Once again we are wondering whether Mr. Artur Davis has the fortitude to be the governor of Alabama. We know he has ambition, which we respect. However, it will require a great deal of courage to be the first black governor of Alabama in the 21st century. As we stated back in November 2009, we are concerned that in a poor economic state like Alabama, Mr. Davis has already demonstrated his lack of fortitude. It will be up to his people in Alabama to decide, but from our perspective his vote against health care reform demonstrates his lack of transformational leadership and that is what the people of Alabama desperately need.

arturRep. Artur Davis seeks to become Alabama’s first African American governor

By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; 2:17 PM

Rep. Artur Davis, long regarded as one of the most promising of a younger generation of black politicians that has emerged over the past decade, took a bold stance this week as he seeks to become the first African American governor of Alabama: distancing himself from the biggest legislative achievement of the first black president.

The four-term lawmaker joined 33 other Democrats, most of whom hail from the South, in opposing the health-care legislation that President Obama signed into law Tuesday. Davis originally voted against the House version of the legislation in November, and Democratic leaders did not spend much time trying to get him to change his vote, perhaps in a nod to the political dynamics of his state, where Obama won only 38 percent of the vote in 2008.

But in opposing the health-care bill, Davis, a longtime Obama ally who was one of the first lawmakers to back his White House run, split from the other 41 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They not only all voted for the legislation, but cast it in historic terms as an extension of the policies of the civil rights era.

Davis drew criticism for his vote from some on the left, as well, who accused him of abandoning the interests of his majority-black district in Birmingham. In Davis’s congressional district, 19 percent of people are uninsured — a figure higher than the national average — and Obama won 72 percent of the vote, his biggest margin of victory in any district where a House member opposed the health-care legislation.

The congressman’s opponent in the June Democratic primary in Alabama, Ron Sparks, said Davis’s vote was an example a politician willing to “blatantly ignore the will of the people in his district,” although Davis’s campaign says Sparks has given conflicting statements on whether he would have backed the overhaul. READ MORE