One of our own, Gerald Johnson, offered some interesting commentary on the political polling process for the state — and in particular, the defeat of Amendment 1 on September 9th.

Gerald believed from the beginning the amendment was destined for defeat because the Campaign for Alabama was about two weeks behind in getting their message out and organizing the governor’s base. It gave the Tax Coalition time to send the message that this was really a tax hike, which proved an easy sell considering the complexity of the Riley plan.

“It was a complex plan that was hard to get your arms around to explain,” Gerald said. Dr. Ed Richardson told Gerald that he could not explain it when out on speaking engagements in less than 30 minutes, and this was a real problem. Another issue was the bringing together of so many folks who normally are opposed, which created a distrust of the true fairness of the plan.

It was interesting to note movement of the polls from May to September. The African-American vote was all over the place from week to week. The Caucasian vote overall came out strong at 49 percent in favor and declined steadily after the first two weeks the Tax Coalition organized. Independent voters were the largest group of undecided voters going into the Sept. 9 vote. Analysis following the vote found that voters in the poorest counties were in favor and the wealthiest voters in our state supported this amendment.