Chris Christie and family

By Glynn Wilson –

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Nothing gets the people of Alabama fired up like football. It’s even been called the state religion.

But in the best piece of journalism ever published on the subject, Rick Bragg debunked that notion a few years back in Sports Illustrated.

“They say college football is religion in the Deep South, but it’s not. Only religion is religion,” Bragg wrote. “Anyone who has seen an old man rise from his baptism, his soul all on fire, knows as much, though it is easy to see how people might get confused. But if football was a faith anywhere, it would be here on the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And now has come a great revival.”

He wrote that after Nick Saban took the job as head football coach at the University of Alabama and started winning national championships again like the great Paul “Bear” Bryant, who is still worshiped here as a god.

Jesus is popular in the old Heart of Dixie. But not as popular as Bear Bryant, or now Nick Saban, who has won six national championships and is surely considered a great saint if not a god.

Yet something has been missing from the state since ole George Wallace climbed his last political mountain back in the 1980s. He may have been a Democrat, but he was bigger than any party. No governor, no politician, has ever been able to rise to a level high enough to get the people here to follow him like they followed Wallace. Nationally and in the history books, Wallace will be remembered as a great racist dictator. But here people followed him like a king. Even African Americans followed him and voted for him in great numbers, after he kissed the black homecoming queen at the University of Alabama and built community colleges all over the state.

For the past 30 years Republicans have tried to find someone like Wallace to rally the people like he did. But they could only come up with Guy Hunt, Fob James, Bob Riley and Robert Bentley.

Last year, something changed. Birmingham attorney Doug Jones jumped into the race for Howell Heflin’s old seat in the United States Senate and caught on like a wildfire spreads through a forest in the wind. Former Judge Roy Moore was popular too, but his religiosity just wasn’t enough.

So now the state is facing another election year and most of the political offerings are fairly mediocre and typical.

If she can overcome Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox in the Democratic Primary June 5, former state Supreme Court justice Sue Bell Cobb might face off with Kay Ivey in the governor’s race. An all women race for the state’s top job might keep the women fired up who turned out in great numbers for Doug Jones and are still trying to extend the #MeToo movement into political success, at least at the local level.

I made the trip across the state from Mobile to Birmingham this week to take a closer look at another candidate for statewide office who I’m told might have what it takes to bring some success in the private sector to government.

Birmingham attorney Chris Christie may have the unfortunate political fate to have been given the same name as a controversial governor of New Jersey. Only he’s a Democrat and a Sunday school teacher who says he’s the most qualified candidate to be elected attorney general.

“I’m not a politician, not part of the good old boys club. I don’t have an allegiance to anybody in state government right now,” Christie said to a small crowd of supporters gathered at the B&H Warehouse by the new Birmingham Barons baseball stadium across from Railroad Park.

“You know, I really love Alabama. I’m really proud to be from Alabama,” he said with a humbleness I’ve not seen in many men or women with political ambitions. “We have a lot of things we do really well in Alabama. The more recent examples we have are our football teams. The University of Alabama football team has had a run that is probably unparalleled over the past 10 years of winning national championships.”

He credited Alabama with achieving greatness as well in gymnastics and softball, and Auburn with success in football, track and field, swimming and diving.

“What about state government?” He asked. Everybody already knows the stories of the recent governor who had to be removed from office for corruption and a sex scandal. The Speaker of the House is headed to prison for 12 felony convictions. The Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court was removed from office for the second time.

“What would we do if our football team was last or almost last year after year?” he asked. “We’d fire the coach, right? We’d fire the assistant coaches and we would get new leadership. We need new leadership on the state level. That’s what we need in Alabama.”

Then in a rare analysis of what the state government actually does, as opposed to all the political rhetoric about what it shouldn’t do, he talked about the three most important things the government is actually responsible for overseeing: Health care, education and public safety.

“In terms of health, we have the highest infant mortality rate in the country. The highest diabetes rate,” he said. “We do not have the health care that we need for the people of Alabama.”

In education, he says: “We have some good education institutions. But over all, we’re not where we want to be … we’re almost last in every category.”

In public safety, he said, “we’ve got problems with violent crime. Opioid problems. And our prisons — which is one of the most important issues in the state right now — are the worst in the country. We have prisons that are so bad that the corrections officers cannot keep up with the crimes committed in prison.”

The prison issue is also, he says, “the issue I have the most knowledge about because of my pro bono work … appointed to the courts to represent prisoners.”

He was a lawyer with Bradley, Arant, Boult and Cummings for 30 years, representing health care providers, saving a pension plan, representing prisoners pro bono, without charging a fee, before quitting to run for attorney general “to make a difference,” he says he told his family, who were at his side and spoke for him at the launch party.

“What I know how to do is what the attorney general needs to do,” he says. While the attorney general’s office employs 80 lawyers and 100 staff members, he had a part in managing more than 500 attorneys at the law firm.

“That’s a large part of what the attorney general’s office (does),” he said, managing the lawyers representing the state and enforcing the laws. “I’m more qualified than any other attorney general candidate right now.”

Christie will face off against another Birmingham lawyer in the Democratic primary June 5, Joseph Siegelman, the son of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. If he comes out ahead, he will face the winner of the Republican primary. The choices are incumbent Steve Marshall, who was appointed by Bentley after Luther Strange took now U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ seat in the Senate; former state Attorney General Troy King, who lost to Strange in 2010; former U.S. Attorney Alice Martin; and Chess Bedsole, who ran Donald Trump’s state campaign for president in 2016.

For his part, Christie wants to take his success and experience in the private sector and bring it to bear on the public sector.

“What’s important to me is protecting the people of Alabama. I will see the people of Alabama as my clients,” he said. “And I will pursue their interests just like I have my clients for the past 30 years.”

He indicated the reality of the job is to provide assistance to local law enforcement and district attorneys to address their issues and the crimes they face.

“And prosecuting public corruption,” he said, which he vowed would be a top priority if he’s elected.

Somehow Christie is still a believer in Alabama and thinks the state can overcome its political problems and achieve at least an improvement in state government leadership.

“We can be best in Alabama,” he said.

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Check out this campaign video.