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Georgia State House

I've been doing some analysis of the state House races. If 2004 is a terrible year for Democrats, we should still expect to win 90 House races, which would be a tie. Reasonably I think we can expect to win about 100, plus or minus 5. As Bill Shipp says, I would put my money on a Democratic House.

One interesting statistic, of the Democrats' top targeted races, the 45 or so most competitive seats made up of endangered incumbents and also open seats that lean Democratic, the Democratic candidates currently have about $1,000,000 more on hand than the Republican opposition in these seats. If we win 40 of these seats we're in great shape.

Party Switchers?

The court drawn maps have put a lot of people in flux. I'm hearing rumors that Ron Stephens (Savannah), Jay Roberts (Ben Hill County), Jill Chambers (Dunwoody), Austin Scott (Tifton), Chuck Harper (Carroll County), Terry Barnard (Tattnall County) and Rich Golick (Vinings) may switch from R to D. Stay tuned.

Coming Soon...

I'll restart my rundown of the state Senate races. Now that the lines have changed I've got to start over. Those of you interested in Georgia politics stay tuned, this site is about to heat up.

Sonny Perdue

An addendum to the party switching post earlier. One thing I can say about Perdue is that he did switch the right way. He waited until the second year of that term and then announced his switch right before the campaign season started. Of course the voters ratified it, incumbents are hard to beat.

When you contrast that to the horrid power play Perdue himself pulled off in the state Senate after his election as governor, there is a lot of merit in his original party switch. Except for when you remember that Perdue thought (and promised) 5 other Democrats would be joining him and that would have flipped the state Senate then (and we'd have never gotten it back).

One thing for the rural Georgia boys to remember is that timing is everything when you switch parties. Some of them think they'll be in the legislature and also chairman of whatever committee for as long as they're alive. The new majority party loves a party switcher when it gives them the majority (as in the Senate), but if the majority has already changed (let's say the Republicans win one in the House) then they couldn't care less if you join the party.

As far as Governor Perdue goes, just remember that Republicans and Democrats alike were surprised by that one. I realize that by October of '02 some people knew Perdue had a chance of winning, but back in March of '01 when these campaigns for statewide offices started the Isaksons, Collins, Kingstons, Chambliss's, Norwoods, Westmorelands and Johnsons of the state thought Roy's re-election was a sure thing.

So giving Perdue credit for some grand strategy started way back in 1998 when he switched parties in the Senate and ending in his election to the Governor's office ignores the many unknown variables, pleasant and unpleasant surprises along the way.

Party Switchers

Oh no, they are at it again!. This time it is Rep. Ann Purcell of the Savannah area. My parting words to her would be don't let the door hit you on the way out. Purcell has basically found herself in the district of Republican Rep. Ron Stephens, who has likewise found himself in the old Purcell district, thanks to redistricting.

Purcell once represented a solidly Democratic district while Stephens had a solidly Republican one. To Ron Stephens credit, he is not switching parties, even though it will be hard to win in a district that Al Gore carried in 2000 with over 70% of the vote.

Party switching already rubs people the wrong way. But think about it from another angle. Local parties, state parties, unions, interest groups and many other interested parties spend thousands of dollars and hours electing candidates who have pledged to vote like a (D) or an (R) once they get into office. In many cases, such as state Sen. Rooney Bowen (DR - Tifton) we are working with extremely flawed candidates. If we had our choice, we would have found better candidates to represent our message. But we don't. So we're pouring our hearts into a candidate and cause that we have a hard time thinking about with a straight face.

When a lot of these guys get elected, it's not themselves that got elected, as you often hear party switchers say "I'm the same old guy" or "down in my area we vote for the person not the party." No, it's the hard work that campaign coordinators, volunteers and underpaid party workers did. I have to think that there must also be some remorse on the switched-to side...they did all that work (in the case of Bowen) to elect a Republican and they got the worst possible Republican (who was previously the worst Democrat) they could.

I'm sure Purcell is just the beginning. You're about to find out which people would rather stay in the legislature than stick to any principles they might have had, though in the case of Purcell probably lost long ago. I bid Purcell and her ilk farewell.

Redistricting Roundup

It's going to be a tough year for both parties. Set your expectations low for a House Republican takeover and likewise the Democrats have a battle on their hands in the state Senate.

Sen. Charlie Tanksley (R - 32) really got the short end of the stick in court. He lived in Senate District 32 under the old maps, then he moved into a different part of the district so that he lives in 32 under the new maps. The catch is that the new map does not include his old house. He hasn't lived in the new one for 12 months, so he can't qualify for office. The Republicans hung him out to dry, and he is pissed, as there actually was a great argument to make about shifting the lines to accomodate his request.

Tanksley is like the Hagel/McCain/Chafee of the state Senate. He's the Republican we Democrats like the most and personally it's just really terrible what's happened to him. That's all for now.

Sloppy Jerks

Everyone knows my general distase for the local paper. In an article about Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit Distict Attorney candidate Keith Adams the AJC notes in a headline that Name mix-up irks DA candidate Keith Adams. Apparently "[an] attorney with the same last name has been criticized for handling of case in Gwinnett."

Hmm, I wonder if the AJC has anything to do with it, noting in this March 9th piece "Adams [was] a candidate to replace former DeKalb DA J. Tom Morgan before another lawyer got the job."

Now, I understand that there were two Adams who petitioned the Governor to be appointed interim DA. However, it's one thing to petition the governor to be appointed DA (any crazy can do it), and it's totally another thing to plunk down your money and actually run for the office. The AJC reporter called Herb Adams, the one who may be indicted a "candidate" even though he is not technically a candidate in the sense he is running for office.

The possibility for confusion on a story like this is enormous. It's another reason not to trust anything you read in the AJC or any other newspaper. Too many reporters have a laziness that manifests itself in either not getting the facts right (as in this case) or just accepting whatever spin parties trying to influence the news tell them and not sorting out to figure out if it's true.

A great example of the latter is redistricting. The CW is that the Republicans are perfectly happy with the court redistricting maps. Tell that to Glenn Richardson and Eric Johnson, who are doing everything they can to pass their own maps and will be up til sine die on day 40. Sheesh!

Overheard on Fox

The Fox News talking heads can't believe that Spaniards would turn out their conservative party in favor of the socialists. Some economic guy said expect for your Spanish investments (if you've got any) to drop 20% over the next month. We'll see.

He also said this: If there were another terrorist attack in the United States, it would ensure George W. Bush's re-election, because he's stronger on the war on terror than the Democrats.

Can you think of any other scenario where this logic is true. Imagine he said "If the stock market crashes again, it would ensure George W. Bush's re-election, because he's stronger on the economy than the Democrats." Or, after passing No Child Left Behind, "If more schools fail, it would ensure George W. Bush's re-election, because he's stronger on education than the Democrats."

This is the single biggest challenge the Kerry campaign faces. Fox News hacks will continue parroting this line no matter what happens, but it must be instilled in the minds of the American people that if we are attacked again, George W. Bush and his associates need to lose their jobs. And because he let September 11th happen in the first place, he should lose his job anyway. Maybe it was just bad luck, we know he's incurious and terrorism wasn't exactly a vote-getter before 2001, but still sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time and they don't deserve to stay there if they screw it up. That's just the way it should be.

Terrorism CW

Slow down, everyone. Spain suffers from Islamic terrorism and in the eyes of Andew Sullivan and many others now they "get it" and can see the righteousness of Bush's war on terror. Two big problems with this emerging conservative blog CW: 1) what happened to fighting the war on terror on terrorists' home turf, a major selling point for the war in Iraq which obviously is not the case now and 2) couldn't the billions spent on fighting the war in Iraq have been spent on intelligence and counter-terrorism operations to eradicate exactly the al-Qaida associates who might be responsible for the train bombings in Madrid?

Redistricting primer

Excitement and nervousness about the next chapter of the redistricting saga got you biting your nails? Here are a few things to take under advisement:

• Barring some sort of GOP miracle, the state Senate map can't get any more Republican-friendly than "SENATE FAIR 8 AP." Check here to see what Eric Johnson and Bill Stephens's wet dream does to your area.
  
• The House map used in the '02 elections is the most Democratic friendly map we're likely to see. That said, the court could very well produce a House map that isn't unfavorable to Democrats as a whole.
  
• ...However, certain incumbent Democrats (and Republicans) are likely to be the biggest losers in the court drawn map. If the court dispenses with multi-member districts, as is likely, a number of incumbents will be thrown together in districts.
  
• Will the greater good prevail? Not likely! Actual members of the Democratic leadership, especially Coleman and Porter, aren't likely to see their districts redrawn in any way that would prevent their return to the General Assembly. There are certain to be some high ranking committee chairmen who will find themselves facing other Democrats in a primary or well-funded Republicans in the general.
  
• 90 votes. That's how many "no" votes we'll need to prevent the worst possible scenario -- a dirty deal between House Democrats and Senate Republicans whereby each accepts the other's map. Perdue, the Senate and House Republicans are on the record against multi-member districts, but how many will let such petty things as principles stand in the way of the Republican Senate plan, which guarantees Republican dominance of the Senate past 2010? I'm guessing 0.
  
• As an aside, the House Democratic map is not nearly as favorable to Democrats as the Senate map is to Republicans. Since the Republicans wouldn't need to spend any money to win the Senate all their resources would be directed at picking off vulnerable House Democrats.

Maxed Out

Some bloggers have speculated that Max Cleland might be a good VP pick for Kerry. I just don't see it. His current campaign for JFK warms the hearts of Democrats (and especially in Georgia) but seems quixotic to independents and who knows or cares how it seems to Republicans. Probably not positive.

Putting Cleland's mug next to bin Laden and Hussein in a television commercial might have been distasteful, but it alone didn't win Chambliss the election. In fact, it was so tasteless that had Cleland responded properly to it it might have ended up hurting Saxby. No, what hurt Cleland was the lack of an exceptional voting record (or bill sponsorship record) in the Senate, an undistinguished Senatorial office and most importantly Daschle's holding up of Homeland Security. With the Senate so close, national security voters could hold their noses and choose Saxby only because it likely meant that Daschle would no longer be majority leader.

It was an effective campaign waged by the White House, and Cleland along with Carnahan (MO) just weren't competent enough to response.

So, Max is great at warming up crowds of Democrats and veterans, each of whom he is especially capable of connecting with for different reasons. That seems to be the role he's settled into. If you're looking for a long shot pick from Georgia, fantasizing about John Lewis or Jim Marshall would be a better way to waste your time!

My Sweet Lord!

If you think Georgia's 9.98% deviation is wrong, consider that in Brown v Thomson (1983) the Supreme Court determined that adhering to county boundaries for legislative districts was not unconstitutional even though the overall range for the Wyoming House of Representatives was 89 percent.

Logic Anyone?

Expect more and more articles about Democrats' inability to compete in the South, like this Washington Post one.

Here is what irks me. The article goes on and on about how hard it will be to win the Presidency without winning a Southern state. Then it says:

[not winning any Southern states] would require holding every state won by Gore in 2000 while picking off a Bush 'red' state outside the South, such as Ohio or Arizona, a daunting prospect against an incumbent president.

Where exactly does this argument make sense? The Post is saying that a Democrat must find out a way to win a Southern state, which overall voted pretty heavily for Bush in 2000, because winning a non-Southern state that gave Bush a smaller margin of victory might be impossible.

Let's see here:

Looking at this chart, if, according to the Post's logic, a Democrat can't win in Arizona, Nevada or Ohio, each one a state where Gore finished within 7% of Bush, why even bother writing an article about states like Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina where Bush's margin of victory was over 10% (blowouts each) and where Democrats have actually lost ground in terms of governors and senators since.

A better, and harder, article to write might delve into the differences between the Deep South (Miss, Alabama, Ga, SC & NC) and the outer Southern states and how Kerry might try to win these outer states (Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennesee, Virginia) with a strategy that recongizes that demographically Ohio, Pennsylviania and Michigan (all key states) are more similar in demographics to the outer South than deep Southern states.

Journalistic Request: To me, it seems just as dumb to write a "Democrat can't win in the South" article as it would be to write a "Republican can't win in the Northeast/California." Both have about the same number of electoral votes and cancel each other out, more or less. And both regions used to be solid for each respective party, but now they're not. I don't want to see those Northeast/California aritlces, or the South articles.

I'd much rather see an article that points out that the swing states this year are more or less Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Without these states, Democrats have a whopping 233-170 advantage. If they hold all of the Gore states, they'll be just 10 votes shy of winning. New Hampshire looks ripe for the picking, and thanks to the steel tarrifs fiasco West Virginia looks set to return to the Democratic column. At that point you've got a tie. Which states might shift columns? My head tells me it's probably a tossup at this point, but some good reporting could shed some light on this question. Unfortunately we'll probably get more reporters sent to the Deep South to find out why Kerry isn't popular there. After all, everyone loves to read a good story about some bigoted hick interviewed at the local Huddle House.

How it Went Down

Kerry / Edwards	Margin of victory map Dem primary
2001 Barnes flag / 2003 Hooks flag	Margin of victory for flag in each county

Tonight I'm at a bit of a loss for words. Suffice it to say, anyone that knows anything about Georgia politics can look at these maps and know that the electability argument I and others have been making for Edwards might not have panned out, but Kerry clearly has yet to demonstrate that he can reach out beyond the base.

The one silver lining I see here is that Kerry won military areas. More to come.

Which flag?

Let it not be forgotten that removing the 1956 flag from the courthouses and schools of our state was a noble goal.

Some have sentimental feelings for the blue Barnes flag. The Barnes flag was a compromise flag, borne of rural legislators concerns that they couldn't be seen as turning back on the '56 flag. Under state Rep. Lynn Westmoreland's (R - Sharpsburg) "leadership" most Republicans refused to take part in any vote changing the flag, and the black caucus's support of the pre-'56 flag by itself was not enough to change it. Their desire to rid the state of the '56 flag led them to endorse a compromise banner that included a miniature confederate emblem.

It is ironic that many African-American legislators and Georgians have adopted the blue banner as their own. Though they initially supported a flag similar in design to the 2003 flag designed by state Sen. George Hooks (D - Americus) they now disdain it in favor of the blue one. In that regard they resemble the grateful widow of a soldier who gave his own life for a noble cause.

I have mixed feelings on the issue. On the one hand, I feel strongly for the blue flag. To me it represents the governorship of Roy Barnes. Barnes came into office reading a mandate for change -- no longer should Georgia be last in the nation in education, traffic planning or getting over the Civil War. And yet, Georgians upset at their last in the nation rankings fought him tooth and nail whenever he tried to do anything about it. Even now those same rural school boards who keep us last in the nation lobby against smaller class sizes, ostensibly to save money but ultimately to save our reputation as the 51st state.

On the other hand, endorsing the red white and blue Hooks flag means burying a contentious issue for Democrats once and for all. An all Democrat legislature in 1956 adopted a hateful flag and we have come full circle. It took two tries but Democrats removed the confederate banner over Republican objections each time. As I have written, I have mixed feelings on the issue. That is why I recommend that you Abstain from voting on a flag.

Regardless of which flag you support, the notion that the people of Georgia should vote on the flag or any other contentious or trivial issue that otherwise should be left up to the legislature is incorrect. Perdue was wrong to promise a flag referendum when he ran for governor. And even though this referendum thankfully does not contain the 1956 flag implicit in Perdue's campaign promises, it is still a divisive timewaster. By leaving your ballot blank you send a powerful message to the legislature that this and other "social" issues should not be dealt with at all and should definitely not be put to a popular vote that only increases partisan tensions and inflames feelings on both sides of any issue.

Elect this man

I mean, how many people can make being a trial lawyer sound this good. I know I got emotional.

I know my voice counts for little comparably in the Georgia primary. But you have a clear choice to make. Howard Dean started off the whole process by running against his fellow Democrats. He offered a choice instead of an echo. John Kerry, who has an impressive biography, modified Dean's approach. Kerry realized that Democratic primary voters wanted someone who would run against President Bush, instead of his fellow Democrats.

Kerry has the impressive CV, but voters focused on electability should remember that impressive biographies alone, and even when coupled with a war record, do not make a President, as Presidents Gore, Mondale and McGovern prove. In evaluating a candidate Georgians should look to the raw skills necessary to win the most votes. John Edwards has those skills. In a year when the incumbent President seems hamstrung by his base, we should seek a candidate who can win over moderates and even dissatisfied Republicans. Ours was the party of the big tent, and it should be again. Sen. Edwards has proven that he appeals to unaffiliated swing voters. Maligned as they are by liberals and conservatives alike, they are crucial to the electoral hopes of any candidate. Mr. Edwards should be that candidate.