Speaking of Sue ...

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: June 18, 2009

(... or does she go by Sue Bell?)

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous post, Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb is looking at pursuing the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Artur Davis and Ron Sparks.

Cobb is reportedly being encouraged along this line by Alabama Education Association uberlobbyist/political superpowerbroker/would-be-governor Paul Hubbert, who, for whatever reason, doesn’t exactly flip over the prospect of Davis or Sparks as his party’s nominee.

Perhaps it’s because when Hubbert says “Jump!“, Davis and Sparks don’t ask, “How high?“ But I digress.

Hubbert wants Cobb to run.

But super-plaintiff lawyer and political powerbroker Jere Beasley, who spent a lot of time and effort getting Cobb elected as chief justice, would prefer that she stays put, for obvious reasons—and not the least of which is that she is the last remaining Democrat on the Supreme Court.

The continuing speculation surrounding Cobb and her prospective candidacy may be what spurred Beasley on to announce this week that he will chair Davis’s campaign.

And there’s another wrinkle to consider here, too. Alabama Circuit Judge Charles Price of Montgomery told the Associated Press yesterday that he recently received a visit from “members of the black wing of the state Democratic Party, the Alabama Democratic Conference, encouraging him to consider the Democratic race for governor.“

The Alabama Democratic Conference seeking another candidate to run against Artur Davis, who happens to be ... black. Interesting.

Anyway, it appears that the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination is shaping up to be a bruising one. So the question becomes: If Cobb and Price both get in (which seems unlikely, but go with it, for the sake of argument), who swings the biggest political stick—Hubbert, Beasley or the ADC?

Incidentally, such a scenario could prove especially problematic for Joe Reed. Reed chairs the ADC, but as associate executive director of the AEA, he is also Hubbert’s right-hand man.

Ah, never mind. What am I thinking? The guy who could solve Alabama’s we’re-paying-thousands-of-dollars-to-a-convicted-felon-who-is-about-to-earn-pension problems with a mere stroke of a pen—but won’t tell anyone how—is surely able to handle a nasty, tangled mess of a gubernatorial primary with ease.

One more thing: Does it strike anyone else as ironic, or at least mildly funny, that Alabama could end up with a double-name governor? “Gov. Sue Bell Cobb.“ I just think that’s funny.