In the News
Gubernatorial Candidate Shrinks His Campaign to One Message: AEA is Evil
October 26, 2009
By AEA
October 15, 2009
The dictionary defines obsession as the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, or desire. Other folks see it as the ultimate compliment.
Bradley Byrne defines it as the Alabama Education Association.
What educators see as a bizarre twist to the upcoming election season, gubernatorial candidate and ex-postsecondary chancellor Byrne announced recently that his gubernatorial campaign will be based on.....how evil AEA is.
Wow.
On October 6, Byrne showed up on the steps of the state capitol to announce a major education initiative. What the assembled press heard was a long diatribe by Byrne on the "influence-wielding AEA union bosses who have flagrantly dictated education policy and controlled the state's education budget process for decades. Alabama's changing political landscape poses increasing problems for the 'tax and spend' AEA agenda."
Tax and spend? Has he not heard about proration? Where are these taxes and this spending he talks about?
Byrne has recently exhibited a short fuse when it comes to AEA. He certainly has a short memory.
Back when he was a liberal Democrat, Byrne gladly took campaign funds from folks like educators and was on very friendly terms with AEA. When he needed support in his new life as a Republican in 1998, AEA gave it to him and was his biggest campaign contributor.
Then he became postsecondary chancellor and decided he no longer was a diminutive public figure, he now was a "big man," whose goal became the governor's chair.
Byrne decided he would strip fair dismissal rights and fire people for no reason. AEA stood up to him and his plans were thwarted. He got angry.
He gave insider contracts to a lobbying group for things like background checks and AEA called him on it. Byrne became more upset, to the point where he now seems to act like a small child rather than a leading public figure. In his campaign opening event in July, he became visibly upset at an association staffer in the crowd with an AEA shirt on. It was a sign of the obsession to come.
As with any good fixation, Byrne doesn't let facts get in the way.
"For nearly four decades, the Alabama Education Association has been the single greatest impediment to quality education in this state," Byrne said. "Our children and our dedicated, hard-working teachers have been consistently short-changed at AEA's hands."
Since the vast majority of Alabama teachers are voluntary AEA members, Byrne believes they are either stupid, naïve, or just evil doers who don't give a whit for their students or for education. As far as impediments go, anyone who even remotely pays attention to Alabama schools knows the single greatest barrier to better education in Alabama is funding. Or as Byrne puts it: taxing and spending.
AEA is the only group that fights for more education funding. AEA fights to close corporate tax loopholes. AEA makes sure education money is not raided for other purposes.
And as it turns out, the real focus of the Byrne event was money, announcing he would now refuse AEA campaign contributions, and challenged other Republican candidates to do the same.
Nobody has ever accused Bradley Byrne of having an undersized ego, or a stunted ambition, but his campaign seems to become smaller in size as its focus shrinks on AEA.