Every week at Reran Tragedy, Editor-in-Chief Cal Alabaster Jr. draws on his considerable experience in Southern politics to round up news, notes, and blatantly pasted-in press releases that readers may have otherwise missed.
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks at an anti-gay contraception rally in Mobile on Saturday morning.
MOBILE — After years of watching voters in states like New Hampshire and Iowa steer the race for president, Alabama voters said this week that they are excited that the state’s earlier primary and a longer-running presidential race have afforded them opportunity to have their unrealistic, probably insane views reflected in the campaign for GOP nominee.
The campaigns have been forced to consider views on banning a nonexistent Affordable Care Act requirement that replaces cousins with Muslim illegal immigrants, monetizing child abuse, endorsing “self-povertization” and federally mandating that Toomer’s Oaks be repoisoned every year. Accordingly, the architects of this year’s earlier Alabama primary believe their mission to make the race take on an Alabama flavor has been accomplished.
“Every election year, it seems like hyperweird Iowa evangelicals and d-bag New Hampshire contrarians and South Carolina illiterates get to crown the person who could be president before we’ve even sent out overseas ballots,” Alabama GOP Chairman Bill Armistead said. “But most Alabamians are just as crazy and half-witted as those voters too. We only had a referendum to get rid of a constitutionally unenforceable interracial marriage ban here a decade or so ago, and it only won by a 60 to 40 margin.
“I think it’s safe to say it’s well past time our dumbassed, short-sighted and easily manipulated voters got to have a bigger say in this campaign for Republican nominee for president.”
And Alabama voters are pumped for the opportunity.
“It’s great to have an impact in an election where virtually no stupid blacks are going to show up,” said Harold Johnson, 33, an Ohio-born engineer who now works in Huntsville and frequently calls in to conservative talk radio shows in the area. “And that is not racist, because they are statistically dumber than me, especially since they only do as their told when they vote. They don’t do research on their candidates by listening to who Rush Limbaugh says to vote for.
“Oh, and the Mexicans only left the schools after HB56 [Alabama's harsh new immigration law] passed because they’re stupid too. Just wanted to get that in there before I hang up and listen to the liberals whine.”
“We gonna get rid of that Kenyan this year,” said Jenny Jenkins, 49, a Blount County resident. “That Muslim and them ain’t gonna send their health care Nazis to my damn house to bend me over and make me kill my grandmother with AIDS. Also, I have some very important thoughts on how all tax money is paid straight to interracial gay Welfare Queen marriages in Vermont. I voted against interracial marriage ten years ago and I won’t take it now!”
“I’m done what tired of the government telling me that gays can use the pill!” said Harry DeWitt, 55, a Baldwin County native outside a Newt Gingrich event in Mobile on Saturday. “Because my religion might done hear about how them gays are using the contraceptives like such, it violates my religious freedom! I don’t know how, but I’m gonna scream about it real loud until someone who looks nice and like they runnin’ for office agrees with me!”
Though not receiving quite as much attention from the national press, Alabama GOP voters recent en masse coming out against gays’ use of birth control, spurred by something someone said on a Birmingham talk radio station, has been reflected in the campaigns over the past week.
Rick Santorum came out strongly behind the anti-gay contraception movement at a rally at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville last week, blaming “overwhelming government payment for gays unnatural and frequent use of contraception” for tallying up the national debt.
Gingrich followed suit. He first blamed the media for “distracting from the issues in this race like banning this president from making you literally eat food stamps like they do in the inner city, where there are black people.” After a long digression on that topic and Thomas Jefferson‘s vision for the moon, Gingrich then again slammed the media for “promoting the Martin Luther King Jr. radical agenda of this president to make sure that every gay man and woman has an intrauterine device installed for their sexual activity.”
Ron Paul prepares for the coming Wolf War he predicted in a series of disavowed newsletters in the 1990s.
Gingrich, whose campaign could make a major statement by winning Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, has also changed his campaign logo to court North Alabama’s population of sentient gas pumps. His campaign, however, suffered a perhaps crippling blow on Saturday by announcing the endorsement of noted dancing monkey and former Gov. Fob James.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has attempted to move past his weakness on the social issues that Alabama voters traditionally have wasted their time on by focusing on economy-like things. He has won over the support of establishment Republicans in Alabama by privately sharing his support of a federal constitutional amendment requiring Alabama to pay an additional $400 million in tax-funded incentives to large corporations.
Ron Paul, meanwhile, has avoided Alabama after his plane went down following his loss in the recent Alaskan primaries. He is presumed to be re-enacting the recent film “The Grey” as a pack of wolves picks off his surviving supporters one by one in a doomed journey through the Alaskan landscape.
And no one cares.
Birmingham News staff literally ‘running scared’ after not endorsing Beason
Seeing this photo just made a Birmingham News reporter pee.
Sources say The Birmingham News descended into total anarchy this week after State Sen. Scott Beason, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus in Tuesday’s Republican primary, issued a press release charging that The News is “running scared” after endorsing Bachus.
An editorial published by The News last week reasoned against endorsing Beason largely because, despite Bachus flaws, he is blessedly not Scott Beason. Though it left out Beason’s racist language and plans to minimize black votes in a recording he made with the intent of being played in open court in a recent public corruption trial, the editorial took particular issue with his single-handed screwing of Jefferson County into bankruptcy despite being part of the county’s legislative delegation and his sponsorship of a poorly drafted and burdensome anti-immigration measure.
Beason, seeming hurt by the pointed anti-endorsement, issued a press release, charging that it “is now obvious that [The News'] editorial board is running scared, otherwise they wouldn’t have directly singled me out as the key reason to vote for my opponent.”
That sharp response sent the paper’s newsroom into chaos, sources said.
“The third floor has been on fire for days, Joey Kennedy hasn’t been seen or heard from and is thought dead,” the source said. “And the sectarian warfare has gotten ugly between the editorial board and the sports reporters, with John Archibald being the wildcard. No one knows what’s going on inside that newspaper fort of his—all we know is that when you get a burning photo of Larry Langford placed on your cubicle, you’ll be joining him inside it and you’ll likely never return.
“We are just so scared of Scott Beason right now that we don’t know what to do.”
As The News burns, Beason has a full day of campaign events planned for Monday in Jefferson County and Shelby County.
And on Tuesday, he plans on losing.
This week in Alabama history
After being a fugitive for four years, former State Treasurer Isaac “Honest Ike” Vincent was captured in Texas and returned to Alabama to face trial for embezzling $225,000.
He was later elected as lieutenant governor.
Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. Much of what you will read here is fictionalized, except for all the parts that are unfortunately true because they are about politics and life in Alabama and the South.
The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com. You can also follow Cal on Twitter @KingCockfight or email Cal at king.cockfight@gmail.com.
