More from my chat last week with State Rep. David Grimes, a Republican candidate for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District:

* On fundraising, Grimes said four of his opponents – State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, State Rep. Jay Love, Dr. Craig Schmidtke and television executive David Woods – have an inherent financial advantage over him. (Retired Army officer John W. Martin is also in the race.) “I’m trying to do what I can to put together as many coalitions to help me raise money,” Grimes said, noting that he won’t be on the air with advertisements – as three of his opponents already are – until he can close the money gap. “These other people have all committed a million each of their personal money,” Grimes said: Love said in a recent television interview that he “would put in as much as necessary; Love, Schmidtke and Woods are on the record as saying they are funding their own campaigns; and Schmidtke said he’s not asking for any money “so he’s not beholden to anybody.” “There’s nothing wrong with (self-funding), but I want people to know,” he said.

* As for Smith, Grimes said she also has a fundraising advantage: “People can’t say no to someone who owns a bank,” he said. (According to her Senate bio, Smith is executive vice president for Slocomb National Bank.) “There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s a sweet girl, she’s nice. I just don’t see her handling the pressures of any types of rigorous agendas … With all due respect, she absolutely crumbled under the pressure of that bill she introduced last week.” (Grimes was apparently referring to SB 372, a bill to provide for the display of POW-MIA flags. The bill was passed unanimously by the Senate on April 30 and introduced into the House the next day. He did not respond to an e-mail request for clarification.)

* Grimes made it clear that he will make an issue of what he perceives is his opponents’ lack of participation in civic and community events before the congressional campaign began. “One big thing is that I’ve been a civically aware person long before I stated running for Congress,” Grimes said. “I don’t know of anything my opponents have done without pay in the community.” Grimes noted Hospice programs, Walk for America, and the multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy associations among his civic endeavors. “I do a lot of this stuff, and these other people haven’t been noticed doing that sort of stuff – especially Love. All he did was make a living, and that’s OK,” Grimes said. 

* Grimes defended his vote for cloture on the much-ballyhooed bingo bill. “I voted to put the bingo bill on the floor for debate, and I got criticized, chastised and hung in effigy” by people against the bill, Grimes said. “They put me on their back page, and they did that to put me out of their box … People need to know, that will bill will save more people’s lives than leaving it alone,” Grimes said. “These wayward people who wander into these parlors and throw their money away, you can’t protect them by having unguarded, unaccounted-for machines out there.” Grimes said that “all the sheriffs in five or six counties I’ve talked to” ask why legislators would continue to support the existing law, which provides for $150 fines on untaxed machines, when the new law would provide for a $5,000 fine and make the crime a felony. Grimes maintained that under current law, violators simply pay the $150 and are “back in business the next day.” The new, heftier penalties, he said, “will shut them down. I’ll stand by that vote. I’m looking out for the people,” Grimes said. As for gambling godfather Milton McGregor: “You can’t get but so rich. You can’t determine the will of a bill according to what one man makes,” Grimes said, adding that although McGregor has offered him campaign contributions in the past, “I have never taken any money from him.”

* On campaigning in the 2nd Congressional District: Grimes said that he drives 500 to 600 miles a day through the district on his days off from the Legislature. He’s met with “every editor of every paper” and all the probate judges but three, along with circuit and district judges throughout the district, he said, and he has 1,200 yard signs scattered throughout the 16 counties in the district. Win or lose, he said, “I will gain from the experience because I have learned so much.”