I'm going to vote for Marc Keahey for the District 22 State Senate seat Tuesday and I hope you will vote for the Grove Hill resident

too. He's the better of the two candidates plus he is one of our own.

Many of us have watched Marc grow up. From playing Dixie Youth baseball to high school athletics, college and more baseball and earning a law degree like his father, to marriage and children, we've seen him grow into a wellrounded sensible young man.

Marc is active in his church and community activities and since his election to the District 65 House seat in 2006, he's made a mark and impression on Montgomery where he's been put on committees and in leadership positions usually unheard of for freshman legislators.

Marc is a Democrat but an "old school" progressive Democrat with moderate to conservative values. He's compassionate for the little man and the responsibility we all have for one another.

He's gotten the endorsement of the National Rifle Association for his stand on gun rights (how many Democrats, I wonder, has the group endorsed?) as well as of local renegade Republicans who called themselves the Tombigbee Republican Club. The latter drew the ire of the state and Clarke County Republican Party hierarchy which dismissed the endorsement as that of a "social club" and not of "official" party organizations.

That is too funny, given the tiffs between the Tombigbee group and the local GOP establishment in recent years.

But it also speaks of Marc's appeal to a wide range of voters. I didn't think some of that Tombigbee GOP bunch would ever vote for a Democrat yet alone run ads in the local papers endorsing one!

I think Marc had probably planned on running for the local state senate seat one day. He and State Sen. Pat Lindsey were friends and I suspect that Pat probably was going to serve one more term to give Marc a little more time to gain legislative experience and then retire for Marc to run for the seat. But those plans, if they were plans, changed in January when Pat died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

Marc may be running for the seat sooner than he or anyone else expected him to but I am confident that he can handle the job.

Marc is a friend but I haven't always agreed with him on every issue. I didn't like the fact that he and nearly every other legislator voted themselves a hefty pay raise shortly after taking office in 2007. I didn't think he was right to jump on Gov. Riley for the governor's use of state aircraft before he hardly knew his way around the State House. However, it is ironic that just this past week Gov. Riley signed a new law that will mandate public disclosure of state aircraft usage. Albritton too far to right

Greg Albritton is a nice guy but he seems to be too much of a Dick Cheney Republican to suit me. I'm far more of a middle-of-the-road moderate and he is way too far to the right for my tastes.

I wasn't impressed when he was over here in House District 65 campaigning for Nick Williams, the Republican incumbent whom Mac defeated in 2006. I understand Greg got so involved in other folks' races that year that he lost his own legislative race that year. I tried not to laugh.

Today's campaigns are far too negative

I do despise the negative tone of Marc's campaign as well as Albritton's.

I guess it is a sign of the times and the political norm to find all the dirt or questionable actions of your opponent you can find and publicize them to the hilt. Ignore your own attributes and strengths in favor of tearing down your opponents, that is what the so-called political experts and the parties' hierarchies demand these days.

Marc's consulting agency dug up an old legislative bill to establish a public lake authority in Conecuh County that contained a clause allowing the authority to exercise eminent domain and so it was proclaimed that Greg was against property rights.

Greg, unable to garner the financial support Marc has tried to turn the money on him, casting Marc as a puppet of special interests and union bosses and says they own him.

Of course he also exploits Marc's pay raise vote and even quotes The Clarke County Democrat on the subject in his junk mail literature. Funny. He can quote this newspaper but he hasn't run a single ad in it the entire campaign.

Greg's political consultants are cut from the same cloth that cooked up the despicable "Adam and Steve" gay rights smear on Gloria Dolbare in support of Nick Williams in a special House 65 race in 2005.

I also think the political consultants are missing the boat by not advertising in the local newspapers. Albritton has advertised little in the local newspapers — and none in The Democrat as I noted above.

Marc has run ads on his own because he knows that people who vote read their local newspapers but his political experts authorized only one ad—in this the last issue before Tuesday's vote.

Both campaigns has spent lots on TV commercials that reach so many folks that aren't in the district as well as on junk mail pieces that often go into the trash cans without a glance.

I'd like to see some campaigns in the future that emphasize a candidate's attributes rather than an opponent's negatives or mistakes. And I'd like to see those campaigns promoted in local newspapers that are read by people who most often vote.

Tell Marc and Greg that if you see them before Tuesday.

However, I don't expect things to change too much. Big money dictates campaigns now—on all sides.

Jim Cox is editor and publisher of The Clarke County Democrat.