MARK MAYFIELD: Maddox and the high road

Last year, I mentioned that the U.S. Senate election between Doug Jones and Roy Moore presented the easiest choice Alabama voters would ever have to make. There was no question that Jones, a man of integrity with outstanding qualifications, would bring honor to this state, while Moore would bring nothing but embarrassment.

Since then, Jones has had an excellent start in the Senate, and is doing exactly what he promised he would do, and that includes reaching across the political aisle. Moore, by contrast, has still yet to concede that he lost, a fact that says something about the man and his candidacy.

So now comes another clear-cut political choice, one that pits a bright future against the status-quo in a state that remains in the bottom five nationally in most quality-of-life categories.

This is a choice now between a candidate whose uplifting message and track record of accomplishment have earned him the right to lead Alabama into the 21st century, against an incumbent who has gone out of her way to use the symbolism of the state’s negative past.
I’m referring, of course, to the gubernatorial campaign between Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. While Ivey deserves credit for cleaning up an office previously mired in scandal, she has done little to change the tone in Montgomery. In fact, she has eagerly jumped into the same backward political swamp that has engulfed this state for far too long.

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