Gov. Fob James (R) has made his career defying his critics and the odds in close victories. (AP)

By Terry M. Neal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 19, 1998; Page A11

MONTGOMERY, Ala.—Gov. Fob James stands at the back of the room, surrounded by supporters at Republican Party headquarters in Phenix City, when some local reporter asks him to defend his belief that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to Alabama.

James, typically rumpled and combative, narrows in on the man. Don't twist his words, he demands. What he has said is that the Constitution was meant to protect the people from their government, and that if the Bill of Rights says government shall not infringe on religion, how can it tell Alabama schoolchildren they can't have organized prayer.

Governor's Race

Alabama

Voting-age population: 3,220,000 1996 voting turnout: 48% $23,597 median household income 40% rural 37% college-educated 73.3% white

Past Votes for Governor

1994: 49% Democratic; 51% GOP 1990: 48% Democratic; 52% GOP

The Candidates

Republican Fob James, 64, first elected governor in 1978 as a Democrat. While out of office, he switched parties and ran for governor as a Republican in 1994. He is a strong proponent of school prayer.

Democrat Don Siegelman, 52, was elected lieutenant governor in 1994. His campaign has focused on education and economic development, including a lottery that would fund college scholarships.

SOURCES: Staff, Almanac of American Politics, staff reports

"How old are you?" James demands. "I'm 60," the man answers. "Well I'm 64 and I've got four years of knowledge you apparently don't have!" James thunders as the packed room erupts in laughter and applause.

It was a classic James moment, the same sort that reinforces the image among his critics that he's some sort of cretin, or as his defeated Republican primary opponent put it earlier this year, an embarrassment to Alabama. But it's also the same sort of performance that rallies his supporters, who believe the governor is the only person willing to stand up for what they believe in.

Today, James is in trouble and perhaps the most vulnerable GOP governor in a year that is supposed to be good for Republican governors.

He is down between 7 and 13 points in three different polls to Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Siegelman and fighting for his political survival. Siegelman, political analysts say, has run a good campaign and promised something the people apparently want: a lottery that would fund college scholarships, a pre-kindergarten program and other education improvements.

Siegelman's education proposal, modeled almost exactly after Democratic Georgia Gov. Zell Miller's successful program, has the support of 61 percent of the state's residents, according to the non-partisan Southern Opinion Research. And the proposal's popularity in the socially conservative state has left the normally sure-footed James reeling and on the defensive.

"He has allowed Siegelman to make this election a state referendum on the lottery," said Carl Grafton, a professor of political science at Auburn University-Montgomery. "And his response has not been credible. Even his own supporters are not satisfied."

Siegelman has worked to portray himself as a moderate, focusing mostly on education and economic development.

Natalie Davis, a political science professor and pollster at Birmingham-Southern College, said Siegelman's tenure as the state's attorney general, where he championed tough policies on drunk drivers and instituted a successful assistance program for crime victims, has blunted the inevitable soft-on-crime attacks from Republicans.

And while Siegelman could be hurt some by a well-publicized dispute with a prominent African American leader, that could help his image among some white voters who believe he is not beholden to blacks, Davis said.

"I just think we really need a change, and I think Don is progressive," said Elsie Lyons, a Republican from Mobile, who held a fund-raiser for Siegelman Tuesday night. "Education is his bit, and it's what I'm interested in. I truly believe that Don can be a New South governor to move us into the next century."

James's troubles are striking, considering the pro-GOP trend in the South, and could have national implications. He has been among the Christian right's most forceful proponents of school prayer and has litigated continually and mostly unsuccessfully on behalf of conservative social causes.

His candidacy has been endorsed by some of the nation's leading social conservatives, including Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly and James Dobson.

In Alabama, however, critics from both parties complain that he has concentrated on social issues to the detriment of economic development and education -- charges James vehemently denies. In a divisive Republican primary this year, many business leaders and economic conservatives supported James's opponent, Winton Blount III.

Many of Blount's supporters are now backing Siegelman, said William Stewart, chairman of the University of Alabama's political science department. The nasty runoff with Blount -- whom James derided as "fat" and called "Win-TON" -- depleted James's resources. And with scant support from big business, he's had trouble replenishing them for his race against Siegelman.

As of the last reporting period on Sept. 21, James had $369,000 on hand, compared with $3.6 million for Siegelman. And Siegelman added several thousand dollars more last Wednesday night at a fund-raiser in Mobile featuring more than two dozen mostly big business donors -- some of whom are Republicans and past James supporters.

In an interview last week at the Waffle House in Montgomery, Siegelman said James himself deserves some of the credit for Siegelman's lead in the polls. "Fob has done for me what I could never for myself: divide the Republican Party and at the same time unite the Democratic Party," said Siegelman, 52, a graduate of the University of Alabama and Georgetown University Law School.

But even Siegelman acknowledges that polls mean only so much. James has made his career defying his critics and the odds and winning by the skin of his teeth. In 1994, Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. (D) had a similar lead over James in the polls, but lost in the election by 10,000 votes. James was elected as a Democratic governor in 1978, and switched parties later when he was out of office.

In this year's GOP primary, James was considered vulnerable against Blount, but a larger than expected turnout of white rural voters gave James the win.

And despite the polls, many political analysts are calling the race a toss-up. The reason: While most people in Alabama might not like James, those who do like him like him a lot. Polls have trouble measuring intensity and passion, and James, observers say, has a way of surging at the end.

"I'm a Christian, and I believe in God and Jesus Christ," said James supporter W.B. Bill Garrett, at the event in Phenix City. "And I feel like if [James] gets [school prayer] started here in Alabama, other states will follow suit."

On the campaign trail last week, James ratcheted up the rhetoric against Siegelman's lottery proposal, calling it a ruse to bring gambling to Alabama. He suggested that lotteries were immoral because they give the impression that people have a legitimate chance to win. And he urged voters not to "stake the future of Alabama on gambling," which targets those who can least afford it.

James has offered his own education plan that would provide scholarships to deserving students and finance it through state government budget surpluses -- tens of millions of dollars this year. But Grafton and Stewart said most voters are not buying James's plan, which relies on the premise that the economy will continue to improve.

After the campaign event in Phenix City, an hour-and-a-half drive east of Montgomery, James told reporters he wasn't worried about Siegelman's lead in the polls and reminded them of the predictions of his defeat in the 1994 race. "The polls always show that," said James, a star fullback at Auburn University in the 1950s who later made a fortune selling athletic equipment. "I think that voters express themselves [at the ballot box]."