On September 20, it was 80 degrees in Monroeville. The humidity was 86 percent. Men gathered for an event staged by the county’s Republican Party in front of the old courthouse in the city’s town square were sweating through button-down dress shirts.
For a late September afternoon, it was fair to say that it was unseasonably warm in Monroe County.
Among the attendees in this stifling heat was Gov. Kay Ivey, wearing a suit as she posed for pictures and handed out “Ivey for governor” stickers before delivering a 15-minute speech to attendees — calm, cool and collected.
Wait, that’s not the Kay Ivey that is portrayed by the legacy political media intelligentsia that dominates Alabama. Are there not questions about her health? “Why won’t she debate?” “What is she hiding?” “What is she doing away from the nursing home without her nurse?”
The health question is one of the reasons AL(dot)com’s John Archibald, who has won a Pulitzer Prize, insists Ivey should debate her Democratic opponent Walt Maddox.
“I’d like to ask Gov. Ivey to address those claims that chief of staff Steve Pelham is the shadow governor, that she’s just the lifetime achievement governor who signs the resolutions and gets out of the way,” Archibald wrote in an August 3 column. “I’d like to see her stand up and put questions about her health and fitness to bed.”
Didn’t we try this already? In the Republican primary, Ivey opponents Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and State Sen. Bill Hightower (R-Mobile) tried making health a campaign issue.
Despite a letter from her doctor released to the media giving her an “excellent” bill of health, rumors persisted.
It didn’t matter. Ivey clobbered her GOP competition on primary election night.
The effort to portray Ivey as Hillary Clinton 2016 2.0 is stunning. If you recall, throughout the 2016 presidential election campaign the former first lady struggled to make it through her campaign schedule. She was missing in action for days at a time and had a few stumbles along the way that required help from her staffers captured on camera.
Alabama’s governor has had a full slate over the past few months that stretched from one end of the state to the other: Opp, Butler, Winfield, Talladega, Clanton, Elba to name a few – you know, places where the pseudo-intellectual wannabe media elites responsible for covering the state’s politics probably could not find on a map.
Here is an unanswered question: Where are the intrepid reporters from AL(dot)com, the Anniston Star and the Montgomery Advertiser? Where are these noble ink-stained wretches that proclaim doing journalism for the right reasons, that is until it’s time to binge-watch the latest Netflix series? Why aren’t they seen more on the campaign trail? Maybe there are questions about their “health and fitness” and ability to the responsibilities associated with the role of Alabama’s fourth estate?
Perhaps the idea of venturing somewhere that isn’t within a 15-minute proximity of a Starbucks is abhorrent and uncouth. Could it just be that the rural areas of Alabama are not as relevant in the big picture of Alabama politics in their view?
Ivey’s appearances are made publicly available in advance. There has been plenty of public access to the governor at these appearances. It doesn’t require a debate stage with her standing next to Walt Maddox, and someone like Archibald in the role of moderator rehashing the 2017 Roy Moore saga to ask questions of our sitting governor.
Whatever the reason, critics are not around to see Ivey make her way around Alabama’s 52,000-plus square miles. If they were, they would see that the rumors propagated by her opponents of her demise are greatly exaggerated.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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