MeeMaw Tells It Like It Is at State of the State Address

February 4, 2025–Governor Kay Ivey-Alabama's MeeMaw-took the stage, recognized a few people and groups, touted her accomplishments, laid out her priorities for the upcoming legislative session, then left thirty minutes after she started.

And another State of the State Address went into the history books Tuesday night.

Politicians and pastors take note-you could learn a lot about how to give a good speech or sermon from Kay. Let some kids and a couple of worthy adults stand and be recognized, say your peace, and then shut up.

For that alone, Kay gets a gold star.

She also gets another gold star for the way she owned "MeeMaw." There's been some pushback from the Powers That Be when people have used that term in the past, and the pushback hasn't gone over very well. Kay handled it masterfully, taking it and making it into a self-deprecating joke, and then transforming it into a positive.

"MeeMaw will tell you exactly like it is" is the Governor's new catch phrase. Memes are already being made, and it's certain to go viral over the next few days.

Something else for politicians to take note of-how to turn an insulting slur into a positive. Kay just gave you a one minute masterclass in how to do just that.

It's no secret that Kay's age has been a topic of concern for months now, and she directly addressed it Tuesday night. Like Ronald Reagan, she turned her age into an advantage. It helped that she looked pretty spry Tuesday night, and made it through her speech without incident.

Admittedly, it was a short speech, and I'm sure that was intentional. If you watched closely, you could see her beginning to wind down just a bit there at the end. By that time, she was well into talking about specific policies and legislation she'll be supporting this session, so people were naturally beginning to zone out.

The first part of the speech lauded the State's achievements during her administration, and especially this past year. Our education efforts, specifically the Literacy and Numeracy Acts, have brought our students up from the absolute bottom to merely bad. In literacy, we've gone from 49th to 34th in the nation. In math, we've shot up from 51st (yes, that's right-51st out of 59 states and Puerto Rico) to 32nd.

Don't get me wrong, those are some impressive numbers, but it feels like we're celebrating "yeah, we're less awful than we were!" Oh, well; the CHOOSE Act is just beginning to be implemented, and as it continues to expand that should help the numbers go up even more.

Kay's going to support a bill banning cell phones in schools and requiring local school boards to provide social media training in schools. We can also expect the Guv to support putting the 10 Commandments back in our schools.

Another bill Ivey will be supporting is the What Is A Woman bill, which will legally define what is a boy, a girl, a man, a woman, father, mother, male, female and sex. This same bill failed in the last session, but there will be a lot of pressure brought to get it passed this session.

The Governor talked about how the economy has grown-$55 billion invested, 93,000 jobs created-and how her Rebuild Alabama initiative has been responsible for some 500 road and bridge projects. The Alabama Broadband Initiative has sponsored 200 projects, and "the Alabama momentum is real."

MeeMaw (I love me some MeeMaw!) also briefly talked about some new tough on crime stuff that she'll be supporting, but it was at the end of the speech and I was zoning out like most everybody else.

Pro tip: most people zone out somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes into a talk. If you want people to retain what you say, say it within the first 20 minutes of your speech, lecture, sermon or whatever.

So, yeah; some tough on crime stuff to clean up our inner cities, stiffen penalties and focus on the worst of the worst. It's not like Bessemer and Birmingham are two of the Top 10 deadliest cities in the nation. Oh, wait. The last time I checked, Bessemer was #1 and Birmingham was #7.

There's no doubt we have an urban crime problem in this state, but you'll forgive me if I'm not terribly confident in the Legislature's ability to fix it.

I do think supporting out LEOs is a generally good thing...but again, I'm waiting to see the actual bills before and after they go through the sausage grinder.

The border and illegal immigration was briefly mentioned. Alabama won't impede President Trump's efforts, no shock there. It's the Gulf of America (applause and laughter) and Alabama is now a basketball state.

One thing that was specifically NOT mentioned was Kay's gas tax. She and our money-hungry Legislature hope we've forgotten about that.

We haven't.

So, yeah. MeeMaw. Education. The Economy. Crime. Alabama is a great place, and getting better-or at least managing to suck a little bit less. That's a win, and the Governor took it, as she should.

There was a Democratic Response given by Representative Ontario Tillman, but I passed it on to get this piece done. When I went back later to add a link to it here, it wasn't up anywhere I could find on YouTube, Facebook, X or the Alabama Democratic Party web page. It was carried live on Alabama Public Television, so it may be available soon.

They've turned comments off, so you can't say just how much you love MeeMaw. That's a shame.

Dr. Bill Chitwood is a retired Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatrist who does political consulting and media relations. He is the author of Beyond Maga, available on Amazon under his pen name, Doc Contrarian. He can be found on Substack and social media as @DocContrarian.

Opinions expressed in the Alabama Gazette are the opinions and viewpoints of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Alabama Gazette staff, advertisers, and/or publishers.