Well, bad news for Conservatives. This may end up a general election showdown between 2 60-something State Senators, Butler and Dr. Parker Griffith. Butler should win based upon how well the GOP Presidential candidate should do in the 5th. Mentioning that it has been one party Democrat for 140 years and that it is truly time for a change ought to be an angle we play up (of course, Butler is a change only on paper, he might be more liberal than Cramer).
I thought this old article would be as good a place as any to post this question: how good of a conservative is AL-05 GOP congressional candidate and Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks? (Brooks decided not to run in 2008, but is running in 2010.) He’s a litigation lawyer, which in Alabama is usually a bad omen when it comes to tort reform. It’s also strange that he did not include in his campaign site any reference to his views on abortion or guns (at least not that I could find). http://www.mobrooksforcongress.com/Mo_Brooks_for_Congress-start.html
His primary opponent is businessman and GOP activist Les Phillip, who is a Navy veteran that emigrated to the U.S. from Trinidad and Tobago as a child. His platform is solidly conservative. He also happens to be black, which may not necessarily be an asset in the AL-05 (it’s only around 20% black IIRC, and quite a few 2004 Kerry voters swung to McCain in 2008).
If Brooks isn’t as conservative as Phillip, or if Brooks has manifested RINOistic tendencies in the past, I will send Phillip the contribution his campaign requested. A black Republican elected to Congress in a Southern district held by a Democrat may be too good of a story to pass up, and Phillip would be able to advance the conservative cause far more than Brooks possibly could. We’ve got to win the election first, though.