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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Election Day in Georgia’s Tenth Congressional District: Filling the shoes of a conservative icon
Tuesday, July 17
Today in Georgia’s Tenth Congressional District, voters will go to the polls to elect the successor to the late Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA). The 65-year-old member of the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” who died at his Augusta home on February 13 of this year, was a was a solid Republican and a conservative icon, having earned a 96% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. Dr. Norwood was respected and liked by voters on both sides of the aisle – a fact which was demonstrated by his electoral performance in the district. Despite redistricting in 1996 and 2002, he never received less than 52.3% of the vote (in 1996), and received more than 60% five times, including twice surpassing 70%. Between his popularity and his solid conservative stance on the issues, Norwood left some very, very big shoes to fill.
The race to fill that open seat was an entertaining free-for-all involving ten candidates (six Republicans, three Democrats, and one Libertarian). The slate presented to voters in the special election last month (June 19) consisted of a prominent Republican grassroots activist, a medical doctor, a former lineman for the Georgia Bulldogs, a Yahoo! executive, an Iraq war veteran, and several other marginal candidates.
State Senator Jim Whitehead, a 65-year-old Republican from Augusta who is a relative newcomer to politics, having been elected to his first public position (Columbia County Commission) in 1994, was the clear frontrunner in the special election. The question going in that day was whether the other nine candidates would combine for enough of the vote to prevent Whitehead from reaching 50% - and, if that happened, which challenger would finish in second place overall, and thus gain a spot in a runoff election.
Whitehead received 43.5% of the vote in the special election, with Athens Republican Paul Broun, Jr. coming in second with 20.7% (only 198 votes ahead of Atlanta Democrat and former Yahoo! executive James Marlow). With that, the race to fill the Georgia’s 10th CD became a glorified primary, with two Republicans squaring off in a largely GOP district, each trying to outdo the other to win over the voters.
Jim Whitehead, a former Georgia football player, Methodist churchgoer, and current small business owner, is a conservative Republican who just finished his third year (one and a half terms) in the State Senate. His beliefs line up with most Republicans in the district: he is for improved border security, against amnesty for illegal aliens, in favor of local control of education, and against pork barrel spending.
A humble man who is fully aware of who and what he is running to replace in the 10th CD (and who astutely hired most of Norwood’s staff onto his campaign), Whitehead’s catchphrase this election season has been, “I can’t be Charlie Norwood – but I can be Jim Whitehead, and I am running to protect and continue Charlie’s legacy of conservative leadership.” Whitehead comes across in person as a man who is selling nothing but himself; however, whether that will be good enough to win today’s runoff remains to be seen.
Whitehead’s only major potential pitfall in this and future elections is his penchant for sometimes speaking first and thinking later. This mark of someone who is not a professional politician has gotten him into trouble from time to time, especially with the editors of the fairly liberal Athens daily newspaper; however, it did not hurt him enough to put his June 19 victory in doubt, and likely will not hurt him too badly today, either.
Paul Broun, Jr., the underdog in today’s runoff election, is an Athens physician. His father of the same name was a state legislator for 38 years, albeit as a Democrat; however, his name endures in the Athens area, as the main highway circling the city is known as the Paul Broun Parkway. The Paul Broun running in this election, though, is light-years apart ideologically from his more liberal father. 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-TX), 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 FairTax, 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.”
Most of these positions fit relatively well with the overall position of the district. However, Broun is at a natural disadvantage in the race, which stems from the fact that he is from the area within the district which is home to the most liberal segment of the population, and the fact that his past positions (which have included supporting the eradication of “unconstitutional” programs like social security and medicare) are as far out of the mainstream of that area as one can get.
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, which is home to the University of Georgia and is the most liberal county in the northeastern part of the state. Broun’s campaign strategy reflected this reality from the beginning of the runoff; while trying to convince voters at the Augusta end of the district that he is a staunch conservative who will “let the Bible guide” him in all he does, Broun has been trying to rally the Athens Democratic machine to his standard as well, in hopes of gaining enough votes from both ends of the spectrum to beat out the more moderate (by comparison) Whitehead. However, in recent days and weeks, his attempts to play to both sides of the district have increasingly backfired, leading to moves of increasing apparent desperation, including his wife Niki sending out an email to people within the district, which she requested be “forward[ed] to REAL Christians,” in which she (astoundingly) alleged that “the enemy” and their “opponent” were ganging up on she and her husband, and called into question “Jim Whitehead’s spiritual condition.”
Georgia political blog Peach Pundit’s breaking of the story of this email’s existence, which was picked up by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, caused Broun to write a harshly worded email 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” – highlights the issues that the Broun campaign has had in the final weeks of this runoff election with its initial position as an underdog, and with necessary strategy of trying to attract polar opposite ends of the political spectrum to the same standard.
Further compounding this are past problems which Whitehead has been able to use to his advantage – the fact that 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, the fact that he stakes his professional name on being a physician despite the fact that he was recently fined for practicing without a license, and the fact that he has run for national office several times previously, in different parts of the state.
Given the combination of disadvantages being experienced by Broun, the only question today – at least on paper – seems to be what margin Whitehead will win by. However, given the fact that elections are played out in the real world, not on paper, and that few expected Broun to make the runoff in the first place, it would be foolish to write off the professional candidate completely.
Regardless of outcome, though, at the end of the day Georgia will have kept its 10th Congressional District Republican, and will have another vocal conservative on Capitol Hill. Anything more than that, as they say, would be a bonus.
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: Georgia, Special Election
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Broun vs. the AJC: It’s a Paul Broun Melt Doun! (and, “The fight against Whitehead, Whitehead, and Satan”)
cross-posted at Peach Pundit
The campaign of Paul Broun, Jr., winding down and apparently getting ready to finish with a resounding whimper, is demonstrative of both his age and his inability to adapt to technology and communications advances. An old Gray in an iPhone age, Dr. Broun's campaign may come to set the standard for how a campaign should not be run in the New Media era -- and is demonstrating the perils of attempting to selectively use some technological advances, while choosing to ignore others.
Trying to run two different races in two different areas -- say, Athens and Augusta -- is much more difficult now than it was in the past, because people from both places have access (via this series of tubes we call the internets) to what was said elsewhere. Radio, newspaper, and television appearances are accessible to people everywhere moments after they air, making it much tougher to get away with lying about, or mischaracterizing, positions and actions.
There are plenty of examples -- simply search "Paul Broun" on this site for more than you can read in a day -- but this latest and greatest has to take the cake. If his campaign hadn't shown such total ineptitude -- both in terms of being consistent and in terms of understanding New Media to such a rudimentary degree that they realize that what they say and send will get out -- then I'd go ahead and call this a full-on election-eve "Paul Broun Melt Doun."
Heck, let's call it that anyway; after all, it sure seems to be. Check out this latest development:
As we broke the story here at PP, Broun's wife sent an email to her list asking that it be forwarded on to certain people who met the certain standard which the Brouns seem to think is a requirement for participating in our representative Republic. The email was lengthy, but here's the important part:
From: Nikibroun@[redacted]Non-"REAL Christians," of course, need not apply. Further:
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 3:24 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: P and N Broun testimony
Hi [redacted],
Please read the following synopsis of our testimonies. If you feel so led, please forward it to the REAL Christians in your email address book. I believe that Christians can make a big difference in this race and networking is one way to spread the word.Thanks!
Paul Jr. my husband, is running for the seat vacated by Charlie Norwood's death. We have been under such attack; it's too long to go into here. I just ask you and your friends to pray for us. The enemy is coming against us with such fury it's scary. Our opponent is not being all that nice either.Check the last two sentences. Apparently (and perhaps it's obvious if you're a "REAL Christian") Broun is not only fighting the two Jim Whiteheads, but Satan himself as well! (You know what a special place in Satan's cold, black heart GA's 10th CD has always held. Fight on, Paul...)
It is not my place to judge Jim Whitehead's spiritual condition but I'll just tell you that a pastor in Hartwell invited Paul and Mr. Whitehead to speak at his church. Paul accepted gladly, as he has in many churches. Mr. Whitehead said he felt uncomfortable speaking in churches and didn't think you should mix church and state.We could rephrase that first sentence: "It is not my place to judge Jim Whitehead's spiritual condition but" I'm going to anyway, and since he is against us, and (based on the paragraph above) Satan is against us, then Q.E.D. he is working with Satan!!
Paul feels that as a Congressman, he would be a missionary to government. And don't we need that!! He is profoundly pro-life and as a medical doctor he can fight abortion on a physiological level, beyond his spiritual beliefs of the sanctity of life. (He did run for office in 1990 as pro-choice before God removed the scales from both of our eyes about that important issue.)Here we get into that whole disparate-messages issue. You see, Paul Broun wants to be "a missionary to government," and says that the Bible will serve as his guide. Is his campaign so inept that nobody realizes that the Liberals in Athens whom they are trying to woo in hopes of ganging up on Whitehead will hear that message as well? Wow.
Here's the real kicker, though. The AJC's Political Insider, one of our favorite sites here at PP, picked up our coverage of the above letter, and the result was (predictably) a Brian Passante-esque Paul Broun Melt Doun of the first order. This morning, Paul Broun sent an email to Jim Galloway of the AJCPI in which he slammed Peach Pundit, implied that Galloway was dishonest and irresponsible, and demanded a correction. Peach Pundit has obtained a copy of that email, and the full text is posted below (with commentary, of course ;-) ).
07/16/07 09:44 AMSo should campaigning, Dr. Broun, as you so often remind us all (both with your statements to that effect, and your actions otherwise).
To: Jim Galloway
From: Paul Broun
Subject: From Paul Broun re Niki's email
Mr. Galloway:
You are in the news business. News should be premised upon accuracy.
Political Insider posted an allegation gathered from Peach Pundit that "the Broun campaign" sent an email appealing for support from "real Christians."Ah, yes. The wife of the candidate sending such an email as that detailed above is a massive, massive difference from the campaign doing so. Please accept our apologies, Dr. Broun, and please instruct your wife that emails are forwardable. I understand that it may be as difficult a concept to understand as is the fact that what you say in one end of a Congressional district, and to one audience, will actually reach other people -- including those to whom you have said completely different things; however, such is the reality of this New Media, lightning-fast communication era in which we live.
Just because Peach Pundit says that the Broun campaign did it, does not make it so! The claim is erroneous. Therefore, a correction is in order.
The facts are these:
1. The Paul Broun Committee absolutely did not send that email.
2. Independent of the campaign, in a loving attempt to help me, my wife emailed a few of her friends. She was basically asking them to pray for us and to do what they could to get their friends to turn out and vote. This is a wise thing in a mid-summer special run-off election projected to have low voter participation. Niki never meant for her email to be for wide spread distribution.
3. I am glad that Niki, my wife of almost 23 years, loves me and was trying to help. The portion of the email that shares our testimonies [and which you did not include] is accurate.
4. However, in her zeal to be helpful, and feeling the pressures that come with a political campaign (which may be tougher on the spouse than the candidate), she went beyond what she should have. Appearing to question Mr. Whitehead’s spirituality was inappropriate. She and I have discussed this matter. We feel an apology to Jim and Peggy is in order. And I do apologize to them.
Dr. Broun prides himself on performing house calls in his medical practice -- a practice reminiscent of a time long forgotten. His style of campaigning, and a goodly amount of his message (as well as his outrage), appear to belong in the distant past, as well.
Labels: 10th CD, Georgia, Special Election
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