In a speech last week, Alabama gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. senator Doug Jones laid out a detailed approach to fixing what ails Alabama. 

The problems addressed were not surprises to anyone. They’re the things we all—and I do mean ALL of us—have talked about for years now: A lack of access to health care for too many; ridiculous gambling laws that defy reality and common sense; the fact that no one in Montgomery seems to be listening to the people around the state; and better oversight of our energy costs. 

There were also new issues. 

Data centers, and Jones’ call for a one-year moratorium on new ones, got a lot of attention. As did passing protections for in-vitro fertilization treatments. 

The speech went on for close to an hour. And it was nice to have that time in which it seemed like someone running for office in Alabama—someone who appears to be gaining momentum in that run—talked like a grownup to other grownups about complicated, important issues. Things that truly affect our lives. 

Not some nonsense about what should scare you. Not something about a group of people you should hate or that we have to control or have to get rid of or need to watch. Not something about how bad the other guys are doing things. 

A real, honest-to-God speech about how to do things better. How to address real issues that affect real people in this state. 

Maybe at some point his opponent, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, will offer up his own detailed plan for Alabama. It would be nice to get one. 

Imagine that … a couple of candidates for governor of this state laying out policy ideas and addressing things that matter to you. Giving you a real choice between two people who care about the job and care about making things better for Alabamians. 

A person can dream, right? 

These issues Jones addressed, though, they’re important. To all of us. 

Take Medicaid expansion, for example. While this is often viewed through a Republican lens as an issue that affects only the ultra-poor, ask the folks in Montgomery, where a major hospital has been teetering on the verge of collapse, if that’s the case. 

Medicaid expansion alone might not have been enough to put Jackson Hospital in the black, but it certainly would have helped a lot. One of the largest drivers of the hospital’s operating deficit has been treating a growing number of uninsured patients. Medicaid expansion would have covered most of those costs, with the federal government picking up 90 percent of the tab. 

Instead, though, it appears as if there’s another plan in place to save the hospital—one that will cost taxpayers at both the state and local level hundreds of millions of dollars. And even then, it’s not clear if the hospital can survive. If it doesn’t, that will place a strain on every surrounding community. Prattville, Wetumpka, Deatsville, Shorter, Pike Road—none of them have the medical facilities to provide the level of care that Jackson Hospital offered the River Region. 

So, these issues matter. Tremendously. To all of us. Regardless of which party you’re affiliated with.  

And things can be better. If you doubt that, ask the people of Kentucky. 

Back in 2019, Kentuckians shocked much of the country by electing a Democrat as the state’s next governor. In a state where Donald Trump dominated in the 2016 presidential voting, Democrat Andy Beshear took over on the strength of public educators’ outrage over proposed cuts and the theft of public school dollars that we ignorantly refer to as “school choice.” Republicans promised a disaster with a woke liberal in charge. 

Turns out, that common sense Democrat—working with a Republican-dominated state legislature—was exactly what the state needed. 

Over the past seven years, Beshear has overseen the greatest economic development expansion in state history, with nearly 70,000 new jobs created and $50 billion in statewide investment. Incentivized hourly wages in the state topped $26 per hour, providing a boost in income—that’s real money to real people—for working folks in the state. 

He expanded Medicaid, allowing the state to significantly increase mental health care and veterans’ health care. It also allowed the state to take on the crushing opioid epidemic, cutting deaths by more than half and increasing treatment beds by 50 percent statewide. 

He gave state cops the largest raise in Kentucky history, boosting the ranks of officers even as they fell in every surrounding state. His infrastructure plans, which placed high-speed internet access in every corner of the state and marked the largest investment in state roads and bridges in history, has been copied by other states. 

Oh, and he has recorded the largest budget surpluses and lowest sustained unemployment rates in state history. 

He’s been re-elected once, has an approval rating above 60 percent and he’s a serious contender to be the country’s next president. 

And he did all of that while focusing on the exact same common sense, practical issues that Jones has made the centerpieces of his campaign. 

Look, if Tuberville wants to get out here and explain how he’s going to slash Alabama’s seventh-worst poverty rate and third-worst infant mortality rate and dead last teen pregnancy rate, I’m all ears. Maybe he has some ideas. He’s certainly sat in enough living rooms of poor folks across this state to have some inkling of what they face and what would help them. 

The one thing he absolutely can’t do, however, is try blaming it all on liberal Democrats or telling you that a Democrat’s ideas would be bad. Because Republicans have controlled absolutely every part of our government—from their supermajority legislative advantage to holding every statewide office—for more than a decade, and it’s their policies that put us in this mess. 

But whichever candidate you choose to lead this state, just base your vote on substance. Think about what matters to you, what could make your corner of the world a little better place, what could positively affect the people you know best. And then vote accordingly. 

Like those folks in Kentucky did.