From the Montgomery Advertiser:
U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, is being vetted for an undisclosed position in president-elect Barack Obama’s administration, but he said he isn’t seeking a new job and doesn’t expect to be selected.
Davis, a three-term Democrat who attended Harvard Law School with Obama, said the transition team approached him several weeks ago and asked if he would undergo a background check. Davis’ office declined to say what position is being considered. Obama’s transition team, which has vetted dozens of potential nominees, declined to comment Friday.
“While I have agreed to allow the background check to go forward, I have not received any offer regarding this position and there are other extremely well-qualified candidates who are being considered by the president-elect,” Davis said in a written statement. “Candidly, I do not expect to receive any offer from the president-elect and I expect to serve in the United States Congress for one final term.”
The words “one final term” indicate pretty strongly that Davis is seriously considering a run for the open Governor’s office, and he doesn’t sound particularly interested in a job with the Obama Administration. In any case, we can probably expect to see a pretty crowded field develop for this D+17 seat when Artur leaves the building.
It would be win-win-win:
1) Obama gets to have appointed a Southerner (apparently there’s been some carping about this)
2) We get Artur and his most-out-of-whack voting record out of the House
3) Ron Sparks hopefully gets a clearer primary for AL-Gov
At least this isn’t a competitive district. I’m not afraid of losing this seat. So which Dems are likely to run if Davis gets the job?
http://www.progressiveelectora…
I wonder if Obama is picking some unreliable Democrats for posts in which they either can be trusted or can’t do much harm in order to get intra-party obstacles out of the way. Ken Salazar is being picked over the more liberal Grijalva. Hillary Clinton can sometimes be unreliable in terms of policy. Artur Davis isn’t exactly reliable either.
I really can’t imagine him performing well enough outside his own district to win statewide. In he doesn’t run, we’re likely to take back the seat with Sparks or Folsom anyway.