AL-05: Beating Parker Griffith

A friend of mine is a constituent of the dubious party switcher, Parker Griffith, elected as a Democrat, currently a Republican for North Alabama's 5th CD. For the past few months he's been volunteering his time working with his friend Mitchell Howie, the candidate we've been covering in the Democratic primary.

Mitchell is heading into the last 10 days of the primary campaign-- election is June 1st-- and he needs netroots help, but he wants to tell you a little about the candidate and the campaign from his own perspective. His guest post:

Mitchell, is an authentic progressive, something most have resigned themselves to giving up hope for in this state. He got involved in politics by volunteering time with North Alabama Health Care for All, a local single payer advocacy group. Back when Parker was a Democrat he held a town hall in a local church where he 1) launched personal attacks against Speaker Pelosi; 2) swore he would not be switching parties; and 3) told lies about what was contained in the health care bill. Mitchell was in attendance and couldn’t take it. He stood up and debated Parker on the bill in front of everyone, telling the spineless congressmen what the facts were. Mitchell was approached about running against Parker in the Democratic primary, which he declined. That changed in December when Parker Griffith decided to become a Republican. Mitchell was the only candidate in this race to come out in support of healthcare reform before the votes in Congress.

Mitchell is from here in Huntsville. After attending law school at the University of Texas, he served as a staffer to a Democratic legislator in Texas (Sylvester Turner), ultimately rising to Chief of Staff. After several years in the legislature, Mitchell joined the United States Air Force and served as a JAG Corps attorney on active duty. After coming off of active duty, he returned to Huntsville to open a private law practice. The Howie name is well known in Huntsville. Mitchell’s grandfather was a physician who ran one of the few desegregated waiting rooms in the region, and spent personal money on bailing African-Americans out of jail after sit-ins, in spite of the death threats the familly received as a result.

The State of the Campaign

Mitchell’s primary opponents are the antitheses of everything we stand for as a progressive movement. Steve Raby is
a former employee of the Federal Reserve who spent 9 years in Washington as Chief of Staff to conservative-Democratic Alabama Senator Howell Heflin. Since leaving Washington, Raby has run a lobbying and consulting firm here in North Alabama and has been the consummate gatekeeper. Raby is a self-described conservative, recently stating in an interview, "Can you be a conservative and be a Democrat? Well, Iam. Heck, I own more guns than anyone in this race." Raby has dubious connections as well, having tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to Republican candidates and other electeds who now sit in federal prison. Recently, one of our other opponents, Taze Shepard ran an ad pointing out Raby’s connections:



[UPDATE: Raby hit back today with a vicious anti-Taz ad]

Tazewell Shepard is not much better, maybe even worse, than Steve Raby. Taze served for a short time in the early 90s on the State Board of Education, but otherwise has no experience in public service. What he does have is pedigree and a penchant for legacy politics. Taze’s grandfather is the late Alabama Senator John Sparkman, and that
statement essentially sums up Taze’s platform. Taze never makes an appearance without noting that he learned his values from his grandfather, and that those are the values which we wants to bring to Washington. Only problem is that John Sparkman was a segregationist Democrat and signatory to the Southern Manifesto.

There is another candidate in the race, but he is not a serious one (although he is quite intelligent and has some good ideas). If you really want to know about him, you can watch him here.

Mitchell’s fundraising has been good for a race in this district, but he doesn’t have the family connections or the Washington rolodex of his opponents. The campaign has budgeted and spent wisely, and the energy on the ground shows it. In the only poll that has been conducted of the race, paid for by the Shepard campaign, it was found that virtually all of Mitchell’s supporters describe their support as “strong,” compared with about half for the other two candidates. You’ll notice that poll shows Mitchell lagging, but I’d point out that our base lies in young and minority constituencies (Mitchell goes to two services each Sunday at minority churches, a different two each week) which are notoriously difficult to poll. Everywhere I go with Mitchell, he speaks to new voters who commit to voting and volunteering, and it is not uncommon for us to give out more yard signs at an event than there are voters present, with them taking more for their friends.

At this point, Mitchell’s biggest hurdle is name ID. Luckily, North Alabama is a relatively inexpensive media market, and that’s where you can help him. Democratic support for our opponents are being torn apart by the ad mentioned above, with many questioning Raby’s ties and many others questioning Taze’s tactics. I spoke some a staffer from Raby’s campaign today and they will be hitting Taze with a negative ad starting Monday. The campaign believes this provides a unique opportunity to expand the buy for Mitchell’s ad which we’ve already been running for a few weeks
which many here will recognize as paying homage to one of Mitchell’s political heroes, Paul Wellstone. Mitchell and his campaign leadership believe this buy combined with the other candidates attacking each other will help the campaign surge to at least a run-off, if not outright victory (the above poll shows that as of two weeks ago, 58% of voters
were undecided).



Mitchell needs anyone who is willing to highlight his campaign and help with a media blitz over the next 10 days. Frankly, the campaign needs money. Just a little bit of money can help us get the message out there and give us a real chance at getting a true progressive elected in this district.

On local news, we can run ads for $150-400 each in the morning, $100 at noon, and $750-$1,000 each on the evening broadcast.

We can purchase digital billboard for $100 per day each board.

We can get radio ad space for $30 per ad.

For $3,000- $5,000 we can fully flood both local cable providers guaranteeing everyone in the district gets several views of the ad.