It was the who’s who of local politics inside the Betty Carol Graham Center on Thursday night for the Tallapoosa County Republican Party annual dinner.
Led by party chairman Terry Martin, the annual dinner featured a meal by 1220 Cafe and guest speaker Steve Flowers, who is Alabama’s leading political columnist and whose columns appear in The Outlook weekly.
Flowers has been in politics since he was a young boy and told stories of watching debates on television when he was just 10 years old. A previously elected official, Flowers has been writing a column since 2002 and he considers himself an Alabama political historian.
“Alabama politics has completely evolved and changed,” Flowers said. “Everyone used to run as a Democrat, but now it’s totally different.”
According to Flowers, there are 29 statewide elected officials in Alabama and currently all 29 positions are held by Republicans.
“It was just the opposite when I was born,” Flowers said. “You had to run as a Democrat. Every office in the state was held by a Democrat. Not that they were real Democrats, but we were a Democratic stage.”
Now, the opposite is true as Flowers said even Mickey Mouse could win a presidential nomination in Alabama, so long as he was running as a Republican.
“You can pretty much tell what’s going to happen before the race starts,” Flowers said.
He went on to tell stories of politicians as entertainers back in the day. Prior to the Braves moving to Atlanta in 1966, there wasn’t really a professional sports team in the South so watching politics was almost akin to watching sports.
“The South always had the most colorful political characters,” he said.
Flowers told stories of former Gov. Jim Folsom as well as former Sen. Richard Shelby, whom he considers one of the best senators in U.S. history – not just statewide.
Prior to the dinner, there was a meet and greet held with Flowers where he signed copies of his book, “Of Goats & Governors.”
There were several candidate hopefuls in the audience as well as state Rep. Ed Oliver and state Sen. Jay Hovey. Other politicians in attendance included Tallapoosa County commissioners Steve Robinson and John McKelvey, probate judge Tal East, city clerk Patrick Craddock, Alexander City Mayor Woody Baird, District 5 judge Kim Taylor and more.
Lizi Arbogast Gwin is the managing editor of Tallapoosa Publishers.
