The McCollumn - 10/15

McCracken for Congress

I’m worried about the elections this year.

It’s no secret I’m a liberal-leaning person, and the political tide is turning toward the right.

I accept that for what it is, and move on.

However, with our local Alabama 3^rd Congressional District Race, I actually am concerned with how you and I vote.

Neither candidate for office deserves our votes, readers.

Steve Segrest, the Democratic candidate, has run for several statewide offices and failed each time.

The only thing I really know about him is that he’s the Democratic candidate and that he vaguely looks like Sam Elliot’s character in “The Big Lebowski.”

In my mind, he’s not a serious candidate, so mentioning him any more than this gives him a credibility he doesn’t deserve.

His opponent, our current Congressman, the Hon. Mike Rogers is an interesting specimen … well, at least I think his wig is.

Ranked No. 403 in the Congressional Power Rankings by Congress.org, Rogers’ effectiveness as a man to bring home jobs and federal money is called into question.

Even if the Republicans retake the House after the elections, his own power ranking within his party puts him at No. 172, far from the positions of power we’d need him to be in to best bring us the help we need.

But, my biggest gripe with Rogers is truly aesthetic: I find what I believe to be his very bad wig offensive.

It makes our Congressional district look bad to have that wig on the head of our our representative.

For God’s sake, Congressman, pull an Estes Kefauver and wear a Davey Crockett hat.

Or, just go bald. We’d all respect you for telling us the truth.

So, in place of voting for neither of these two sub-par candidates, I submit to you the name of a man we can write-in that would restore honor and respect to the AL 3^rd: former Opelika High School Football Coach Spence McCracken.

He’s an educator who has molded and shaped the minds and talents of young men for generations as a coach at Decatur, Ga., Robert E. Lee in Montgomery and here in Opelika starting in 1995 until his retirement from head coach in 2009.

McCracken still continues to take an active role in the lives of students at Opelika, mentoring at-risk kids to try to help keep them from falling through the cracks.

I honestly don’t know a whit about the man’s politics.

I honestly don’t care, either.

I know Spence McCracken to be a man of fine, upstanding character, and I think we need good men in Washington to tell them about how the real America feels and thinks.

Spence McCracken is and always will be “real America” to me.

So, readers, if we want to send a message to the elite in Washington, let’s stop picking between the lesser of two evils and waiting for hope to bring goodness our way.

Let’s send a man we know can get the job done.

Let our slogan be the slogan he echoed at so many pep rallys, homecoming assemblies and moments throughout my years of knowing him: “God bless America and God bless the 'Dogs!”

I’m writing-in Spence for Congress.

I’m seriously considering having t-shirts made.

He’s the man we need.

Spence for Congress, readers.

McCracken: the real man we need for our real slice of America.