Why I’m voting for Rusty Glover for lieutenant governor

For what it’s worth, I will be voting for Rusty Glover for Lieutenant Governor of Alabama.

This is not an “endorsement.” As a journalist, it is almost never my place to make endorsements, which imply that I am asking other people to vote for somebody. And even though I write this post as a private citizen, not as a journalist, I want to make clear: I have not “covered” this race to the degree that gives me adequate expertise on all the candidates.

But I write this because people often do ask me who I’m voting for. Sometimes, when I believe strongly enough in my choice, I tell them.

This is one of those times.

I am voting for Rusty Glover because, as I have watched him in office for the past 16 years, I have been impressed with the following characteristics of his: He is honest, earnest, and a principled conservative. For lieutenant governor, those are the three most important baseline character traits required.

On substance, I have been most impressed with Glover’s leadership in steadfast opposition to the horrid, counterproductive Common Core educational standards that have reversed the gains Alabama had been making in education. As a career educator himself, Glover understands how classrooms work, how teachers best transmit knowledge, and how students learn. Glover quickly recognized that Common Core disastrously undermines those processes, and thus disastrously undermines effective education.

On top of that, Glover seems like a truly nice individual. When I was running for Congress, he often was out at the same events I attended; even though he knew and was friendly with several of my opponents far better than he knew me, he always greeted me not just with courtesy but with warmth. He clearly recognized that campaigns need not require personal animosity, and indeed that they can instill a very friendly respect.

Glover is running a fairly low-budget, grassroots campaign. Unlike his opponents, he is not raking in the money from Goat Hill’s entrenched “big mule” interests. He is independent of their malign influence. If he wins, it will show that grassroots conservative reformers can defeat the power brokers.

I like and trust Rusty Glover. He has earned my vote.

Disclaimer (in the interest of candor, lest some people accuse me of being disingenuous): A few people know that when Tracy Roberts unexpectedly resigned from the state school board, Glover asked Governor Bentley — without me even knowing it until afterwards, much less requesting that Glover do so — to appoint me to the position, based largely on my deep journalistic dives into, and opposition to, Common Core. (Bentley already had made up his mind, though, to appoint Al Thompson, and did so within 24 hours.)

That unrequested action by Glover has nothing to do with my publishing this today. Proof: I similarly announced here that I would vote for Trip Pittman for U.S. Senator — even though Pittman had strenuously and effectively opposed my appointment to the same state school board position when it opened up again and I truly was interested in it.

Quin Hillyer, of Mobile, is a Contributing Editor for National Review Online, and is the author of Mad Jones, Heretic, a satirical literary novel published in the fall of 2017.