Judge Roy Moore believes Alabama Democrats will elect him to governor?

Apparently the state's Republicans have finally decided they shouldn't allow crossover voting in the primary elections. In an Op-ed peice I read in the Birmingham News recently, the Alabama Republican party wants to prohibit crossover voting and is proposing legislation to that effect.

When I moved to Birmingham in 1994, I was surprised to learn that as a Democrat I was allowed to vote in the Republican primary if I wanted to.

Now, leaders of the Alabama Republicans want to change all that. Ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore thinks the proposal for the legislation is aimed at keeping him out of office. It may be, but if it is, they haven't thought this thing through.

Here is where the irony comes in. Roy Moore is worried that without me and my fellow Alabama Democrats, he can't win his bid to become governor of Alabama. He thinks that way because way back in the old days, say ten or fifteen years ago before we crossed into this alternate universe, a Democrat voting in the Republican primary would have voted for the worst possible candidate for governor in an attempt to aid the Democratic candidate. Hah! That was then. This is now. No Democrat in her right mind would vote for Roy Moore in the primary because in this alternate universe we are living in, he might actually get elected.

I'm afraid! There was a time when I would have deemed such a thing impossible. Even after the 2000 presidential election I still believed I was living in the right universe. I just thought it was all a colossal mistake that would be easily remedied in 2004. That was then. This is now.

In the last gubernatorial election, I voted for our former governor, Don Siegelman, a Democrat. The Republican candidate, Bob Riley scared me when he said things like, 'God wanted' him to win.

One of the first things Riley did as governor was try to raise taxes. He pushed for slightly higher taxes to aid Alabama's poor and Alabama's children (ala education). I have to admit that I was amused by the outrage voiced by the Republicans who had elected him but was quite disappointed when the proposal was voted down.

Though Riley is a TheocRepublican I have confidence that he is sincere (unlike the vast majority of Theocrepublicans). He actually shows signs of having a conscience and worries about poor people, even the ones who don't vote. That's unusual.

I'm realistic. I live in Alabama. The chances of us having a Democrat serve as governor anytime in the near future seems infintesimal (sp) and so the days when I might have used the Republican crossover primary voting to try to get my Democratic candidate elected by voting for a buffoon (such as Roy Moore) are long gone. If I vote in the Republican primary this year in Alabama, Bob Riley will get my vote.

If I can only vote in one primary this year, it will be hard for me to decide which one to vote in. Former governor Don Siegelman plans to run in the Democratic primary but I wish he wouldn't. Too many accusations against him have been spun in the last few years and even though so far, all claims of wrong doing have been proven false, the damage is done I think.

Lieutenant Governor, Lucy Baxley, a Democrat, has announced her intention to run for Governor and I think she has a better chance than Don Siegelman does. Yes, she has two things going against her in this alternate universe we are living in; she is a woman and she is a Democrat. But I recently had a conversation with a friend that has given me a glimmer of hope.

I won't name my friend but she comes from a very conservative background. Just to illustrate how conservative, her parents actually believe that Nixon was framed. Yeah, Richard Nixon. My friend is a tenured professor at a local Baptist university and she is not particularly political. She's active and busy with her work and her children. She rarely even mentions politics. It is usually me that introduces political topics into our conversations.

She shocked me recently. I asked her if she knew anybody that she thought would vote for Roy Moore. I was thinking of her conservative parents. She told me she wasn't sure but that she thought she would vote for Lucy Baxley. "The Lucy Baxley?????" I asked her if she knew Baxley is a Democrat and she (my anonymous but wonderful friend) raised her chin in defiance and a stubborness I've come to recognize over the years and replied, "Yes."

And suddenly a small glimmer of hope beckons from the horizon that could be the real universe, you know, the one where we used to live back when it was okay to question the doings of the folks in the White House and not be accused of being a "Communist who hates America, God and our troops overseas"

But here is where the real decision making comes in. If I have to choose between voting in the Republican and Democratic primaries, how will I decide? To choose between Lucy Baxley who I think has a tiny little chance of winning the general election by voting in the Democratic primary and voting against Roy Moore in the Republican primary is going to be exceedingly difficult.

The choice may be made for me if the Alabama Republican party gets their way. I'll have to wait and see.