Shocker in Georgia's 10th Congressional District: Paul Broun, Jr. turns the conventional wisdom on its head
Georgia’s 10th Congressional District was turned upside down this week, as a 9-to-1 frontrunner -- and conventional wisdom -- fell victim to the less-predictable-than-originally-thought voting public. In an all-Republican runoff to fill the seat left open by the late Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.), conservative physician and professional candidate Paul Broun, Jr. of Athens rocked the political boat by pulling off a 50.4% to 49.6% victory -- a 394-vote margin -- over heavy favorite Jim Whitehead, a state Senator and small business owner from Augusta. Whitehead was the expected winner after coming out on top of the ten-candidate June 19 special election with 43.5% of the vote to Broun’s 20.7%.Broun, by conventional thinking, should have lost. He was at a natural disadvantage based on the demographics of the district. The 10th CD is mainly comprised of Augusta, which is home of the Masters golf tournament and of the Medical College of Georgia (where Broun earned his MD), and of Athens-Clarke County, is the most liberal county in the northeastern part of the state, and home of the University of Georgia, where Whitehead once played football. Being from Athens -- while his opponent was from Augusta -- meant that in order to win, Broun needed not only to pick up conservative votes in the more rural areas outside of the two major cities, but to gain Democrat votes in far-left Athens and pick off enough support from Whitehead’s end of the district to make the votes from any of those other areas matter.
Trolling for votes in Athens was the touchiest part of his campaign, given the fact that Broun’s past positions, which have included the eradication of “unconstitutional” programs like Social Security and Medicare, are about as far out of that area's mainstream as one can get.
In the days and weeks leading up to the runoff, though, Broun’s strategy appeared to be faltering. The situation culminated in an incident involving his wife Niki, who sent out an email to friends within the district, which she requested be “forward[ed] to REAL Christians,” and in which she alleged that “the enemy” and their “opponent” were ganging up on she and her husband, while calling into question “Jim Whitehead’s spiritual condition.”
Georgia political blog Peach Pundit’s breaking of the story of the email (which was picked up by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) caused Broun to write a harshly-worded email of his own to the paper regarding their failure to “accurately” report about the email in question, saying that it never originated from his “campaign” and that his wife “never meant for her email to be for wide spread distribution.”
Regardless of intent, this situation -- which Peach Pundit referred to as a “Paul Broun Melt Doun” -- made it appear that Broun was sinking in the final weeks of the campaign.
Further compounding Broun’s problems were several other weaknesses that Whitehead should have been able to use to his advantage, including: (1) Broun was allegedly campaigning for Norwood’s seat as far back as two years ago, when the late Congressman was ill but still in office; (2) Broun stakes his professional name on being a physician, despite the fact that he was recently fined for practicing without a license; (3) Broun created an embarrassing scene by strong-arming a local party on his end of the district into rescinding their pre-election endorsement of his opponent; and (4) Broun ran for national office several times previously, in different parts of the state -- basically serving as a professional traveling candidate for Congress.
Given Broun’s disadvantages and the fact that the entire Republican delegation in the state Senate had endorsed Whitehead, the only question -- at least on paper -- seemed to be by what margin Whitehead would win. Real elections, though, are played out at the ballot box, and not on paper, as the voters in GA 10 (and the pundits who were watching, confident of a Whitehead cakewalk) saw on Tuesday.
While most critics and pundits were hung up on Broun’s disadvantages -- and while the Whitehead camp sat idly by, treating the runoff election like a mere formality -- the underdog simply executed his strategy, and it paid off beautifully. He managed to take nearly a third of the votes in Whitehead’s home county, and in Athens he hammered Whitehead by an unthinkable 5,122 to 601 (or 9 to 1) vote margin. In the district as a whole, Whitehead received 455 fewer votes in the runoff than he did in the June 19 special election (from 23,555 to 23,100), and Broun increased his vote total by over one hundred percent, from 11,208 to 23,473.
How did such a dramatic turnaround happen -- especially in a state where, when the leader going into a runoff earned more than 30% of the vote in the initial election, the odds in his favor are nearly 9-to-1?
It didn’t take long for the finger pointing to begin inside the Whitehead camp; however, the mistakes made are more cut-and-dried than they appear at first glance. In essence, it was a case of writing off the runoff election as a formality, and started picking out furniture for the DC office.
Specifically, Whitehead hired on the late Rep. Norwood’s old staff early in the campaign, a smart move for somebody looking to project the continuation of an administration most in the district had been overwhelmingly happy with for years. He also retained one of the top political consultants in the state, Joel McElhannon, to actually run his campaign. To quote an insider, the Norwood holdovers “were quite happy letting Joel call shots during the primary, but once it was over and they had such a commanding lead, they shoved the in-state consultant, Joel, aside, and prepared for the swearing in ceremony.”
During the three weeks of the runoff, the Whitehead campaign did next to nothing, sitting in Augusta and eschewing any temptation to spend money on mailings or television spots, or to spend effort on walking from door to door. The only action taken was a small number of appearances by the candidate -- and in one of these, he exercised his main weakness: his penchant for sometimes speaking first and thinking later. In this case, he said in essence that the election would determine whether Augusta or Athens was the city that mattered in the 10th CD -- and true to his word, the campaign completely wrote the western end of the district off for the duration of the run-up to the election.
Paul Broun did not. He worked in Athens, telling the people there that Jim Whitehead, if elected, would ignore them (a fact borne out by Whitehead’s treatment of the town during the campaign); he worked in Augusta; and he worked in between. The airwaves, newspapers, and people’s mail boxes were flooded with the message and likeness of Paul Broun, while Jim Whitehead simply let his opponent have the initiative -- and it came back to bite him, hard.
Regardless of the election’s outcome, Georgia’s 10th CD -- and Congress -- would have gained another conservative Republican. With Paul Broun’s victory, the GOP has gained a self-described “strict constitutionalist” who is committed to “restor[ing] government according to the Constitution as our Founders intended.” Broun has said that he, like Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), will “always carry a pocket Constitution” on his person while in Congress, and will “apply a four-way test to all legislation” (in essence, is each piece of legislation constitutional, moral, needed, and affordable?).
Broun is a proponent of private property rights, an opponent of illegal immigration, and a supporter of the Fair Tax, or national sales tax (as well as the abolition of the IRS.) He is a member of the National Rifle Association and president of the local affiliate, the Georgia Sport Shooting Association. Further, he is pro-religious freedom, and is very outspoken against “the ACLU and Activist Federal Judges,” who he says are “destroying America's heritage of religious freedom and religious expression.”
He came from behind to make a runoff for Rep. Norwood’s open seat. He came from behind to win that runoff, and to make it to the US House of Representatives. All pride and petty quibbles aside, Georgia Republicans have to feel good about having a staunch conservative with that kind of work ethic representing them in Congress for many years to come.
Jeff Emanuel, a special operations military veteran, is an Athens, GA resident and an administrator of Georgia political weblog Peach Pundit. In addition, he is a columnist and a director of conservative weblog RedState.com.
Labels: Elections, Georgia, Special Election
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The good news from election night: One state withstands the national blue wave
By Jeff Emanuel
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
The worst of previously envisioned scenarios played out for the GOP last Tuesday night, with the loss of both the House of Representatives and the US Senate to Democratic control. The sweeping victory saw several vulnerable Republican incumbents - including Senators Rick Santorum, George Allen, Jim Talent, and Lincoln Chaffee - picked off, as well as several open seats going to the Democrats. Further, not one Democratic incumbent was defeated - a resounding statement against the status quo, and against the previous leadership of this country.Despite attempts to spin the victory as a repudiation of the Republicans as a party, and of conservatism as an ideology, Tuesday's result was, in actuality, neither.
The victory experienced by national Democrats was a direct response by America to a governing party which had, by and large, forsaken its principles and abandoned those beliefs which propelled it to power in the first place.
When the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, they did so with – and as a result of - a platform built on limited government, entitlement reform, tax relief, and a balanced federal budget. Over the twelve years since, the GOP lost sight of those goals and beliefs, forgot the reasons that they had been elected, and strayed from those principles. Massive spending bills, chock full of earmarks, passed the Congress one after another, record deficits and debt were reached, and the largest new entitlement program in nearly half a century was created in Medicare Part D.
Furthermore, the GOP lost its moral compass during its time in control of Congress, giving in to the siren call of money, media approval, and base desires - the tangible benefits of power - in the varying forms of lobbyist deals, the page scandal, and the overall compromise of principles.
These shortfalls can be corrected, and it is possible that a stint in the minority could be just the jumpstart that the Republican Party needs to once again remember why it was selected by the American people to govern in the first place.
One exception to the anti-GOP and anti-incumbent trend was the state of Georgia, where the results of November 7 reflected just the opposite sentiment. Governor Sonny Perdue, the first Republican in the state’s high office since Reconstruction, won an overwhelming victory in his bid for reelection, defeating his challenger, Democratic Lt. Governor Mark Taylor, by twenty points.
Some Republican candidates were able to ride the Governor's wave into open offices, as well. State Senator Casey Cagle, for example, who handily defeated Abramoff scandal-tainted former Christian Coalition frontman Ralph Reed in a heated primary election, became the state's first GOP Lieutenant Governor since Reconstruction. Likewise, Karen Handel, former chairman of the Fulton County Commission (the largest county in Georgia, and home to Atlanta), handily defeated her Democratic opponent to become Secretary of State.
Voter approval was not limited to Republicans, though, as every Democrat running for reelection to statewide office was successful in his or her respective bid, as well. 37-year incumbent Tommy Irvin fought off a stern challenge from Republican nominee Gary Black to remain the state's Commissioner of Agriculture, and Congressmen Jim Marshall of the 8th District and John Barrow of the 12th eked out victories over GOP challengers Mac Collins and Max Burns by fewer than 2,000 votes each.
The resounding victory won by Governor Perdue, coupled with the victory of Democratic incumbents like Irvin, Marshall, Attorney General Thurbert Baker, and others, showed that, unlike voters elsewhere in the country, Georgians were very satisfied with the direction of their state, as well as with their own representatives in government.
While Republicans managed to take races in which the incumbent was not running for reelection, the victory by Democratic officeholders showed that, to Georgia voters, Party affiliation was secondary in importance - but that, given a choice and an open seat, the GOP is still the party of choice in the Peach state.
Lessons can be learned from this rare GOP electoral success. The victory in Georgia demonstrated that governing as advertised, and running on actual achievements and realistic proposals, can be a recipe for success. The national election, by contrast, revealed that running as conservatives, and governing as moderates or liberals, is not - and neither is running on a platform whose sole plank is "the other side is worse," as the Democratic Party found out through their losses in 2002 and 2004.
On both levels, the voters have spoken loudly and clearly. Georgians believe that the state is largely headed in the right direction and, while not willing to rock the boat by throwing Democrats out of office, they are trusting Republicans with more and more responsibility.
On the national level, America has taken the GOP by the collar and given it a good shake, while simultaneously giving the Democratic Party an opportunity to show what it can do in the majority. Where things go from here will depend on whether or not the Republican Party heeds the message it has so clearly been sent this week by the American people: return to the principles you once claimed to stand for, or face another 40 years in the wilderness.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran, studies Classics at the University of Georgia. He is also a contributing editor for conservative web log RedState.com, and is a columnist for the Athens, GA Banner-Herald.
Labels: Elections
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A tale of two elections: National, State Results Show a Divergence of Opinion
November 10, 2006 
The worst fears of the GOP were realized on the national level Tuesday night, with the loss of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to Democratic control. The sweeping victory saw several vulnerable Republican incumbents -- including Senators Rick Santorum, George Allen, Jim Talent, and Lincoln Chaffee -- picked off, as well as several open seats going to the Democrats. Furthermore, not one Democratic incumbent was defeated (although the final count on GA-12 will not be in until Monday) -- a resounding statement against the status quo, and against the present leadership of this country.Despite attempts to spin the victory as a repudiation of the Republicans as a party, and of conservatism as an ideology, Tuesday's result was, in actuality, neither.
The fact is, the victory experienced by national Democrats was a direct response by America to a governing party which had, by and large, forsaken its principles and abandoned those beliefs which propelled it to power in the first place.
When the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, they did so with -- and as a result of -- a vision of limited government, entitlement reform, tax relief, and a balanced federal budget. Over the twelve years since, the GOP lost sight of those goals and beliefs, forgot the reasons that they had been elected, and strayed from those principles. Massive spending bills, chock full of earmarks, passed the Congress one after another, record deficits and debt were reached, and the largest new entitlement program in nearly half a century was created in Medicare Part D.
Furthermore, the GOP lost its moral compass during its time in control of Congress, giving in to the siren call of money, media approval, and base desires -- the tangible benefits of power -- in the varying forms of lobbyist deals, the page scandal, and the overall compromise of principles.
These shortfalls can be corrected, and it is possible that a stint in the minority could be just the jumpstart that the GOP needs to once again remember why it was selected by the American people to govern in the first place. Steps in the right direction have already been taken; for example, when the 110th Congress convenes, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert will no longer be in a leadership position. One of many whose love for the office and the position resulted in answering to the wrong master -- that of power, rather than that of the people -- Hastert betrayed the conservative movement, along with the American peoples' trust, when he chose to defend the indefensible, in the form of Rep. William Jefferson's (D-La.) bribe-taking, and former Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) inappropriate behavior with House pages, as well as on other issues. As a result, he is one of many symbols of the loss of direction which contributed to the Republican majority's downfall -- and can now be one of the many symbols of the GOPs getting back to basics, and returning to its core principles.
Between the adoption of pro-big-government policy and public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, the Republican Party was likely destined for a national defeat in this election. The fact that it did not happen earlier in President Bush's tenure was a testament to the GOP, as every election of his presidency fought against the precedent of opposition party victory. Whether or not a Republican Congress which had remained faithful to its conservative principles would have suffered a similar defeat will never be known; however, the national results showed that, whatever the upside, America was fed up with the status quo.
In Georgia, Tuesday's results showed just the opposite sentiment. The resounding victory won by Governor Perdue, coupled with the victory of Democratic incumbents like Tommy Irvin, Jim Marshall, and Thurbert Baker, showed that Georgians were very satisfied with the status quo. While Republicans managed to take races in which the incumbent was not running for reelection - such as the election of Casey Cagle as Lt. Governor and Karen Handel as Secretary of State -- the victory by Democratic incumbents showed that, to Georgia voters, Party affiliation was secondary in importance -- but that, given a choice and an open seat, the GOP is still the party of choice in the Peach state.
The victory in Georgia demonstrated that governing as advertised can be successful; the loss nationally demonstrated that running as conservatives, and governing as moderates of liberals, is not. Likewise, Georgia's successful candidates were benefited by their decision to run on achievements and realistic proposals; on the national level, the GOP -- like the Democratic Party of 2002 and 2004 -- was doomed by the fact that their platform consisted simply of the claim that the "other side is worse."
On both levels, the voters have spoken loudly and clearly. Georgians believe that the state is largely headed in the right direction and, while not willing to rock the boat by throwing Democrats out of office, they are trusting Republicans with more and more responsibility.
On the national level, America has taken the GOP by the collar and given it a good shake, while simultaneously giving the Democratic Party an opportunity to show what it can do in the majority. Where things go from here will depend on whether or not the Republican Party heeds the message it has so clearly been sent this week by the American people: return to the principles you once claimed to stand for, or face another 40 years in the wilderness.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a senior at the University of Georgia.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 111006
Labels: Elections
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Two Georgia Congressional Districts showing potential for GOP pickups
By Jeff Emanuel
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Two of the GOP’s best chances for pickups in the House of Representatives this year are in Georgia, where two former Congressmen are embattled in races which are poised to go down to the wire.In Georgia’s 12th Congressional District, where Max Burns is challenging incumbent Democrat Representative John Barrow, the most recent poll showed the candidates in a statistical dead heat with a week to go in the campaign.
This latest poll, conducted by Insider Advantage, shows Barrow with a three-point edge over Burns at 42% to 39%, a lead well within the 6-point margin of error. The telephone survey reached 310 likely voters, 19% of whom said that they were still undecided.
The newly-redrawn 12th district, which includes 22 counties in eastern Georgia – but no longer counts Athens-Clarke County, home of the University of Georgia and one of the bluest areas in the state, as a part, having replaced it with several more conservative, rural counties – should demographically favor Burns, who lost his seat to Barrow in 2004.
A spokesman for Barrow said that they had “always expected a close race,” and Burns’s campaign manager, calling the matchup “one of the most competitive races in the nation,” confirmed what we all knew -- that voter turnout, and Republican get out the vote efforts, would make or break the election for each candidate.
The polling data showing that Burns is in striking distance of Barrow was backed up by action on Monday, when President Bush made his second trip of the election season to Savannah to campaign for Burns -- something hardly ever done for Congressional candidates, and much less lost causes.
Another race Bush is hoping to influence with his second campaign visit to Georgia in as many months is the contest for GA-8, which pits former Congressman Mac Collins against Democrat incumbent Jim Marshall.
Marshall, a fairly conservative Democrat and Army veteran – both beneficial attributes, as his district includes Warner Robins Air Base – has led Collins from the beginning in polls, and until recently appeared poised to win reelection going away. However, the race has been tightening of late, to the point where Marshall’s campaign has felt the need to release internal polling to combat wide-ranging speculation that their months-long lead was shrinking – or even that the Democrat was trailing.
Word recently leaked out, via the Georgia political weblog Peach Pundit, that some internal polling showed Collins up by one point in the race; shortly after this was made public, Marshall’s campaign released an internal poll showing a comfortable double-digit lead. Saying he released the poll to “combat the notion that the congressional race is growing close when it is not,” Marshall’s campaign manager added, “We're in good shape here. We're in a good situation. I wanted people to get a sense of where this race really is. … It's a good, good poll."
As good a situation as the Marshall campaign may want supporters – and potential Collins voters – to believe that it is in, the release of an internal poll speaks to just the opposite situation. As one campaign consultant put it, internal polls have traditionally been just that – internal – and have primarily been released to provide reassurance to supporters, or for the very short-term gain of generating favorable headlines with little or no effort.
The making public of what the Macon Telegraph, in its report on the release, called “data that aides would normally keep secret and use for their own strategic planning” shows that the campaign is far more worried than they wish to let on – a fact backed up by the President’s second visit to the district, which would not be happening were Collins trailing by as large a margin as Marshall is claiming.
These events combine reinforce the impression that Marshall’s campaign is struggling mightily as Election Day approaches, and that Collins is surging toward the finish – a situation which is only temporarily remedied by the favorable headlines the publicizing of such a poll creates.
The real aim of such a release is likely to help accomplish what will be necessary across the board for Democrats to be successful next Tuesday – to keep Republican voters at home. If headlines which show Republicans trailing by a significant margin in their respective races discourage voters to such a degree that they decide not to cast their ballots this year, then the conservative cause is almost certainly lost this cycle, and the newfound momentum of these two candidates, as well as Republicans throughout the nation, will sputter and ultimately die in an Election Day defeat.
However, Republican voters should not despair, but rather should take heart at such developments as the release of internal polling, and of third-party polling which shows their candidate making steadily increasing gains, as well as, in these specific cases, the decision by the President of the United States to make a second trip to their districts in an effort to buck up voters’ spirits. Regarding the latter, there are, as we all know, hundreds of House races winding up right now, and one-third of Senators (and their challengers) are also currently working toward a strong finish to their campaigns. Were these two Georgia races unwinnable – or even out of the reach of a strong campaign finish – then President Bush would certainly be elsewhere, propping up candidates who were more likely of winning.
The fact that he is in Georgia instead of elsewhere – and that there are campaigns for Democrat-held seats which are close enough that he would be there at all – should give hope to Republican voters not only in the state’s 8th and 12th Congressional Districts, but throughout the nation, that, far from the landslide defeat predicted for the GOP by so many for so long, seats could actually be gained to offset those which will be lost this Tuesday. All the voters have to do to make this a reality is to see through the smokescreen of the overly optimistic opposition internal polls, ignore the media’s doom-and-gloom prognostications – and refuse to stay home, instead going to the polls this Tuesday and casting their votes. Success is possible in this election, but the voters must decide that they really do want to succeed in order for it to become a reality.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran, studies Classics at the University of Georgia. He is also a contributing editor for conservative web log RedState.com, and is a columnist for the Athens, GA Banner-Herald newspaper.
Labels: Elections
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Outcome Uncertain as Decision Day Looms
October 26, 2006 Uncertainty is increasing across the board as the November elections approach, with polls showing some races changing leads, and many within the margin of error.Nationally, the GOP appears to have successfully shaken the short-lived stigma of the Foley scandal; although it received scant coverage from mainstream media outlets, the recent death of former Congressman Gerry Studds – the “original” page scandal Representative, who served six more terms in the House after being censured for having sex with an underage male page – may have contributed to some much-needed perspective being applied to the situation.
Several incumbents are fighting to maintain their seats in the House and the Senate, but there are also Republican challengers who are polling well enough that they may take back some of the potential lost seats on November 7.
Support for Republicans across the board is trending upward, a fact which is evidenced by the most recent polls being released – but which are not being trumpeted nearly as loudly as the earlier, poorer polls had been by the media.
Three weeks out from the election and before, polls which showed that Republicans were trailing in races across the board, and were in danger not only of losing control of both houses of Congress, but of becoming a 30-seat minority in the House, were being proclaimed far and wide by both the Democrats and the media.
What was lost in this, amid the Democrats planning their new office decorations, committee appointments, and leadership positions, was the fact that polls showed this same impending result in each of the previous three election cycles – and, as we all know, Republicans maintained control of Congress (not counting the temporary loss due to the defection of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords) every time.
This time appears to be no different. As decision day nears, Americans appear to be taking a closer look at the prospect of Democrat control, and all that it entails – from the possibility of impeachment hearings, to a quick withdrawal from an unstable Iraq situation, to the lack of a coherent, workable plan for defending America and fighting the war on terror, to the specter of a Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) – and are, once again, coming to the conclusion that such a result is not a good idea.
A striking example of this potential voter turnaround, as well as its resulting lack of reportage, can be found in Missouri, where a highly touted Survey USA poll showed Republican Senator Jim Talent trailing by 9 points two weeks ago. Wednesday, SUSA released a poll showing Talent leading by three – a twelve-point swing in the matter of fourteen days (which is being written off by pollsters as the result of a bad sample the first time around).
In Michigan, Sheriff Mike Bouchard has been able to pull within six points of incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) by focusing on the state’s declining economic and employment situation; in Montana, incumbent Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) has rebounded from early troubles to pull within three points of challenger John Tester (D).
While many races are tightening up, though, some incumbents are on the verge of expulsion from office, while some challengers will fall just short of victory. Senators Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) and Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI), for example, will almost certainly lose their respective races (although the replacement of the liberal Chaffee with a Democrat is a functional loss for the GOP on very few issues), and challengers like Michael Steele (Maryland), a black man who has endured the Oreo cookie-throwing wrath of Democrats for having the gall to run as a Republican, appear destined for ultimate defeat in their bids for seats – although a poll released Wednesday showed Steele closing the gap, so there may be hope left in that race.
Although projections and predictions have shown the GOP losing as many as 40 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate, the reality should be much more bearable for Republicans – a functional majority in the Senate, and perhaps, if not likely, a maintained (albeit slimmed) majority in the House.
Two of the GOP’s best hopes for pickups in the House appear to be here in Georgia, where in GA-8 both Mac Collins and Democrat Rep. Jim Marshall are reported to have internal campaign polls which show themselves up by 1. In GA-12, challenger Max Burns appears to be a longer shot in his quest to unseat Democrat Rep. John Barrow, but polls have been reported which show that race within the margin of error, as well.
Also in Georgia, Governor Perdue’s strong lead in the polls continues. Survey USA’s Wednesday poll showed Perdue leading challenger Mark Taylor 51-32, with Libertarian candidate Garrett Hayes polling at a strong 9%. The number of undecideds in this most recent poll is low enough that Taylor appears unable to win the election – however, the longer that Perdue’s numbers continue to hover around or just below 50%, the greater the very real possibility of a runoff becomes; also, the ghost of Roy Barnes’s 11-point election week lead – which became a defeat at the polls – should be weighing heavily on the minds of those who would credit Perdue with a victory before all of the votes have been counted.
The Foley scandal, negative reporting on Iraq, increased government spending, and other negatives which hurt Republicans this fall appear to be fading into the background as America’s voters consider the broader context of the current foreign and domestic situation, including the roaring economy (with the Dow over 12,000), the war on terror, and the prospect of Democrat control of governmet, and the pro-GOP trend which was apparent this year until its brief interruption in the wake of the Foley story, appears to be back on track.
Provided that Republicans stay on message, and build and maintain their position as the party of ideas, solutions, and conservatism (and thus give voters a reason to support them, despite a lack of conservative governance in the past), the Senate – and likely the House – should both still be under GOP control on November 8, and the specter of a Speaker Pelosi will have been narrowly – and fortunately – averted.
The question then will be what the Republican Party – the party of personal responsibility, of unobtrusive and limited government, of self-sufficiency, and of personal and economic freedom – will do with this second chance at a hard-fought majority. Should they once again fail to stick to their stated principles, and decide not to govern conservatively, it is not likely that they will be granted a third opportunity at keeping their word.
Labels: Elections
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Despite Polling Results, a Victory for Perdue is Far From Certain
October 12, 2006 Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue and his opponent, Democrat Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, have taken to the airwaves as the November gubernatorial election approaches. Both have gone on the offensive, with Taylor questioning Perdue's cheap land buy in Florida - and personal $100,000 tax deferment - and the Perdue campaign hitting back at Taylor's lifelong bankrolling by his father.The Georgia Republican Party is, naturally, the driving force behind the Perdue campaign; in a midterm election year, with an incumbent governor - the first from the GOP since Reconstruction - this race is the party's top priority. However, with the funds the state party - and, by extension, the Perdue campaign - have available, the product thus far has been less than desirable.
Both ineffective and contradictory, Perdue's advertisements convey no realistic achievements, proposals, or ideas, other than to set Perdue up as an everyman. One Perdue ad bemoans the idea Taylor would consider running negative ads against him, a message which lost any force when Perdue began running just the type of advertisement he'd decried.
Mary Perdue's appearances in advertisements should have been effective, as the Perdues' 35-year marriage stands in contrast to Taylor's multiple marriages. However, these Perdue ads wore thin quickly, due largely to their weakly staged conversations about poorly cited initiatives which, if effective, would have been welcome during Perdue's four previous years in office.
Perdue's campaign must improve its efforts, as well as its mindset, if he is to succeed in his bid for re-election. In a year when turnout is expected to be remarkably low - the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that turnout as low as 30 percent would not be surprising - candidates must motivate people, providing compelling reasons for them to vote.
However, many Perdue campaign staffers seem to have assumed the "arrogance of incumbency," viewing those potential voters, as well as campaign volunteers across the state, as mere pawns for their disdainful use. This show of hubris, which has no basis, is slowly contributing to a quiet loss of support for Perdue at the grassroots level - the very people who, with hard work and dedication, made his victory possible four years ago.
As of last week, Perdue had a surprisingly comfortable lead in most polls - 19 in Mason-Dixon, 13 in Strategic Vision. But there are similarities to the 2002 gubernatorial contest which should serve as warning to the Perdue campaign, and to Georgia Republicans.
Four years ago, incumbent Democrat Gov. Roy Barnes was running for re-election. He had a commanding double-digit lead in the polls throughout the fall, carrying an 11-point advantage into election week. But a rising tide of displeasure with Barnes throughout the state - particularly from supporters of keeping the Confederate battle flag on the state flag - and a pro-Republican national climate - the GOP gained seats in both the House and Senate that year - combined to lift the challenger, Perdue, to a remarkable and unexpected victory.
This is not 2002, and Sonny Perdue is not Roy Barnes. But Perdue is now the incumbent, and must stand on his record and ideological credentials - neither of which is stellar - in the face of a concerted effort to dethrone him.
Also looming large is the evolving national climate. One result of the appalling congressional page scandal involving former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., and its poor handling by House Speaker Dennis Hastert , R-Ill., was to reverse the slowly growing pro-Republican sentiment across the country. GOP voters have become more discouraged than ever, and may stay home on election day in greater numbers than previously expected.
Both gubernatorial candidates must increase, and improve, their efforts if they are to be victorious Nov. 7. Taylor must pull more undecideds to his side, and convince GOP voters not to turn out at the polls. Fortunately for him, the latter appears largely ready to take care of itself. At a time when confidence and trust in politicians is quickly - and rightly - waning, Perdue has thus far failed to present an inspirational persona or message.
Despite the polling numbers, Perdue must make a number of mid-course corrections, overruling his overrated campaign staff if necessary. He must bring excitement to a campaign that's lacked it. Otherwise, he could wind up enduring the same fate he inflicted upon Barnes, losing while a heavy favorite - and, in the process, becoming not only the first Republican governor since Reconstruction, but also the last.
• Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a senior at the University of Georgia.
Labels: Elections
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Cagle's victory in Republican primary reflects story of his life |
The statewide race that drew national attention ended with a whimper Tuesday night. When it was all said and done, the negatives against the man Time magazine once anointed "The Right Hand of God" proved too great to win the support of the majority of Georgia's Republicans.
Ralph Reed entered the race for lieutenant governor in early 2005 as a runaway favorite to win, with off-the-charts name recognition and a slate of nationally prominent supporters. In the end, though, the former Christian Coalition executive director, Georgia GOP chairman and political operative, who boasted "the most effective, grass-roots, get-out-the-vote effort that this state (had) ever seen in a down-ballot campaign," proved unable to defeat a little-known state senator for his party's nomination.
Ninth-generation Georgian Casey Cagle defeated his Miami-raised opponent - who was running for elective office for the first time amid rampant speculation he was seeking the office only as a steppingstone to the governorship - both by communicating his positive vision for Georgia, and by convincing voters Reed's values were "for sale to the highest bidder."
Cagle's victory is being viewed by many as a triumph of traditional Southern values over corporate, for-profit religiosity, and it unquestionably showed that, regardless of political credentials, character does matter to Georgia's voters. The dark cloud of Reed's association with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and all the negatives it entailed, from the Indian gaming and money-laundering scandal, to lobbying against regulation of the inhuman working conditions in the Marianas Islands, to, finally, a lawsuit filed a week before the election alleging the pair defrauded a Texas Indian tribe, added up to more than even the smooth-talking icon of the pseudo-Religious Right could weather.
The Republican ticket for November's general election will be stronger with Cagle as the nominee for lieutenant governor. Cagle's 12 years of legislative experience and knowledge of policy issues will benefit him this fall. Should he be elected, he'll be able immediately to work with the Republican majority.
Twenty-one GOP state senators not only endorsed Cagle in the primary, but signed a letter to Reed asking him to drop out of the race for the good of the state and party. This casts doubt on whether Reed would have had any impact on the Senate from the already weak position of lieutenant governor, or whether legislators would have worked to further weaken him and his position, if he had gone on to win the general election.
Beyond his legislative experience and mainstream electoral viability, Cagle improves the GOP's chances this fall - and takes away Democrats' best weapon - simply by not being Ralph Reed. If there was any question which candidate Democrats were prepared to mobilize against this fall, it was answered at the July 9 Atlanta Press Club debate, where Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor spoke repeatedly, not of the need not to defeat the GOP, but to defeat Ralph Reed. Polls repeatedly showed Reed as a drag on the Republican ticket in the general election, a concern for what is still expected to be a tight gubernatorial race. With Cagle as the nominee, that's no longer a factor.
With Cagle, Georgia Republicans have a nominee who can potentially reunite a party bitterly divided by the last year's campaigning. An online poll, hosted by Georgia political Web log Peach Pundit, asked readers whether they would support the lieutenant governor nominee. A whopping 50.8 percent of respondents said they were Cagle supporters, and wouldn't vote for Reed in the general election. In contrast, only 11.5 percent said they were Reed supporters, and wouldn't support Cagle. This polling demonstrated the divisiveness Reed brought to the state and the GOP by running for office while he was a figure in a Washington scandal.
Cagle's against-all-odds victory was a parallel of his life story to this point. He was raised by a single mother, who often worked multiple jobs to provide for her family, but "never took a dime of government assistance." A public school product who never graduated from college, Cagle rose from unskilled laborer to successful self-made business owner. It was that life experience, combined with a desire to do good for Georgia, which propelled Cagle from being such an afterthought in this race that he was one of five attendees at his own candidate tailgate here in Athens last football season - while crowds of people fawned over Reed at his site up the street - to being arguably the greatest political giant-killer in recent memory, if not in Georgia primary history.
• Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a senior at the University of Georgia. He serves as public-relations director for the UGA College Republicans, the largest student political organization in the country. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the UGA College Republicans.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 072006
Labels: Elections, Primaries, Republicans
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Davis looks to unseat McKinney
By Jeff Emanuel
June 23, 2006
The name Cynthia McKinney is almost guaranteed to elicit a reaction of some sort from Americans across the political spectrum. Last seen attempting to justify her striking of a Capitol Hill police officer by decrying his “racism” and “inappropriate touching,” the maverick Representative from Georgia’s predominantly Democrat 4th Congressional District has rarely been out of the news during her term in office—though she has rarely been in it for good reasons. Change for the better could be on the horizon, though, as—for the first time in a decade—McKinney appears to have a serious challenger from across the aisle.
Catherine Davis, a relative newcomer to Georgia politics, has rejoined the race for the 4th District seat (she ran in 2004 and lost, but in a far less anti-McKinney climate), citing McKinney's "dismal legislative record and her outrageous behavior,” which she calls “an embarrassment to the hard-working folks” in the district. A single parent, Davis currently serves as Sprint-Nextel’s Human Resources Manager for the South. She was educated at Tufts (graduated Magna Cum Laude in three years with a double major), and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Bridgeport.
A black Republican, Davis is conservative on nearly every issue. She is a fiscal conservative who supports the partial privatization of Social Security, as well as the scrapping of the current tax code and the IRS in favor of the Fair Tax. On immigration, she is a proponent of securing the borders first; on health care, she favors personal health savings accounts.
Education may be one of Davis’s strongest issues. A firm believer that “studying hard and getting a good education [is the] key to achieving a better, more prosperous life,” she is a strong supporter of charter and home schools, and favors vouchers and tax credits to assist in school choice. Perhaps most importantly, Davis is a stable, sensible professional who does not have a track record of her mouth or her actions getting her in hot water—making her an almost perfect anti-McKinney.
Cynthia McKinney, as usual, is almost as far left—and as nonsensical—as possible on a host of issues. She claims that “Republican priorities do not include education for our children,” saying that “federal tax cuts for the wealthy and funding for the war come at the expense of education and our children.” She decries “wasteful government spending,” but says that the “most notable” examples of this are “resources improperly devoted to the war in Iraq and corrupt and fraudulent military contractors.” A self-described proponent of “energy efficiency [and] sustainable power sources,” McKinney brags that she has “consistently voted” against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
She is vocally anti-Bush and anti-defense; her outrageous statements regarding September 11 (“What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?”) and the Iraq war (“Thousands of Iraqis, especially children, have been killed by our sanctions and our bombs...[but] destroying Iraq isn't enough for them”) are well-documented. Her anti-American rhetoric, which could be mistaken for that of Hugo Chavez himself, includes gems like this one: “Democracy in Venezuela, India, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay has produced proud people willing to stand up to US imperialism, coup attempts, and destabilization of their countries. And the good news is that this resistance will spread.” She has followed up with such mind-boggling assertions as “George Bush came to power by stopping democracy at home—denying the opportunity to vote to blacks and Latinos in Florida,” and, “in countries like Haiti where democracy was thriving, [the American government] arrested President Aristide at gunpoint and forced him out of his own country.” To quote loosely from the fairytale film The Princess Bride, when the Dread Pirate Roberts was engaged in a Battle of Wits with the Sicilian, Vizzini: truly, she has a dizzying intellect.
Almost two-thirds of the Economics portion of McKinney’s website is dedicated to decrying “Pentagon fraud, waste, and abuse” and the “shameful contracting practices of the Bush Administration,” which is especially grave in its “treatment of…minority business owners.” She is a staunch supporter of Title IX, the 1972 law which imposed sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, requiring them to cut programs for males if there was a higher percentage of male participation than the percentage of males in the student body.
McKinney has an eyebrow-raising record of sponsored legislation, from the Tupac Shakur and Martin Luther King, Jr. records release Acts, to a resolution “reaffirm[ing] the continued importance and applicability of the Posse Comitatus Act,” to a resolution “opposing any agreement between” the US and Nigeria to “deploy United States Armed Forces to Nigeria.” Worthy causes all, to be sure, and issues which are on the front burner of concern for all Americans.
The most intriguing part of McKinney’s campaign outreach platform—and one which has received prominent positioning on her website—has to be her self-described status as “a strong advocate, mentor and supporter of the Hip-Hop community.” She credits her “unique popularity among the members of the Hip-Hop generation” for her becoming a “trusted voice on behalf of producers, retailers and consumers of Hip-Hop entertainment.” She cites the “potential of the Hip-Hop community” to “evolve into one of the strongest movements on behalf of social justice and community development.” As her website claims, “Congresswoman McKinney is responsible for special outreach to the Hip Hop community and supports their efforts to run for office and become policymakers for today and tomorrow.” It would appear that rappers such as Kanye West (of “George Bush doesn't care about black people” fame), Fifty Cent (who filmed a DVD to “take viewers inside his X-rated hip-hop lifestyle”), and others currently have a friend in Congress, and a supporter should they ever decide to run for office.
Cynthia McKinney has proved beatable in the past, losing the 2002 4th District primary to fellow Democrat Denise Majette (her father attributed the loss to the fact that "Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S.") Whether she is beatable by a Republican—even a black one—remains to be seen.
"While in the past simply being a Democrat was enough to get you elected," says Davis, "I believe the voters of the 4th are shifting and they're looking for leadership. I also believe that they are tired of the talking loud and saying nothing—antics that the current congresswoman has engaged in." It will be interesting to see if Catherine Davis is correct, and Georgia’s predominantly Democrat 4th District is ripe for Republican picking—or if McKinney’s constituents are resigned to sending her back to Washington for a seventh term.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran, studies Classics at the University of Georgia. He is also a contributing editor for conservative web log RedState.com, and is a columnist for the Athens, GA Banner-Herald newspaper.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
Labels: Democrats, Elections, Georgia
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