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MUMBLINGS August 31, 2006
Thinking of Alabama Politics over the past 70 years, several
names come to mind as being above average in political knowledge.
Politics is not an exact science, but there are many fundamentals
that are necessary to know to be successful.
All political candidates and office holders make mistakes. Most
people in the 20th century considered Governors Bibb Graves and
George Wallace the two smartest. Graves married to his first cousin
Dixie Bibb, had no children. He devoted his whole life to politics.
He would have served as Governor a third time but died while running
during World War Two in 1942. He had it sowed up or everyone thought,
until he died.
He was known as “Bibb the Builder”, and the “Little
Colonel”. He prided himself to “keep on keeping on”
and going to Washington to shake the apple tree to bring back
money to Alabama. He believed that those who helped bake the pie
should eat it. Thus, he was very loyal to his friends and supporters.
One of his ironclad rules was that a candidate should never meddle
into any other race while he is running. To insure that people
would stay out of his race he would say “keep them busy”
meaning they should also have opposition and they sometimes did.
So they would not bother him.
Wallace had several solid principles, including not mentioning
his opponents or criticizing them directly. Neither would he appear
on any other candidate’s platform. He played it alone and
wanted to be left alone.
Modern political figures think you have to find fault with your
opponents and criticize them. Sometimes it works, but often times
it backfires. I could give you examples and might do it later.
I remember a lot of advice that people gave me from time to time.
One important one was Senator Walter Givhan of Dallas County,
who had served for a long time. He said “Jimmy make new
friends, but never at the expense of old ones”. Good, sound
advice for anyone.
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