for me is the metro jail that the city is building.  The original budget was $26 million, but overruns have pushed the total cost to nearly $70 million.  It has been a complete disaster and a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.  Is Loretta Spencer personally responsible for this?  No, but it did happen on her watch.  I look at it this way, though.  Spencer once had freshly installed playground equipment removed in favor of more pleasing colored equipment.  That is called micro management.  The mayor of a city the size of Huntsville has bigger fish to fry than jungle gym colors.  Why wasn’t Spencer micromanaging the jail project that spiraled out of control?  She obviously had time to kill if she could bother herself with teeter totters.

More recently was the bungled relocation of a homeless shelter.  I have my doubts that the final outcome would have been any different, but the city, including Spencer, did an abysmal job of making the move transparent.  All involved had to know that the decision was going to be extremely controversial and making it seemed like a back room deal left a bad taste in everyones mouth.  Again, was Spencer solely or primarily responsible?  No.  But she could have, should have, led the efforts to make the process more open.

There are other things that could be done better: roads, schools, etc.  Some projects and decisions are outside the jurisdiction of the mayor, but the mayor has a very formidable bully pulpit to help shape the actions of others.

I’ve had a number of opportunites to talk with Tommy Battle during this campaign.  I’ve found him to be knowledgable, eager, and ready.  He will get my vote.

Can he win, though?  I think so, but more importantly some influential individuals think he has a strong chance.  Both the Committee of 100 and the local teachers union split their endorsements between the two candidates.  You don’t see movers and shakers hedging their bets like that unless they think the race is too close to call.

Talk about a gift for Republicans.

It wasn’t too long ago that Biden was calling Obama “clean” and “articulate,” words that many interpreted as being uncouth in reference to a black man.

I haven’t had a chance to read/watch the pundits’ analysis of the decision, so here’s my thoughts.  Obama knew that the Russian invasion of Georgia exposed a glaring weakness, namely his extreme inexperience on matters of foreign policy.  In addition to being a windbag and a gaffe machine Biden is respected for his foreign policy credentials.  So, despite the overall weakness of Biden as a VP choice Obama’s hand was forced.  He simply couldn’t risk proceeding through the general election campaign with another untested individual rounding out his ticket.  Any additional world unrest would have only served as a nail in his electoral coffin.

One pecularity is that Obama went with a fellow senator.  Voters have long tended to cast their ballots in favor of former governors instead of legislators for president since they actually have some executive experience.  I’m sure Obama would have rather chosen someone who had actualy run something (anything!), but he was in the mode of trying to cover one of his many glaring weaknesses and he ultimately had to pick one even it left others untended.

Interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by two ladies from the Reason Foundation: Protect Our Kids from Preschool.  Read it for yourself, but the Reader’s Digest version is that “universal” preschool may do more harm than good except in programs that target “severely disadvantaged kids.”

From ABC 33/40:

In the wake of last weekend’s deadly car accident in Brookside in which a 15-year-old was thrown from the bed of a pickup truck and killed, one Alabama lawmaker says he plans to introduce a bill in the legislature to ban the practice altogether.

Ahhh, the neverending struggle between lawmakers who want to curb everyone’s rights because of a tiny minority who do stupid things.

I have fond memories of riding in the back of my dad’s truck as a young kid - to include sitting on a lowered tailgate, feet dangling just above the road.  Of course that was on the slow roads at our favorite state parks.  It would be a shame to see busybody lawmakers ban the practice because a few people are dumb enough to ride in the bed of a truck going 70+ miles per hour on the interstate.

From AL.com:

Huntsville police ended a week-long undercover investigation by arresting two men and issuing warrants for 22 more in connection with alleged sexual misconduct at the Governors Drive Scenic Overlook, police said today.

“This detail was in response to complaints from citizens about homosexual activity that has been taking place at one of the community’s most scenic sites,” police said in a news release.

The Times also published the names, ages, and home towns of all the suspects.  The list included an 84 year old man.

Seriously, if you want to have sex in the uncomfortably tight confines of a car then do it in your garage.

Back in 2006 I looked at Bud Cramer’s voting record to see just how frequently the original Blue Dog Democrat voted with his party.  I found that until Wayne Parker nearly beat him in 1994 he voted with his party 80% of the time, which caused him often be at odds with his conservative constituents.  His near loss taught him a lesson and after that he only voted with his party 60% of the time.  However, it looks like the lesson may have worn off.

Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 Cramer has voted with his party a shocking 90% of the time - 10% more than when he almost got voted out of office.  See how his “independence” shifts with the political winds in Washington in the figure below.

You might ask why I would take the time to analyze Cramer’s voting record now that his retirement is eminent.  Well, Parker Griffith^* is running to take over Bud’s seat and he is essentially proclaiming that he will be Bud Cramer reincarnated while saying he is an independent who works with Republicans and Democrats in the same breath.  The simple fact is that Griffith’s role model just is not the Blue Dog “conservative” that he once was.  When Democrats are in control he votes with them.  Period.  Regardless of who wins this fall it is all but certain that the Democrats will be the majority party.  Sending Griffith to DC would trade one loyal Democrat for another.

Now for a little housekeeping.  I used the Washington Post’s Congress Votes database as my source, as I did in 2006.  Only votes in which Cramer cast a “yes” or “no” were considered.  I threw out votes in which both parties took the same position.  Sure, counting them would have made his “votes with Democrats” number look higher, but he was also voting with Republicans on those votes so that is a bit misleading.  It turns out that there just weren’t that many mutually agreeable votes, though, so even if they were included it would change the percentages too much.  Once the list was pared down to only contested votes that Cramer participated in I simply sorted his votes based on the party he voted with.

The Post says that Cramer votes with the Democrats 94% of the time, although I believe that includes mutually agreeable votes.  You might recall that liberals just LOVE to call Jeff Sessions and other Republicans “water carriers” and “lap dogs” for the party.  Well guess what.  It turns out that Cramer - the vaunted conservative Blue Dog - votes with his party more than Sessions, Shelby, and every Republican member of Alabama’s delegation other than Jo Bonner.  Who’s the lap dog now?

Here’s the full break down of Alabama’s delegation, from most loyal to least.

1. Artur Davis, 96.9%
2. Jo Bonner, 95.0%
3. Bud Cramer, 93.8%
4. Spencer Bachus, 93.6%
5. Robert Aderholt, 93.0%
6. Terry Everett, 93.0%
7. Mike Rogers, 91.9%
8. Richard Shelby, 90.4%
9. Jeff Sessions, 89.1%

How about that.  The man that Alabama’s uber left wing paper, the Anniston Star, called Sen. Water Carrier is actually the least loyal member of Alabama’s entire delegation.  I look forward to the Star’s pending criticism of Rep. Davis for blindly following party orders.

^*Yes, Parker Griffith is, in fact, a Democrat.  This is true despite the fact that he is understandably embarrassed to admit it.  He won’t even tell us which presidential candidate he will be voting for.  He’s not even sure if he’ll support his party’s majority leader in Congress.  He will also tell you how he worked with Republicans and Democrats in Montgomery even though he voted with his party 99% of the time.  Maybe in his ads he should say, “I’m Parker Griffith and I’m an independent state senator who worked with Repuublicans 1% of the time and Democrats the other 99%.”

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

[John Edwards] is one of the headliners for the Business Council of Alabama’s annual Chairman’s Dinner in Birming­ham, and a BCA spokeswoman said he is still expected to attend the event.

“At this time we assume the event will go forward as planned,” said Marty Sullivan, senior vice president for public affairs and communications for the BCA.

…

Edwards was scheduled to ap­pear with Republican and for­mer U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. No stranger to scandal, Gingrich admitted just last year that he cheated on both his first and second wives.

Is it really that hard to find a politician who hasn’t cheated on his wife?  Don’t answer that.

FWIW, the National Enquirer, the tabloid that broke the Edwards story, is claiming that Edwards was in fact having sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Hunter, after telling his wife of the tryst.

The ENQUIRER has uncovered that Edwards’ political operatives are still paying his mistress Rielle Hunter - and she was whisked away on a private jet two days before he confessed their extramarital affair on national TV!

…

After Edwards confessed the affair to his wife, he restarted it, and was sexually involved with Rielle when she became pregnant.

Despite his denials, Edwards WAS aware that his former finance committee chairman, Fred Baron, was funneling money to Rielle.