WASHINGTON – Back in February, Rep. Artur Davis announced a campaign to seek the Alabama governorship in 2010. Should he win, he would be the first African-American to hold the governor’s mansion in Alabama’s history.

Davis represents Alabama’s Seventh Congressional district and is a Harvard-educated Democrat that unseated five-term incumbent Earl Hilliard in 2002. Last week, he took time out from a series of votes on Capitol Hill to talk to Lagniappe about his gubernatorial run.

L: Why do you want to be governor?

AD: Our state is facing some very, very difficult challenges. How do we build a job base that’s stronger than the one we have, that’s more diverse than the one we have? How do we strengthen our public schools to get to the point to where any parent in the state who wishes to put a child in a public school can do that without fearing a loss in quality? How do we get our schools to the point where the people who come out of them can compete all over the world?

Those are two big sets of challenges. Third question – how do we clean up Alabama politics? We have right now a political process in Montgomery that’s dominated by a narrow set of special interest groups and they’re right sometimes and they’re wrong sometimes. The problem is, one way or another, one of them always gets their way. Every issue turns into one interest group after another interest group. I want to broaden that circle in the room to include voters of Alabama.

I believe of the people running for governor, I am the person most equipped to meet those challenges. I think I’m the person best equipped to bring new ideas to the table when it comes to education, economic development, and I absolutely know I’m the person best equipped to clean up Alabama politics and change the culture in Montgomery.

L: Can you reshape Alabama politics as a Montgomery outsider?

AD: I think if I were a product of Montgomery, I absolutely could not do it. If I were someone who was a part of the Montgomery power culture, I absolutely could not deal with it because I would be beholden to that culture because they would have been the ones who put me in office. As someone who represents a different approach and someone who represents a figure who is outside the political power culture in Montgomery – I think that’s yet another reason why I’m better equipped to do this job than my opponents.

L:How do you deal with the legislature?

AD: It is a struggle. It’s been a struggle for every governor, good or bad, but I think that first of all you try to lay out a proactive agenda and you take the case to the people of Alabama. Those legislators have to run for reelection, just as I have to run for reelection and you take your case and you make your case as strongly, effectively as you can to the voters and you try to mobilize the voters to be a source of pressure on the Alabama legislature.

It’s not enough to put forth ideas. It’s not enough to put forth legislation in Montgomery. You’ve got to build a case around the state for a variety of things – for a new constitution, for ethics reform, for a better budgeting process, for education reform.

The next governor of Alabama is going to have to be the persuader-in-chief.

L: Do you think Mobile and Baldwin Counties can maintain their current streak of economic successes under your leadership?

AD: Mobile has done very well. Mobile’s unemployment now is close to 9 percent, which is about the statewide number. But Mobile has made very good strides. Mobile is very well led by Sam Jones and Mobile is very well served by the political, civic and corporate leadership that exists there and I would try to draw on that relationship. I would try to draw on the partnerships that already exist in Mobile to strengthen that part of the state.

As far as the campaign goes Mobile and Baldwin County – south Alabama, obviously a very important voter base – regardless of the identity of the Republican nominee for governor, we’re going to aggressively contest Mobile County. There’s no Mobile County candidate running for governor. There may be a Baldwin County candidate running, but no Mobile County candidate. I’m going to aggressively contest Mobile, certainly in the primary we think we will have strong action in Mobile and in the general we think we can contest Mobile very effectively. We’re going to be spending a lot of time down there.

L: Your candidacy would be historic as an African-American nominee for the Democratic Party. Are you concerned the politics of race might come into play, as it did a few years ago with the Tennessee Senate race with Harold Ford, Jr. and Bob Corker?

AD: There’s a group of voters who will vote based on race. Some are black, some are white. You add that group together and I don’t think it makes up more than a quarter of the state, which leaves 75 percent black and white we have to make the case to.

Are there some black voters that will automatically vote for a black? Yes. Are there some white voters who will automatically vote against a black? No doubt. But, if you add that together – I don’t think it’s a significant block.

What I see as I move around the state is the voters aren’t asking about race. The politicians ask me about race. The voters don’t ask me about race, they ask me about what I’ve been talking about with you – job growth, education. People from Mobile ask me about the tanker. I’ve yet to run into a voter as opposed to a politician who’s asked me about race. They want to know where I intend to take the state.

And frankly, what our polling shows and what everybody who has polled this race shows is that we’re running in an exceptionally strong position. And that says to me that voters are focusing on the issues that affect Alabama and that’s going to be the focus of my campaign.

L: Alabama is a traditionally red (conservative) state. Do you think you can win over some voters who would normally vote for the Republican candidate?

AD: I think I can and I think Alabama Democrats have done it many times. We struggle at the presidential level. There’s no question about it. The national Democratic Party is more liberal than most people in Alabama. That’s why we struggle. That’s why the President struggled. That’s why Kerry struggled. That’s why Clinton and Gore struggled, Mondale, Dukakis – they all got between 38 and 41 percent of the vote, because the national party is to the left of people in Alabama.

Alabama Democrats run from a different place. I think that my views and my positions and the things I stand for will resonate with the state of Alabama just as they resonated with the voters in the 7th [Congressional] District. Now my district might be a Democratic district, but it’s a pretty conservative district on a lot of issues. And I’ve gotten a lot of support from people who are nothing but conservatives. Maybe Democrats, but very conservative Democrats and I’ve gotten support from some Republicans in my district. So, I’m going to do what I’ve done for the last seven years for the last several months of this campaign – take my case to people irrespective of who they are and what they are and address them to respond to it.

L: Back in January, you headed a committee that made recommendations to Obama’s transition team for the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama – Vicki Davis and Patrick Sims. What’s the latest on that and are you sticking with those recommendations?

AD: I’ve submitted my recommendations for all three districts to the White House. The White House and the Justice Department have been vetting candidates and it’s always been their choice. No one should have ever had any illusion the choice was going to rest with anybody other than the Attorney General of the United States and the President of the United States, in conjunction with the White House counsel. I believe there will be announcements soon about U.S. attorneys in the state of Alabama and I think we’ll have a good crop of U.S. attorneys.

I put my list forward. Obviously it’s up to people here in Washington to decide who they want.

L: You campaigned aggressively for President Barack Obama, both during the Democratic primary and the general election. Will Obama be returning the favor during your gubernatorial run?

AD: I would never expect the national Democratic Party to get involved in a primary. We have several good Democrats running. In the general, we expect to have help from many people from around this country and we’d be honored if the President was one of them.

Davis also told Lagniappe he and Rep. Jo Bonner were continuing their effort to secure Northrop Grumman a share of estimated $40-billion contract to build its KC-45 tankers at a facility in Mobile. According to Davis, he and Bonner devote time to the tanker issue every day.

“Congressman Bonner and I are working through every possible angle to try to get a resolution and we’re to make sure that people here understand what’s at stake in this debate.”

He called the recent decision by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, not to include language in a defense supplemental bill that would split the Air Force tanker contract between Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. a temporary setback.

“There will be another defense appropriations bill later in the year, so another day will come,” Davis added. “We hope to have Congressman Murtha’s support. He’s an enormously influential member.”