“Alabama politics is not about Democrats and Republicans; it’s about plaintiff lawyers and big business.”

The image of Alabama and its politics—from dogs and hoses in Birmingham, to George Wallace standing in the doorway of the university in Tuscaloosa, to a Gadsden judge who insists on hanging the Ten Commandments in his courtroom—is negative, primitive, and redneck. But it is far too facile to view Alabama politics as something of an aberration. One could argue that Alabama is not behind at all, but rather that it has always been ahead of the curve in its politics, and that what you see in Alabama today you’ll see across America tomorrow.