Allied Women

In my last blog, I told you about a story in the bible in which a good king seeks God’s help and receives it. God says, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) I told you that I had noticed a pattern from the Old Testament of how Israel usually follows their king. If Israel has a good king, the people are good, but if they have a bad king, they follow his evil ways and go after other gods. There’s a lesson in this for us as Americans.

If we elect Godless leaders, then our nation will become Godless, but if we elect Godly leaders…

Someone has said, “So the laws go, so the culture goes.”

When Roe v. Wade legalized abortion…

When prayer was taken out of public schools…

America as a nation has been on a downward spiral away from God for a long time now. It certainly didn’t begin with the Obama Administration, but hopefully we have reached the climax with him and can turn the nation around and begin a march back toward our roots as a Christian nation.

Some friends of mine and I began praying during the last Presidential campaign not really believing what was happening. We prayed 2 Chronicles 7:14 a lot, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

I realized during that time that this verse was talking to me and my friends and others who are called by the name of Christ. “If MY people who are called by MY name, humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from THEIR wicked ways, then…”

American Christians, in general, aren’t on fire for the Lord. We’re weak in our faith and strong in the world. And, frankly, we’re too nice. Sometimes God requires a fight. Our apathy and our worldliness have gotten us where we are right now. It’s time for American Christians to be bold, to fight, and to put our working shoes on.

Another pattern I’ve noticed from the Old Testament is that when God makes a promise to Israel, it doesn't always happen right away, and many times it requires some effort on their part. Case in point, when God first gave Israel their promised land, it was inhabited. God had said it, so it was theirs, but they still had to fight for it. So, they marched into battle and won their land away from the wicked people who had lived there before them.

That's what we need to do, draw up a battle plan, bath it in prayer, and march into battle against the evil that is trying to destroy us.

Here’s what my friends and I did. First, we got ourselves educated about political issues. We have a conservative think tank here in Birmingham called the Alabama Policy Institute, so we met with its President, Gary Palmer, to talk about what we, as concerned citizens, could do. We learned that taking back our nation doesn’t begin with the White House, top to bottom, but rather with a more bottom up approach.

He advised us to work to develop a strong state government that could defend itself against big government ideology coming down from Washington. State government also feeds itself into the federal government. Governors become Presidents, and State Legislators become Congressmen. One of the big problems we have, Gary told us, is that good people are hard to come by. They just don’t want to get involved in politics. We need people to be willing to run for office. It’s icky out there, so I understand. But, in order to make the changes we need and want, then we’re going to have to put ourselves out there.

But, if you’re not ready to run for office yet, like me, there’s still so much that can be done. What we did was form an organization called Allied Women. We are a grassroots organization dedicated to changing the political landscape of Alabama in order that our home state can help change the political landscape of the nation. Our aim is to educate and to encourage activism. We have also set up a PAC in order to support candidates we feel reflect our conservative Christian views. We feel we can be the most effective in the November 2010 election by trying to overturn the Alabama State Senate.

Here’s why: Although Alabama ranks as the most conservative state in the nation, we rank 4^th in the nation for political corruption. There’s really something wrong with that. The people of Alabama are for the most part conservative Christians, but the people we elect aren’t always. There are some good politicians here. For example, Governor Bob Riley has served this state well over the past eight years and goes down in my book as the best Governor our state has seen in quite some time. First, he fought against illegal gambling in our state. He fought because no one else would. He stood alone on the front lines of the battle many times. He also organized a great team to bring new jobs to our state. His economic developer, Neal Wade, is ranked as the top state economic developer in the nation.

But, Riley’s type of forward thinking and active approach to governing isn’t the norm in Montgomery. Gambling money runs deep into the pockets of many in our State Capital as does money from special interests groups like A.E.A. And, money gets people elected for some reason. Believe it or not, advertising works.

The Allied Women PAC has identified some key races in the 2010 election that we’d like to help influence. Top on our list as a “got to go” guy is a State Senator from Cullman named Zeb Little. He’s the kind of person who helps Alabama get that #4 ranking in political corruption handed down by the United States Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. The ranking is based on the number of Alabama public officials who have been convicted of crimes. I personally have on file the newspaper article detailing Little’s D.U.I. He was arrested April 4, 2009 for driving under the influence, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, violation of the open container law, and driving with an expired license.

One of my good friends’ brother-in-law is still recovering from a coma one year after he was hit by a drunk driver. A couple who came to Date Night at the Grand, a marriage retreat Rick and I spoke at last month, told us they had lost their 18-month-old daughter due to a drunk driver. Then, there’s Siran Stacy whose wife and four of his children were killed by a drunk driver. We could go on and on and on about drunk driving… We all know this is bad. But, it’s not just that Zeb Little has been convicted of a DUI that Allied Women would like to see him de-seated.

We want to see Alabama State Senate seats filled with people who will fight for truth and transparency in government, who really care about the future of our state and our nation, people who stand for the conservative Christian values that we believe in, who aren’t controlled by special interests groups like A.E.A and those who want to see Alabama become a new Nevada. We hope to put through candidates to the Senate who will protect and preserve what is good about our state and will move it forward in an ethical and honest way.

One issue we are particularly concerned about is gambling. Here’s why… There is really no end to the money these people have to target our state, and once they’ve got us, they rule us. What I mean by that is that one of the biggest things you have to worry about when you legalize gambling is corruption in government. They start buying people off, buying votes, making things go well for themselves. This is what I mean by special interest. If a politician is concerned about what the guy over at Country Crossings wants him to do then his judgment can become skewed and he no longer has the best interest of his constituents as a whole in mind.

And, what do I mean by transparency in government? Well, take PAC-to-PAC transfers, which are currently legal in our state despite the fact that a bill to ban them has been put through the Alabama State House of Representatives for years now only to get torn apart in the State Senate, for example. Currently, one PAC can give to another then to another and then somewhere along the line the candidate will receive a donation. Following the money trail here in Alabama is almost impossible with that kind of behavior going on. The candidate will surely be informed of who is giving him or her the money, but John Q. Public will never know who the candidates he’s voting for are beholden to. This is one of the reasons it’s so important to overturn our liberal majority Senate in this November election, so it will stop stifling ethics legislation that could help Alabama turn around that #4 in political corruption problem we have here.

For these reasons the Allied Women PAC has identified 10 candidates for the Alabama State Senate we hope to support and elect come November. They are:

1. Paul Bussman (against Zeb Little) in District 4 which includes Cullman, Lawrence, & Winston Counties
2. Clay Scofield (against Tim Mitchell) in District 9 - Blount, Madison, & Marshall Counties
3. Gerald Allen (against Phil Poole) in District 21 - Hale, Pickens, & Tuscaloosa Counties
4. George Flowers (against Harri Anne Smith and Jennifer Adams) in District 29 including Dale, Geneva, & Houston Counties
5. Paul Sanford (against Jeff Enfinger) District 7 - Madison County
6. Bryan Taylor, Goveror Riley’s Policy Director (against Wendell Mitchell) in District 30 in Autauga, Butler, Crenshaw, & Elmore Counties
7. Tom Whatley (against Ted Little) in District 27 – Lee, Russell, & Tallapoosa Counties
8. Danny Joyner (against Marc Keahey) in District 22 which includes portions of Baldwin, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe, & Washington Counties.
9. Phil Williams (against Larry Means) District 10 - Cherokee & Etowah Counties
10. Greg Reed (against Brett Wadsworth) in District 5 - Jefferson, Tuscaloosa, Walker & Winston Counties

We would sure like your help in this.

Allied Women is hosting a Nuts & Bolts Workshop on August 28^th from 9 a.m. until noon at Cahaba Grand Conference Center on Highway 280 in Birmingham. We’ve partnered with American Majority, Eagle Forum, and Alabama Policy Institute to bring you up to speed on everything you can do to make a difference now.

Register on-line at www.alliedwomen.org.