Can Alabama Spark a Democratic Revival in the South?--By Steven Gray / Rainbow City

Late on a recent Monday afternoon, Artur Davis, the Alabama congressman, stood before a racially diverse crowd of casually dressed men and women in the vast main hall of Rainbow City's community center. The talk centered on how to bring jobs to Alabama's economically depressed northeastern corner, bolstering parental responsibility, making college more affordable, and, simply, hope. Five months earlier, Davis won reelection to a fourth term representing Alabama's 7th Congressional district, which includes the hub of the state's once-robust cotton industry. Now, he has begun his campaign to win the governor's office in Alabama in 2010 — and to usher in a Democratic revival in the South.

Davis' candidacy is a distinctive part of a coming electoral test. Between now and November 2010, in fact, nearly 40 of the nation's governor's seats will be up for grabs. One of the most intriguing battlegrounds will be the South, where Republicans dominate the governorships, 6-to-5. Democrats are emboldened by Barack Obama's victory last November, particularly in Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida — wins achieved partly because of high participation by those states' large black electorates, as well as the infusion of relatively affluent transplants who aren't beholden to the region's old-school political regimes. Now, of course, the Republican Party is struggling to move beyond its base of rural Southern white Protestants and into the Midwest and Northeast. So the governor's races quickly taking shape in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and in Alabama will be key tests of whether the Democrats can extend their recent gains. (Watch a video where Artur Davis and others discuss who should be TIME's 2008 Person of the Year.)

If elected, Davis would lead the Confederacy's first capital, Montgomery, where Alabama's best-known governor, George Wallace, in his 1963 inaugural address, called the state the "Cradle of the Confederacy," the "very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland," and declared, "segregation now...segregation tomorrow... segregation forever." Davis' election would deliver another blow to what remains of the G.O.P.'s racially divisive Southern Strategy. He would also be only the third black elected governor in American history, the second from the South. Is Alabama ready for that much change? (See a graphic presentation of the American Civil War.)

Davis, 41, is keenly aware that much of his bid's appeal — and challenge — lies in his personal narrative. That's why he began his recent talk in Rainbow City, before the audience of a couple of dozen people, with a familiar anecdote. On the day before Easter Sunday, 1977, he tells the audience, his single mother, a high school teacher, brought him to Alabama's state capitol for the first time. He was awed by the place. "I never could have imagined, growing up in West Montgomery, I'd ever have a chance to travel beyond that neighborhood, much less have a chance to serve as governor of this wonderful state. I can confidently tell y'all," he continues, "I was born where both sides of the track were wrong."

What he does not mention, though, are details of his story that mark him as firmly part of the elite. He attended Harvard for both undergraduate and law school, where Barack Obama was a couple years ahead. Davis eschewed joining a New York or Washington law firm, and became a federal prosecutor, frequently handling drug cases. In 1998, he joined a prominent Birmingham law firm, Johnston Barton Proctor & Powell, where he specialized in employment and white-collar criminal cases.

The following year in Davis' life was instructive for the fledgling politician. Then just 31, Davis announced plans to challenge Earl Hilliard Sr., the first African-American elected to Congress from Alabama since Reconstruction. Davis was largely dismissed as an upstart who hadn't paid his dues by winning a lower-tier office. Despite being hailed by the Birmingham News as a "leader for the future," Davis lost. He attributed defeat to having raised barely $100,000. The next time he ran, in 2002, Davis had become adept at raising money, benefitting from donations from American Jewish groups concerned about Hilliard's views on Israel. Much of the African-American political establishment derided Davis as an elitist whose polished demeanor, Ivy League credentials and prosecutorial record made him inauthentically black. But this time, he won. One of the first congratulatory calls he received came from Obama, then an obscure Illinois state senator plotting his own U.S. Senate bid. Though they were among a handful of black men at Harvard Law at the same time, the two men hardly knew each other.

Davis quickly proved himself to be a centrist Democrat — voting, for instance, for a 2006 bill to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, a measure that divided Democrats. The previous year, he followed his party in supporting a bill to halt restrictions on federal spending on embryonic stem cell research. He also showed an independent streak: Even as much of Alabama's Democratic establishment, including its black caucus, backed then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in the state's Democratic presidential primary, Davis endorsed Obama. (Obama won.) In the days after Obama's victory last November, there was talk that Davis would be the President-elect's attorney general nominee. But Davis was already weighing other options. One was running for the U.S. Senate seat long held by Richard Shelby, a Republican. Or bidding to succeed Alabama's Republican governor, Bob Riley, who is barred from seeking a third term. "The easier course for me would have been to stay in Washington until the Senate seat comes open," Davis says. But, he says, the governor's seat carries considerably more influence on issues he is most interested in. Furthermore, this governor's race is the first in nearly a quarter-century that lacks an incumbent. "An open seat, by definition, means voters are going to vote in a prospective way. That kind of election" Davis adds, "is a good fit for me."

Many Alabama politicos were surprised by Davis' February announcement to run for governor. Some hoped he'd first prove he could win a mid-level statewide office. He scoffs at such talk, and says, "I didn't go to see people in Montgomery to get permission to run for governor, and I won't. I'm trying to get permission from the people I'm seeing today — the voters." Davis says he did not expect support from the state's Democratic establishment — and that helped him decide to announce his candidacy early. He needs as much time as possible to build a campaign apparatus. He certainly has a war chest to start building that operation: nearly $1.1 million.

Inside the Rainbow City center, Davis frequently, and comfortably, mentions God. He is a Lutheran, recently married to a follower of the African Methodist Episcopal faith; he often attends a Baptist church and he describes himself as "a true ecumenist." From the crowd, there are questions, like: How would Davis, as governor, help make health insurance more available to folks who barely make $15,000 a year? And, why is Alabama consistently ranked near the bottom of the nation's education achievement tests, and what would Davis, as governor, do about it? "We pat ourselves on the back when we move from 46 to 42 in education," he tells the audience, standing in front of a large blue sign that says, in white and red ink, DAVIS 2010. There are a couple "uh-huhs" and "hmmmms" from the crowd, as the candidate makes clear Alabamans need "more of a sense of ambition than we've ever had."

Then comes a trickier issue. Despite talk of a post-racial America in the Obama era, Davis is acutely aware that the issue of race remains, and that he must manage it deftly. And so he does, at times directly, from the podium. "People say to me, 'You know, what you're trying to do is kind of difficult, right?' They mean different things when they say that. But ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to let other people talk about what we're not ready for. Or what they think we cannot do. I trust the people of Alabama — to vote with their imagination, not their fears."
In a poll commissioned by Davis' campaign, 51% of respondents said they believe Alabama is "ready" to elect a black governor in 2010, and 38% said the state is not. Davis' supporters point to those figures as evidence the state has progressed significantly on matters of race. Peggy Wallace Kennedy, George Wallace's daughter, drew headlines recently for endorsing Davis, and says, "I believe he'll be one of the best governors we've ever had." Asked what her father would say about the prospect of a black governor, she adds, "He'd just say, 'It's the future,' and I think he'd be okay with it." (Read a 1992 TIME interview with George Wallace.)

Still, exit polls during the November 2008 election showed that only 10% of white Alabamans voted for Obama, compared with 19% for the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry. (John McCain won Alabama last November.) That's partly why many Republicans are salivating at the prospect of Davis winning his party's nomination. At the same time, says Glen Browder, a former Alabama Democratic congressman completing a book on the South's shifting racial politics, "a lot of Democrats are scared for Artur Davis to be the nominee," partly because Republicans will likely try to pounce on his connection to President Obama. Davis will find his toughest proving grounds in the state's largely white northern hill country. "They know his candidacy doesn't make sense in the context of Alabama's history," Browder says.

To succeed, Davis believes he must take several key lessons from Obama's campaign strategy of attracting a new crop of voters. "It's people like the young professionals — black and white — who come to me and say, 'I haven't felt that politics in this state spoke to me.'" Like Obama, Davis has overcome initial skepticism among many African-Americans. So he will certainly galvanize Alabama's black voters in much the way Obama did in last November's elections. Historically, Democrats running for statewide Alabama office needed roughly 90% of black voters, and about 40% of white voters in the general election in order to succeed. Davis believes he will need fewer white voters — if blacks show up at the polls.

The Alabama of 2009 is a far different place from 1963, and from 1994, when an African-American state Supreme Court Justice, Ralph Cook, was advised not to show his image in his election campaign advertisements so as not to draw attention to the fact that he was black. "Forget race," Davis says. "There are parts of the state where people haven't seen a Democrat in a while."