“I stated earlier we have a full four years in front of us.
Let me offer this reminder to my fellow elected officials. The people of Alabama deserve our very best.
Future generations of Alabamians deserve our hardest work today. So, let us not forget: Our service cannot be about the next election. It is about serving the people of our state, giving them what they need and deserve from their government.” [Emphasis added.]
—Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey in her second inaugural address
Though I have often suspected the opposite will come to pass, I pray Gov. Kay Ivey doesn’t resign before her full term is up.
Despite now serving as the oldest current governor in the United States, Ivey’s fulfillment of her second term has become bigger than her legacy or any legislative agenda she may pursue in her final two years.
Indeed, Ivey finishing out her last two years of service is now all about the next election.
In March 2022, before the GOP gubernatorial primary of that year, I posed this question:
Now, here’s the rude, unspeakable question: if re-elected, will Governor Ivey be physically and mentally capable of responsibly fulfilling the duties of her office for another full term?
The honest answer is: I don’t know.
I would like to say ‘yes.’ There would be even some comfort in a confirmed ‘no.’ Instead, I am left to the suspicions my own ears and eyes provide while hearing scurrilous rumors through the grapevine.
I suspect I am not the only one in Alabama who has thought of this - especially Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth.
Ainsworth is himself running for re-election unopposed and is now supporting Ivey’s own bid despite heated public disagreements over COVID policy. There is a good - at least non-zero - probability Will Ainsworth will inherit the Governor’s Mansion and gubernatorial incumbency just as Kay Ivey did in 2017…
The question of how community elders are to be respected as well as how they are to respect the public as political leaders is a delicate issue that blurs the lines of trust, transparency, and who actually runs the government.
How much does the public have a right to know about a leader’s health? What incentives does a leader have to disguise their health problems and withhold inconvenient information about themselves? Who takes over the reins if a leader is quietly incapacitated behind closed doors?
Of course, Ivey and Will Ainsworth easily won reelection in 2022. Both have just begun their third year of service to the people of Alabama in their respective positions of authority.
Yet, the suspicions, whispers and speculations over Ivey’s health have not subsided in the interim.
Recall when, not long after Ivey’s reelection, the political winds carried whispers of her decline in August 2023, especially after Ivey was a no-show at a major GOP dinner.
At the time, I suggested only one thing would put those rumors to rest:
Time. Enough time to prove the doubters of Ivey’s health wrong. Say four years' time. The clock is ticking.
But, if there is indeed any seed of solid truth to these health rumors, rest assured the wind will continue to carry the whispers to the chattering classes, even to those of us who would rather stay home and not hear what they have to say.
More recently, a deluge of social media praise from state agencies for Ivey reignited cynical speculation that she wouldn’t fulfill her full term and would soon resign her position. To crib a line from H. L. Mencken – when Alabama’s political watchers smelled those flowers on offer to Ivey, they looked around for her political coffin.
Mind you, I don’t say “cynical speculation” as an insult, else I insult myself. I, too, am an unrepentant cynical speculator over such matters. I, too, looked for Ivey’s political coffin after catching a whiff of those flowers. I recently even referred to Ivey as governor in name only (GINO) because of such speculations over her fortitude and endurance to finish her full four years of service.
Truth is, I only entertain such speculations – not because I hope them to be true – but because my cynical mind simply suspects them so. Indeed, what we most often pray against is what we suspect to be true despite our hopes.
Again, my hope and prayer is for Ivey to serve out her full four years as Alabama’s governor. Not because I love Ivey’s leadership, nor because I fear Ainsworth’s. Ainsworth may in fact be the golden goose Alabama needs, while Ivey will probably never quite satisfy me in what I’m looking for in a political leader.
Yet, I pray all the same for Ivey’s endurance and fortitude. I pray this because Alabama deserves an open gubernatorial race without someone running as an incumbent governor.
Not since the 2010 governor's race has there been an open field without the power of incumbency at play. By 2026 that will have been 16 years. Incumbency should be earned at the ballot box, not inherited because of some scandal or the tragedy that awaits all of us lucky enough to grow old.
Without an incumbent governor in the race in 2026, the people of Alabama are much more likely to deliver a surprise to the establishment in Montgomery – a populist surprise that will give the people of our great state what they need and deserve from their government.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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