The following piece was produced by Huffington Post's OffTheBus.
I lived in Huntsville, Alabama on three separate occasions and still have family there. I visit regularly as I still have two brothers, a sister and my mom living in northern Alabama. I was there in October visiting the region and paying special attention to the differences between my time there and now, something that usually escaped my notice.
The northern crest of Alabama, running the entire distance between the Mississippi and Georgia state lines and along the entire Tennessee state line and south about fifty miles to the end of Lawrence County comprises Alabama's 5th Congressional District, one of only two districts in the state with a Democratic representative, and has been in the Democrat's hands since 1897, despite having gone heavily for George Bush in the last two presidential elections. Robert "Bud" Cramer ran unopposed for reelection in 2006 and has won his seat handily with the sole exception of 1994, when he survived a difficult campaign. It's also the only district in the state with both a Democratic representative and a majority white constituency. The district has a couple of cities in addition to Huntsville that readers may recognize: Scottsboro, for infamous reasons and Muscle Shoals for some of the best pop music recordings of the 60's and 70's.
Huntsville, however, is the queen city of the region and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. Hostility to government spending is not quite as strong here as in other parts of the region. The city had some 13,000 residents in 1940, but developed quickly with the installation of Redstone Arsenal, a military post that currently houses the US Army Aviation and Missile Command (my father's employer for some 35 years) and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and now has upwards of 300,000 in Madison County, the primary county in the metro area. It owes much of its growth to native son Senator John Sparkman, a seven-term senator and Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 presidential election. Electricity rates are about half of what I pay in New York courtesy of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Werner von Braun, whose name graces the city's civic center, was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center from its inception until 1970, when he moved to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. To commemorate his departure, Huntsville held Werner von Braun Day, one of those rare public sightings I can recall, other than the time my brother saw him run into a Montgomery Ward's in flip-flops, swimsuit and a t-shirt to buy a chaise lounge. What a long strange trip it must have been from those days at Peenemunde planning ways to rain death and destruction down on England.
"Technology Defines Huntsville" is seen on streetlights adjacent to the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the region's major academic institution known for its technology and engineering programs. The effect of technology playing such a significant role in the region has made for a much more diverse population than one would presume in that part of the country. In leafing through my nephew's high school yearbook, I recognized names that could have probably traced their origin to five continents. The fastest growing local restaurant chain in the region is a Mexican chain owned by Mexican immigrants.
In my short stay there, the key theme regarding the 2008 election is dissatisfaction. Where I saw enthusiasm about the process before the 2004 election, I see little more than fatigue now. At the local Barnes and Noble, where a Bush voodoo doll kit was once a hot seller, it's now remaindered. I saw a few "Don't Blame Me; I Voted For Kerry" bumper stickers, but precious little enthusiasm for either party.
The sole exception was seen on Highway 72 between Huntsville and Florence, some 60 miles away. I counted at least thirty large "Ron Paul [no relation to me] for President" signs. Is there any greater evidence of the frustration here than that the only candidate seeming to have any degree of enthusiasm in a congressional district that, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, skews +6 Republican is for a Republican candidate who has almost nothing in common with his opponents or the national party and who calls for the abolition of NASA in a region whose development relied so heavily on NASA?