Few things get political junkies and insiders more excited than speculating about the future of current elected officials. Heck, I spent an entire hour of my time guest hosting “Leland Live” on WAPI last week discussing exactly that. Who will run for what in 2014? 2018? Who can win? Whose ambitions are little more than a pipe dream? We probably could have talked the entire four hour show about it and the phones were ringing off the hook.
While in Washington, D.C. a few weeks back promoting his new book, Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard speculated a little about the future as well when he stopped in for an interview at The Daily Caller. “I would like to run for Governor one day.” Speaker Hubbard was quoted as saying during the interview.
One of the staffers from The Daily Caller (Jeff Poor) also happens to write for Lagniappe, Mobile’s alternative newspaper. So he put together an article for Lagniappe based on the Speaker’s DC interview. Hubbard is “a rising star and now has some floating his name as a possible candidate for governor,” the Lagniappe piece said.
“Could the timing of this book’s release and the publicicty associated [with] it, along with grumblings among Alabama GOP power brokers over Republican Gov. Robert Bentley’s job performance…be setting Hubbard up to challenge the incumbent governor?”
In what has become more and more of a common occurrence, the answer to the speculation came in the form of a tweet.
Nope but nice try! RT @LagniappeMobile: @SpeakerHubbard to challenge Bentley for GOP gov nod? by @jeff_poor bit.ly/NybupL #alpolitics
— Mike Hubbard (@SpeakerHubbard) June 13, 2012
Hubbard has been pretty open in interviews about wanting to run for Governor one day. But he’s also always been quick to point out (both in public and in private conversations) that “some day” will not be in 2014. The more likely scenario is that Bentley (whose public approval numbers are huge) will win a second term, setting up 2018 to be what George Talbot of the Mobile Press-Register recently referred to as a GOP Battle for the Ages.
Of course, no matter how many times Hubbard says he’s not running, some won’t believe it until qualifying day has passed and Hubbard’s name is not on the list of candidates. As you can see in the video below, Hubbard’s not the first to be helpless in reigning in the rumor mill, and he certainly won’t be the last.
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