Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Looking back and looking forward

  Historically speaking, Alabamians have been more interested in the governor’s race than presidential politics.

  From 1876 to 1964, we were a totally Democratic state, more so out of tradition than philosophy. The hatred for the radical Republican Reconstruction imposed on the South made an indelible mark on white southern voters. It was so instilled that there are a good many stories told throughout the South where a dying grandfather would gather his children and grandchildren around his deathbed and gaspingly admonish them, “Two things I’m gonna tell y’all before I die – don’t ever sell the family farm and don’t ever vote for a damn Republican.”