"The people's mayor," is what they call Paul Prine, a candidate for Mobile mayor. The grassroots campaign has been impressive, with Prine leading in multiple unofficial polls. Still, Prine says he knows he has a big hill to climb on the last few days of the campaign trail.
"I don't want to be pretentious," Prine told 1819 News. "You know, I don't have the money that some of the other candidates have raised. But one thing they're not going to be able to do is outwork me. I'm a worker. I've always been a worker. And we all will not know until the night of the election whether or not, you know, work ethic is going to be able to overcome money."
Prine says he wants what's best for his city, and he believes he is the man for the job.
"The beauty of local politics in the state of Alabama is that we don't have to declare a party," Prine said. "I think oftentimes, especially in national politics, it's divided the people. But what a great opportunity at the local level across the state of Alabama for a candidate to come and actually take the good from both political parties and bring people together to build up their own community."
In October 2001, Prine nearly gave his life for the city. As a police officer, he responded to a domestic violence call and was shot in the back three times. As he was bleeding out, he called out to God. He promised God to live a life of integrity and to lead others to the Lord if he would allow him to survive.
"I suffered grave, critical injuries," Prine recalled. "While I was lying on my back and couldn't move, I had a revelation of death, and I had a revelation of the love of Jesus Christ. When I say that, I say that I knew in my heart that I was not prepared to meet the creator of the entire world. I adamantly was not prepared, and I knew I wasn't prepared. On that pavement, lying out there on a cold October night, I gave my heart back to God."
Prine lost a kidney, but not his life.
He went on to become the police chief of Mobile. It didn't take long before he realized that politics would bring challenges. Ultimately, he decided to let his faith be his guide. After standing up for what he thought was right, he was forced out of his position. That controversial incident led him to run for mayor.
"I think every candidate says there are people of faith, whatever that looks like," Prine said. "And we live in a country where we can all practice whatever our faith is without fear of retribution from anybody. But being a person of faith for me should simply be a demonstration to the public that not only do I say I'm a person of faith, but I actually stood up to an administration that asked me to do things that were unethical and certainly criminal. And I think that it leads people to say, 'Well, this candidate is not only saying he's a person of faith, but because of his personal conviction, he stood up publicly, did the right thing, even though it cost him and his family, he stood on moral convictions."
Prine said he understands not everyone has the same faith he does. For him, his faith has helped him face ethical issues and come out with an answer he could live with.
"The citizens of Mobile can elect and vote for a candidate that's going to do the right thing, even if it costs them something," Prine said of his candidacy. "And if I did what I did publicly to stand for my own personal conviction, I think the citizens of Mobile can certainly appreciate that I would advocate for them."
If elected mayor, Prine wants to ensure he is engaged with the inner workings of the government.
"The mayor has to be engaged at every level, and I think there's a strategy sometimes that we alienate in government service, as we have all this bureaucracy, because it alienates the person in charge from ethical or criminal employment," Prine explained. "But the reality is, when the mayor is not engaged in such a position, it allows that undercurrent or that control mechanism. Some people call it the deep state. It even goes here. Sometimes there's a vacuum or there's a current that runs underground, so to speak, that really takes some controls over operations of the city."
The municipal election is August 26.
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