in 2002, representing Tuscaloosa. More or less a backbencher for those eight years, he went into the seven-candidate Republican primary in 2010 as an underdog. But the Republican establishment fought over two favorites, former state Senator Bradley Byrne and Tim James, son of former Governor Fob James. Billing himself as a kind of country doctor who could cure the state’s ills, Bentley promised to not draw a state salary until the state reached full employment. He snuck in between Byrne and James, claiming second by a mere 208 votes and earning a spot in a runoff. By then, Byrne had been badly damaged by the James campaign, and Bentley’s clean-Christian-outsider persona propelled him easily to the nomination. Then, amid the Hubbard-run campaign for Republicans to seize control ofthe people, Christians, non‑Christians alike.”

A former beauty queen, Mason had represented Northwest Community College in the 1990 Miss Alabama Pageant. After college, she worked in broadcast news at small stations around the state. She met and married Jonathan Mason, a meteorologist at WVUA in Tuscaloosa, where Rebekah worked as anchor and news director. The two attended First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa, where they became friends with Bentley and his wife, Dianne. The Masons got out of the news business to form a pair of advertising businesses, Caldwell Mason Marketing and JRM Enterprises Inc., and they helped Bentley on his campaigns. After he won the race for governor, he took them both to Montgomery with him, appointing Rebekah as his chief communications officer and Jonathan as director of the