primary results
Yesterday's primary results are something of a mixed bag, but more positive than negative, I think.
The Best Thing:
Ralph "Dorian Gray" Reed's ride to the White House has been derailed. It's beautiful. The GOP's golden boy got his ass handed to him by an obscure state senator in a race for Lt Governor. I don't know if there are really any national implications to this race, even if Rudy Guliani came down to stump for him, and despite all the national press. But the statewide implications could be very interesting….
Reed had the support of former Governor/Senator/Democrat Zell Miller, who went so far as to appear in TV and radio ads for the candidate. Maybe now he'll shut up. At least, maybe now no other GOP candidate will want to deal with him. Best of all, he had the "personal support" of Georgia Christian Coalition chair Sadie Fields, who broke down in tears when Ralph conceded the race last night. She couldn't endorse him in her official capacity as GCC chair, but she never hid her affiliation; she even forced out an entire local chapter when they endorsed Reed's opponent. (Her other pet candidate, Bill Stephens, came in a distant second in the SOS race to Sonny Perdue's candidate; they'll have a runoff.) I hope this is a devastating blow to her both personally and politically. She is a horrible, horrible person.
One of the AJC's "Political Insider" guys wrote a good obituary for Reed's political career.
Some people thought a Reed win would drag down other GOP candidates running statewide in November, especially Gov Sonny Perdue, but I'm not buying that. Winning a brutal primary would have only emboldened the likes of Sadie Fields and carried Reed on to victory. The scandal news would have surely burned itself out by November; besides, the disaffected GOP voters would have still voted for Sonny - they just would have left the Lt Gov ballot blank.
The Next Best Thing:
That bitch Cynthia McKinney's in big trouble. She won 47% of the vote, which means Not Cynthia won 53% of the vote. She's facing a runoff against an articulate, issues-oriented candidate who just so happens to be black and from her stronghold in South DeKalb.
The Georgia 4th District has been redrawn since that idiot Denise Majette (who won her primary in the State School Superintendent race) beat Cynthia in 2002. Those damn J-E-W-S in Dunwoody are now overwhelmed in the heavily-GOP 6th District (which includes North Fulton, East Cobb, and Cherokee Counties) and the J-E-W-S in Toco Hills are drops in the sea of the 5th District (John Lewis's Atlanta).
What does that mean? It means Hank Johnson won lots of votes in the heart of Cynthia's kingdom and didn't need any help from rich white people or crossover Republicans. Add his 45% to the third candidate's 8% and you get rid of McKinney, possibly for good.
That's two of Georgia's most embarrassing politicians out of office and prevented from gaining office. That's a good day.
Other Things:
Mark Taylor won the Dem nod over Cathy Cox in the governor's race. I think Cox lost that race as much as Taylor won it. She went negative too early and shot herself in the foot over the anti-gay marriage issue. She'll be back, hopefully giving that worthless Saxby Chambliss a run for his money in the 2008 US Senate race.
I'll be holding my nose and voting for Taylor, but I'm not convinced he can win. He and Perdue are too much alike: big, fat good ol' boys from below the Gnat Line. To win, Taylor needs to be more than just a black candidate (he'll get 95% of their vote; he's always done well with that demographic) and needs to get more than the anti-Sonny flagger vote. Start by pounding the HOPE scholarship he claims to have gotten passed and then come winter time remind everyone how then-state Senator Perdue sponsored the natural gas deregulation bill. He also might want to find out who those 48,000 people were who voted against Perdue in the token primary.
I have no idea what happened in the state House 58th District. There were four good candidates, but the leader was the one person whose signs I never saw. I must not ever go to that part of town. Ever. In fact, the only time I ever saw anything for Robbin Shipp was when she was in a Fourth of July parade - in Decatur. Go figure.
So I'm going to be really un-PC and break down the runoff this way:
It's the Black vs the Gay.
That's it. Really. Shipp was the only black candidate; Allen Thornell is the gay activist. Personally, I can't relate to either one of them. I have no idea how I'll vote in three weeks. Shipp would join the black caucus; and they're a bunch of idiots. Thornell would join … well, Karla Drenner, I guess, as the most ostracized legislators in the Capitol; no way our district will get anything sent our way. Maybe Shipp can stick around and climb the ranks and somehow end up with some clout; Thornell never will. It'll be a far cry from having the Democratic Whip in our district.
Results Links:
straight from the Secretary of State's site:
main results page (county by county, by party, on the right side of the page)
statewide and federal
state House
state Senate
The Best Thing:
Ralph "Dorian Gray" Reed's ride to the White House has been derailed. It's beautiful. The GOP's golden boy got his ass handed to him by an obscure state senator in a race for Lt Governor. I don't know if there are really any national implications to this race, even if Rudy Guliani came down to stump for him, and despite all the national press. But the statewide implications could be very interesting….
Reed had the support of former Governor/Senator/Democrat Zell Miller, who went so far as to appear in TV and radio ads for the candidate. Maybe now he'll shut up. At least, maybe now no other GOP candidate will want to deal with him. Best of all, he had the "personal support" of Georgia Christian Coalition chair Sadie Fields, who broke down in tears when Ralph conceded the race last night. She couldn't endorse him in her official capacity as GCC chair, but she never hid her affiliation; she even forced out an entire local chapter when they endorsed Reed's opponent. (Her other pet candidate, Bill Stephens, came in a distant second in the SOS race to Sonny Perdue's candidate; they'll have a runoff.) I hope this is a devastating blow to her both personally and politically. She is a horrible, horrible person.
One of the AJC's "Political Insider" guys wrote a good obituary for Reed's political career.
Some people thought a Reed win would drag down other GOP candidates running statewide in November, especially Gov Sonny Perdue, but I'm not buying that. Winning a brutal primary would have only emboldened the likes of Sadie Fields and carried Reed on to victory. The scandal news would have surely burned itself out by November; besides, the disaffected GOP voters would have still voted for Sonny - they just would have left the Lt Gov ballot blank.
The Next Best Thing:
That bitch Cynthia McKinney's in big trouble. She won 47% of the vote, which means Not Cynthia won 53% of the vote. She's facing a runoff against an articulate, issues-oriented candidate who just so happens to be black and from her stronghold in South DeKalb.
The Georgia 4th District has been redrawn since that idiot Denise Majette (who won her primary in the State School Superintendent race) beat Cynthia in 2002. Those damn J-E-W-S in Dunwoody are now overwhelmed in the heavily-GOP 6th District (which includes North Fulton, East Cobb, and Cherokee Counties) and the J-E-W-S in Toco Hills are drops in the sea of the 5th District (John Lewis's Atlanta).
What does that mean? It means Hank Johnson won lots of votes in the heart of Cynthia's kingdom and didn't need any help from rich white people or crossover Republicans. Add his 45% to the third candidate's 8% and you get rid of McKinney, possibly for good.
That's two of Georgia's most embarrassing politicians out of office and prevented from gaining office. That's a good day.
Other Things:
Mark Taylor won the Dem nod over Cathy Cox in the governor's race. I think Cox lost that race as much as Taylor won it. She went negative too early and shot herself in the foot over the anti-gay marriage issue. She'll be back, hopefully giving that worthless Saxby Chambliss a run for his money in the 2008 US Senate race.
I'll be holding my nose and voting for Taylor, but I'm not convinced he can win. He and Perdue are too much alike: big, fat good ol' boys from below the Gnat Line. To win, Taylor needs to be more than just a black candidate (he'll get 95% of their vote; he's always done well with that demographic) and needs to get more than the anti-Sonny flagger vote. Start by pounding the HOPE scholarship he claims to have gotten passed and then come winter time remind everyone how then-state Senator Perdue sponsored the natural gas deregulation bill. He also might want to find out who those 48,000 people were who voted against Perdue in the token primary.
I have no idea what happened in the state House 58th District. There were four good candidates, but the leader was the one person whose signs I never saw. I must not ever go to that part of town. Ever. In fact, the only time I ever saw anything for Robbin Shipp was when she was in a Fourth of July parade - in Decatur. Go figure.
So I'm going to be really un-PC and break down the runoff this way:
It's the Black vs the Gay.
That's it. Really. Shipp was the only black candidate; Allen Thornell is the gay activist. Personally, I can't relate to either one of them. I have no idea how I'll vote in three weeks. Shipp would join the black caucus; and they're a bunch of idiots. Thornell would join … well, Karla Drenner, I guess, as the most ostracized legislators in the Capitol; no way our district will get anything sent our way. Maybe Shipp can stick around and climb the ranks and somehow end up with some clout; Thornell never will. It'll be a far cry from having the Democratic Whip in our district.
Results Links:
straight from the Secretary of State's site:
main results page (county by county, by party, on the right side of the page)
statewide and federal
state House
state Senate