Character
Two major economic projects have lastingly impacted the 5th District and have indelibly dictated the politics of North Alabama for most of the 20th Century. Before 1933, the Northern Alabama counties were characteristically poor, white and rural. The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) arrival changed much of that, slowly transforming the demographic towards technical and engineering employees. The second major project was the space and rocketry programs including Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville where the first large U.S. Ballistic missiles were developed. Additionally, NASA built the Marshall Space Flight Center in the Huntsville-Decatur area during the 1960s. In the late 1950s Northern Alabama came to be dominated by the high-tech and engineering industries, a trend which has continued up to the present. In recent years, the United Launch Alliance has located its research center in Decatur. As a result, Huntsville has become the second largest and fastest growing metropolitan area in Alabama.
The district hasn't supported a Democrat for President since Jimmy Carter's successful run in 1976. Democrats, however, hold most offices at the local level, as well as most of the district's seats in the Alabama state legislature, until the Republican historic election of November 2010 in north Alabama. In the mid-1990s, it was a seriously contested seat, with longtime Democratic incumbent Bud Cramer winning reelection by only 1,770 votes in 1994. However, Cramer was elected five more times with 70 percent or more of the vote and even ran unopposed in the Democratic landslide year of 2006. Cramer did not seek reelection in 2008. Parker Griffith, a retired oncologist and State Senator, won the open seat in November 2008. However, in December 2009, Griffith became a Republican. Until Griffith's switch, the district had been one of the last in the former Confederacy to have not been held by a Republican to the U.S. Congress since Reconstruction. Griffith was ousted in the Republican primary by current Representative Mo Brooks.
George W. Bush won 60% of the vote in this district in 2004. John McCain also carried the 5th District in 2008 with 60.91% of the vote while Barack Obama received 37.99%.
Read more about this topic: Alabama's 5th Congressional District
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The true index of a man’s character is the health of his wife.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“The character of the crowds is made up of mimicry and hostility.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)