Pro-white candidate's showing surprises political
observers
Thursday, June 08, 2006
By NADIA M. TAYLOR and SUSAN DAKER
* Staff Reporters*
The order of the names on the ballot? Little public
focus on the
campaign? A lack of knowledge about one candidate's
message?
Political analysts sought Wednesday to explain why
more than 160,000
Alabama voters favored a self-proclaimed pro-white,
atheist activist in
Tuesday's Democrat primary for attorney general.
Larry Darby of Montgomery, who denies the Holocaust
occurred, won 44
percent of the vote Tuesday in his statewide race.
His only opponent,
Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr.,
collected about 56
percent of the vote, and will face Republican
incumbent Troy King, in
the Nov. 7 general election.
"I'm very interested in finding out where his votes
came from," Tyson
said late Tuesday night.
Darby said he had no money for campaign advertising
and that it cost him
a victory. "If I could have had $5,000 or $10,000 to
spend on
advertising, I would have won," he said.
Still, Darby attributed his "strong showing" to
people who identified
with his message and platform of "dealing with the
Mexican invasion" and
fighting "for equal rights for European-Americans."
"This multi-culturalism is destroying not just the
United States but the
Southern culture," Darby said Wednesday. "It's part
of the global war on
whites to replace the whites of the world with
brown-skinned people.
We're becoming a third-world country."
Tyson said Wednesday that his side spent $34,000 on
advertising prior to
the primary and will undertake a lot more
"traditional campaigning"
before the general election.
State Democratic Chairman Joe Turnham said Wednesday
of Darby, "He just
had a lot of voters who didn't know who Larry Darby
was and what he
stood for. If they were, and if Tyson spent some
money letting them know
who he was, I think it would have been more
lopsided."
Darby and Tyson were listed alphabetically on the
ballot, and the
placement of Darby's name before Tyson's "had a lot
to do with it,"
Turnham said.
"That and the fact that it's a common name and you
have various regions
in the state of families of Darbys who are not
necessarily related," he
said.
Tyson agreed with Turnham's assessment about the
name order: "It's as
simple as his last name starting with D," he said.
But Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, who chairs the
Alabama Republican Party,
disagreed. She said that candidates in races further
down the ballot
didn't win based on name placement.
"I don't think it was the fact that the name was
first on the ballot. I
really think it's the fact that the Democratic Party
has gone out of the
mainstream," Cavanaugh said.
She said, "As an Alabamian I truly was shocked that
that so many people
would vote for someone that completely denies that
there is a God and
there was a Holocaust."
Tyson said that as he continues his campaign, he may
or may not be
interested in attracting the Democratic voters who
chose Darby.
"If people in north Alabama confused him with
another family that's very
popular up there, then yes, I'd like to try," Tyson
said. "If they
literally want to line the state with National
Guardsmen and shoot to
kill immigrants, then I'm not interested in that
vote. If his votes are
from people who deny the Holocaust actually
occurred, I'm not terribly
interested in those either."
In most counties, Darby gained from about 30 percent
to half of the
votes cast in the Democratic attorney general
contest, including in
heavily black counties such as Greene, Sumter, Macon
and Wilcox. He
fared worst in some of the counties nearest Mobile
County, where Tyson
has been a political fixture
Action by the state's most powerful black Democratic
voters' group could
also have been a factor in the final tally.
Two days before the primary, Joe Reed, the chairman
for the Alabama
Democratic Conference, said that the caucus was not
endorsing Tyson
because of how he prosecuted David Thomas Jr., a
black former Mobile
County school board member. Thomas was ousted from
his board position
May 4 after Tyson's office brought impeachment
charges against him for
using school funds to buy Mardi Gras beads.
Thomas also pleaded guilty May 15 to a felony charge
from Mobile of
leaving the scene of an accident and is scheduled
for sentencing June 15.
Reed did not immediately return calls for comment
Wednesday afternoon.
He said Sunday, "There was no reason to make him
(Thomas) plead guilty
to a felony." Reed said he thought that Tyson had
treated former Mobile
County Sheriff Jack Tillman better than Thomas. In
an April deal with
prosecutors, Tillman resigned from office after
pleading guilty to
misdemeanor perjury and ethics violations. Tillman,
like Tyson, is white.
Tillman had been indicted on five felony charges
surrounding his
handling of the food fund for the Mobile County
Metro Jail as well as
testimony he provided in a criminal case against his
sister-in-law in 2003.
"That's not even-handed justice," Reed said Sunday,
although he
acknowledged that Thomas did deserve some type of
punishment.
Tyson said he had spoken with Reed before the
primary about that
accusation and had told him the decision in Thomas'
case was Thomas' to
make.
"He wanted a trial, so that's what he got," Tyson
said, referring to the
impeachment proceedings.
The ADC, the largest group of black Democrats in the
state, distributes
sample ballots that recommend voting choices to its
supporters.
In Tuesday's primary, the ADC endorsed Thomas for a
spot on state
Democratic Executive Committee, but his felony
conviction prevents him
from being elected.