Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Recapping the Alabama gubernatorial primaries

  The superstars emerging from the June 1st primaries were Ron Sparks and Dr. Robert Bentley. There were a lot of undecided voters in both parties leading up to last Tuesday’s primaries. Obviously the lion’s share of these voters fell to Bentley and Sparks.

  Sparks, the two-term agriculture commissioner trounced four-term 7th District Congressman Artur Davis 62 percent to 38 percent to capture the Democratic nomination for governor. Sparks was elected agriculture commissioner in 2002, the same year that Davis defeated incumbent Congressman Earl Hilliard to capture the 7th Congressional District seat. Davis was on a fast track in Washington. If he had stayed the course he could have been one of Alabama’s greatest congressmen, and we have had some good ones over the years.