Governor Bentley's Transition Team--A New Barn With Old Mules

The three key positions of Governor Bentley’s Transition Team consist of:
Chairman Charles McCrary, Alabama Power CEO and BARD member, Legal Adviser S. Eason Balch, Balch & Bingham, law firm APCO and BARD, and Communications Director Stephen Earl Bradley, BARD creator.

These three men enjoy a historic connection to President Andrew Jackson who brought patronage politics to American government saying as he did so: “To the victor belong the spoils.” The spoils in this case is BARD's dominion over everything in Alabama for the next four years.

“In the politics of the United States, a spoil system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party—as opposed to a system of awarding offices on the basis of some measure of merit independent of political activity.”

Thomas Nast 1877 Harper's

Transition teams generally serve three primary functions:

• Select or recruit all non civil service appointed officials, chairpersons, and directors of various state agencies.

• Select which incumbents will remain in favor and which ones will be bypassed and ignored, going from “incumbent” to “ex.”

• Insure that by their choice a stable, loyal and reliable governmental infrastructure is put in place that best serves the new administration.

What’s missing in Bentley’s Transition Team is the requirement that the new team deciders have any sense of ethics, integrity and responsibility with regard to the public and environmental good, and will not put the interests of Alabamians before special interests and the Big Mules.

We suspect all of the chosen ones first allegiance will be to the Mules that led them into office and key positions, and in their minds public service will be defined as the public serving us, not the other way around.

When the transition team of Mules leaves the barn on January 17 they’ll leave more than mule apples behind them--they’ll leave a whole barn full of braying relatives at every level of government who will owe their comfortable new stalls to the Big Mules.

The Big Mules can move back to the shade and cover of the tree line secure in the knowledge that their will is being done and their own interests are faithfully served.

When the incoming class of patronage beneficiaries claims their reward, their oath of office will probably sound like this: 

"I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of BARDabama, so long as I continue as a citizen thereof and receive the benefits of Big Muledom. I will, more or less, honestly discharge the duties of my muley purchased office that I am about to trample to the best of my ability. So help me BARD."

Addendum--The first 18 on the list of 25. Note that only two are elected officials, some are former James and Byrne campaign hotshots and yes, we do have the cement industry repped that donated to Bentley one day after his elevated Hwy 280 announcement with Mr. Mark Tyson, President of Ready Mix.