Opportunistic and self-serving, looking for his own vanity an glory over the interests of everything else. He had high hopes of being the next Democratic phoenix from the South and becoming the first African-American Governor of the state -and then more likely than not springboarding to national ambitions from that pedestal and, now that his hopes have been dashed, he's blaming everyone but the true culprit -himself
That's quite a harsh assessment of him but it's close enough. To be fair, he did some good things in Congress and his voting record in Congress was quite progressive. But he was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to vote against President Obama's healthcare legislation and, according to Wikipedia, he was also the member of the most heavily-leaning Democratic district to vote against the legislation. Credit where credit's due, however, because he did vote for the DREAM Act on his way out -the only member of the Alabama congressional delegation to do so.
From what I've heard -and perhaps DU'ers can correct me on this if I'm wrong -he was the early presumptive favorite to win the Democratic primary nomination in Alabama because of the high concentration of African-American Democratic voters in the state. But he took the African-American vote for granted and alienated African-American leaders by snubbing them and pandering instead to white conservative voting blocs in a bid to broaden his appeal. Big mistake on his part and he lost the primary.
So now he's embittered and angry. He probably thought that, having supported President Obama in 2008, the President should have dropped everything in Washington in order to come down and give him the support he needed to win the 2010 Democratic gubernational primary (obviously ignoring the fact that the President only gets involved in Democratic primaries in extreme circumstances). He probably also believed that he was owed a coronation as the Democratic gubernational primary and is peeved he didn't get one. So to heck with everything else, he's turning against everything he previously stood for
He knows that he has no chance of winning anything with the Republican Party in Alabama so he's skeddadled over to Virginia in the hope that they'll reward him with a candidacy over there. I suspect he'll be bitterly disappointed -his relatively progressive voting record will not go down with the tea party crowd and they'll dump him as soon as he's outlived his usefulness to them. Which is exactly what he deserves
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