Alabama congressional candidate Rick Barber first entered the national spotlight last month, after releasing an ad called "Gather Your Armies," which included a fantasy conversation with the Founding Fathers and an explicit call for violent revolt. A few weeks later, he went viral with a second ad that featured, among other things, a zombified Abraham Lincoln, slavery, and the Holocaust:
Unfortunately for Barber, his Tea Party credentials and extreme disdain for the federal government were a little too much for the Republican voters of Alabama's 2nd District, who opted to nominate his opponent in the Republican primary, Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby. Roby first faced off against Barber in June but didn't earn enough votes to avoid a runoff.
In the runoff, Roby walked away with 60 percent of the vote to Barber's 40 percent, and with the primary now behind her, she's well positioned to score a win in the general election against freshman Democrat Bobby Bright. The voters in Bright's district are very conservative, having supported McCain with 63 percent of the vote in 2008, and Bush with 67 percent of the vote in 2004. Bright himself struggled to win his election, eventually prevailing by a slim margin of 1,790 votes. The Center for Politics has this race as a toss-up, but with Democrats unpopular across the country, odds for re-election are not in his favor.
-- Jamelle Bouie
