Every State. Every race. Right here.
This is number 31 in a planned series of 50 entries between now and November, looking at each of the 50 states in terms of every race on that state's ticket--Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senate, House, State legislatures--the whole peach tree. Special attention paid to identifying and promoting the most important contests per state.
This time, we head to the heart of Dixie for a look at GEORGIA!
This is Georgia’s Congressional map. Joining Texas in disgrace, it was redrawn mid-decade the instant the fucktards got the state government trifecta and had the power to do so. Their shenanigans illustrate the vital importance of our side gaining as many statehouses and state legislatures in large states as possible, so that we can fight back and gerrymander the living shit out of the states we control. Otherwise, the Republicans have to win ONLY ONCE, and we may never see Democratic representation in those states again. You need only look as far as Texas, Michigan and Florida, where actual Democratic popular majorities are confronted with near-unstoppable Republican political majorities due to creative map drawing to see the truth of this.
http://www.nationalatlas.com/...
Politically, Georgia can be drawn into four regions, corresponding only approximately to certain Congressional Districts:
ATLANTA METRO (Districts 4, 5, and 13): The most reliably blue part of the state, majority black, and so liberal that it sends the great John R. Lewis to Washington, and used to send Cynthia McKinney as well. Atlanta used to be confined to Fulton County; now it has spread to include most of DeKalb and parts of a couple of other counties as well. And as they spread, so has the blue city.
ATLANTA SUBURBAN (Districts 3, 6 and 7): The Newtists. Pure Republican evil. They want to force Jesus on everyone and pay no taxes. In fact, the upper part of Fulton County regularly puts forth efforts to secede from lower Fulton County (inner Atlanta) so that "they won’t take half our income for the niggers". And don’t blame this attitude on old fashioned southern racism either—the counties of Gwinnett, Walton, Barrow, Cherokee, Newton, Henry, butts, Forsyth, Coweta, Carroll and Paulding are all among the fastest growing counties in America, and it isn’t from just reproduction. These are people who moved here from someplace else because they were attracted so much by the concept of kicking "niggers" and not paying any taxes. Just like George Allen, they love studying their idea of Southern heritage even without having any themselves—they are WANNABE southern racists. It’s hard to imagine something more revolting, but there ‘tis.
APPALACHIAN GEORGIA (West and North—Districts 9, 10 and 11): THIS is the old fashioned south, and very hard for an outsider to understand. The area is solidly Republican and it’s tempting to call the whole place a homogenous extension of the metro area—which part of it may become as Atlanta sprawl continues to creep into the mountains—but that wouldn’t give you the whole story. Bob Barr hails from Appalachia, and so does Zell Miller.
I read Millers "Conservative Democrat" manifesto, A National Party No More, and his central argument is that to win elections, you have to go where the votes are. Seems to me that’s true to some extent, but that it is also possible for a true leader to inspire the votes to come her way, and that as Democrats we have the responsibility to do that to the extent possible. In Appalachia, that is done on economic issues, not social, and so the way to win elections is with a good dose of FDR/Huey Long economic populism. If our cndidates can do that, let’s cut them some slack on guns and abortion, OK?
SOUTH GEORGIA (South and East—Districts 1, 2, 8 and 12): More than half of the geography, about a quarter of the population, and most of the pretty land—this is what people are probably thinking of when they think of "Georgia" and "the South". I’ve been there and it is beautiful—the kudzu forests and the Okefenokee swamp and the old mansions between Savannah and Albany with their verandas. This is a swing political region, like a lot of the Cotton Belt, with solid blue minority precincts and equally solid red white precincts canceling each other out. Note that three out of four Congressional Districts form South Georgia are held by Democrats.
Georgia is second only to Louisiana (and maybe not even that) in turning sharply to the fucktard right after the years started beginning with a 2. Through most of the 90s, Newt notwithstanding, it was the "sensible" deep south state, sending political moderates like Sam Nunn and even liberals like Wyche Fowler to the Senate, and delivering its electoral votes to Bill Clinton in 1992. As Governor, Zell Miller keynoted the 1992 Dem Convention, ripping into the Republican party with the same zeal he later used to stab his own people in the back. As the new millennium began, Democrats controlled both Senate seats, the Governorship, and both houses of the State Legislature, and Newt had just left the House in disgrace ("Newt, Newt, Newt, goin’ out the back door")even as other deep south states were becoming one-party Republican. Somewhere around 2002, something happened that I still can’t quite figure out. The media says it was all about protesting the Governor’s decision to no longer display the Confederate flag. Hard for me to believe that was the whole thing. Seems to me, more likely, Karl Rove happened, and Zell Miller poisoned the well.
I also can’t think of Georgia without remembering the Georgian legendary Kos pessimist JamesB3, who spent the 2004 election season making these pages reverberate with his howls of despair, as he wrung his hands and worried that at least 45 states were much too conservative to consider electing a Democrat, ever again. Granted, if you’re a gay man in rural Georgia you probably need a healthy dose of paranoia just to survive, but his daily predictions of Feingold’s landslide loss and Bush’s inevitable wins in California weren’t exactly what our morale needed.
BLOGS: Tondee’s Tavern is one of the best single-state blogs out there, full of well-researched local material, and a good place do "drink liberally" and enjoy the colonial decor. Anyone confronted byt the "you don’t love America" crowd need look no further than The Tavern for some ammo in your defense.
http://www.tondeestavern.com/
PRESIDENT: : Leans McCain, but by a surprisingly small margin, and Obama is really going to the mat for the 15 electoral votes. It would surprise me if he actually won them, but I like those kinds of surprises. And I would not be at all surprised if McCain found himself having to take money away from Ohio and Missouri at the eleventh hour to shore up a state he CANNOT win without.
SENATE: Jim Martin (D) v. Saxby The Cowardly Little Dork (Inc R). It’s only a third tier race, but I’m calling it THE BIG ONE for Georgia in 2008, because Georgia’s honor is at stake here. In case you don’t remember 2002, Georgia had an excellent Senator in Democrat Max Cleland, a Vietnam combat veteran who lost three limbs for his country. And Saxby—who would never get his lily white hands sullied by actually picking up a weapon for his country, and who would probably have run away anyhow when the guns went off—DARED to run ads attacking Cleland’s patriotism, morphing Cleland into Bin Laden. Cleland is as fond of folksy aphorisms as any Southerner, but in this case, he softly chose to quote Shakespeare: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Maybe he spoke too softly or something, because the people of Georgia, to their shame, elected Saxby! THEY ELECTED A TREASONOUS COWARD WITH AN R NEXT TO HIS NAME OVER A WOUNDED COMBAT VETERAN..
Listen, Georgia. You have a collective yellow stain that’s going to remain on your faces as long as Saxby remains stinking up the Senate floor. You get one shot every six years to wipe off that stain, and here it is, right now. What’s it going to be? Are you going to get rid of him and atone for your shame, or are you going to return him and show the world that once was not an aberration, you really have that much contempt for the US armed services? If Saxby gets in again, I hope President Obama and the Democratic majority removes all military bases from the Peachtree State and either closes them down due to the budget cuts necessitated by the war Saxby voted for though he wouldn’t fight himself, or else transferred to Jim Webb’s Virginia, Ronnie Musgrove’s Mississippi, Bill Nelson’s Florida, or any other state where they elect Senators who actually appreciate our armed forces.
Jim Martin’s primary victory turns this race from a Hail Mary pass into one where there is in fact a prayer for victory. Martin is a Vietnam Veteran like Cleland, a former state Representative, and the party’s nominee for Lt. Governor in 2006. A recent poll showed him just 6 points behind. Obama’s running hard for the state and black turnout is expected to be higher than it’s ever been. Martin can win. He’s a good man who deserves to win. More important, Saxby deserves to lose more than any other Republican this cycle, and that’s saying a lot.
Up to you, Georgia. Please redeem yourselves.
http://www.martinforsenate.com/
GOVERNOR AND OTHER STATEWIDE: Not up until 2010. We really need to get the Democratic engine rolling—the Repukes control every office except Attorney General, Agriculture commissioner, and labor commisioner.
STATE LEGISLATURE:
State House of Representatives: 79D, 101R. Majority of 22. 11 flips needed to capture.
Senate: 23D, 33R. Majority of 10; 6 flips needed to capture.
And even many of the Democrats are DINOs.
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS: These seats aren’t really on any maps, except maybe the 8th, where we’re playing defense, but take a look at the websites. Look how many of our candidates are veterans who aren’t afraid to show off their uniforms and their flags for the people of Georgia.
Of course, Georgia showed with their election of Saxby over Cleland that they don’t like America’s troops, but maybe they’ll come around this year.
District 1—Bill Gillespie (D) v. John Kingston (Inc R). Gillespie is the soldier’s soldier in a southeast district with a relatively low +R PVI. Note that Kingston is geographically isolated—the three contiguous districts are all represented by Democrats. If we can flip any GOP-held Georgia districts this year, I’d say the First is the most likely.
http://www.billforgeorgia.com/
District 2—Sanford Bishop (Inc D). Southwest Georgia. Safe Dem, but a good place to pump up high Obama turnout for the sake of the Senate race.
District 3—Steve Camp (D) v. Lynn Westmoreland (Inc R). South Atlanta suburbs, including Fayette and Henry Counties. They redrew this one mid-decade to make it harder for incumbent Democrat Jim Marshall, and so he ran in the 8th, which included his native Macon. Not now on the map.
http://www.stephencampforcongress.com/
District 4—Hank Johnson (Inc D). Dekalb, in Atlanta Metro. Unopposed. This is the district that gave us Cynthia McKinney. Johnson won it in 2006 after beating her in the primary. Supersafe.
District 5—John R. Lewis (Inc D). Central Fulton in Atlanta Metro. Unopposed and super-safe. Turnout in these two districts, more than anything, will decide if Obama and Martin can pull it off.
District 6—Bill Jones (D) v. Thomas Price (Inc R). North Atlanta suburbs including Cherokee and upper Fulton. Price is one of the George Allen wannabe racist carpetbaggers I mentioned above, but his district is not now on the map. The 6th used to be Newt’s district.
Jones is an Air Force Veteran whose candidacy visibly shines the party’s military credentials.
http://www.billjonesforcongress.com/
District 7—Doug Heckman (D) v. John Linder (inc R). Eastern Atlanta Suburbs, including Gwinnett and Walton. Yet another district in which we’re running a strong veteran. Hickman’s doing well in fundraising and could make this one into a sleeper.
http://www.dougheckman.com/
District 8—Jim Marshall (Inc D) v. Richard Goodard (R). Central South Georgia, including Macon. Marshall held on narrowly after the Goopers redrew the districts, and this time they tried to bring out a heavy hitter to bring him down. So far, we’ve been lucky and it hasn’t stuck. In fact, Goodard lacks badly in the fundraising. But this is still on the ever-shorter list of Dem-held districts where we have to play defense.
http://www.friendsofjimmarshall.com/
District 9— Jeff Scott (D) v. Nathan Deal (Inc R). North Mountains. Deal was originally a Democrat, but bolted the party when the Newtists gained the majority after 2004. Scott is a teacher and activist. Not now on the map.
http://www.electjeffscott.com/
District 10—Bobby Saxon (D) v. Paul Broun (Inc R). East Mountains. This one remains on the map because the district includes the blue oasis of Athens, and because of the deep Republican division in the region. The district, like much of North Georgia, has a critical mass of fundamentalist, big-government-in-your-bedroom-to-check-for-sin crackpots, and Broun is more of a Bob Barr Libertarian type who has eked out narrow primary wins against the crazies ever since he took over the district from the late Charlie Norwood in 2006. Broun is maybe the best of a bad lot, and if his continued presence in Washington creates an endless Club For Growth money sinkhole, I won’t mind.
Saxon is yet another Iraq War Veteran waving flag and uniform for the Democratic party. Eventually, you’d think even Saxby-voting Georgia will get the message.
http://bobbysaxon.com/
District 11—Bud Gammon (D) v. Philip Gingrey (Inc R). West Mountains, including Rome and Marietta. The Atlanta Suburbs are encroaching here, and it would be a good place to stir up some conflict between the newcomers and the old timers, and between the Barr libertarians and the fundies. Otherwise—well, the 11th was drawn in a ridiculous Gerrymander to help out a Democrat back at the start of the decade, when Democrats controlled the process...and Gingrey won anyway. He won again next time, despite his friendship with the laughable and toxic Katherine Harris, and so he must have been doing something right. After that, The Republicans redrew the district to make him safe and it hasn’t been on the map since.
Gammon is the strongest possible challenger. Yet another Veteran, this time of the air force.
http://www.budgammon.us/
District 12—John Barrow (Inc D) Central Southeast Georgia, between the 1st and 10th, and anchored by Savannah and Augusta. Bluer than the 8th, and likelier to stay Dem now that Barrow has established himself post redrawing. He survived a primary challenge from the left and now has credibility as a moderate in a district that may not be ready for true progressives just yet. Not completely out of the woods, but I’m calling it for Barrow.
http://www.barrowforcongress.com/
District 13—David Scott (Inc D) v. Deborah Honeycutt (R). South Atlanta metro, including Cobb, Douglas and south Fulton. Part of the trifecta with the 4th and 5th, and likely Dem. This district is notable in that Honeycutt is raising a surprising amount of money in a district drawn to be unwinnable for Republicans (they concentrate Democrats into districts like this so that the GOP will have advantages in neighboring districts) and in which this year more than any other the black liberal turnout will be through the roof. I’m not worried yet, but it bears watching.
http://www.davidscottforcongress.com...
REDISTRICTING GEORGIA: I’m not bothering. There’s no way we hit the trifecta by 2011. I’m hoping for a Democratic Governor so that they don’t get to run the table on US in a state projected to gain more seats.
What do YOU think?
Previous diaries in this series:
Delaware: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Arkansas: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Illinois: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Texas, Part One: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Texas, Part Two: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Utah: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Massachusetts: http://www.dailykos.com/...
North Carolina: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Hawaii: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Mississippi: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Oregon: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ohio: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Maryland: http://www.dailykos.com/...
North Dakota: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Alabama: http://www.dailykos.com/...
California, Part one: http://www.dailykos.com/...
California, Part two: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Vermont: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Iowa: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Virginia: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Wyoming: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Pennsylvania: http://www.dailykos.com/...
New Mexico: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Kentucky: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Nebraska: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Friggin’ IDAHO: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Maine: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Wisconsin: http://www.dailykos.com/...
New Jersey: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Oklahoma: http://www.dailykos.com/...
South Dakota: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Colorado: http://www.dailykos.com/...