Well folks, we tried. Lowndes County was close (45.4% to 54.6%; that poll didn't lie). Unfortunately, Bill lost every county (33.4% to 66.6%), except one:
Bill Gillespie, who challenged Kingston said, "We won Liberty County! That felt goo. Since I am a 3rd ID veteran and still work there. We had great support in Liberty.
"As for the First Congressional District, it was unfortunately, very similar again to 2006. We thought there would be more incumbent angst and Obama coat-tails, but no. The district wasn't ready for Obama. However, I want to make it clear that I was! I am very excited about our future.
As for my campaign, I have no regrets. I think we ran the best small campaign we could. The experiences, causes advanced and friends made were well worth it. We helped the Democratic Party in the district continue its positive growth. It is now time to come together as Americans to fix these tough obstacles.
Thanks to all of you who helped.
Sanford Bishop skated to victory in GA-02, 68.9% to 31.1%.
We will find a way to oust Jack Kingston yet. And there is more yet to be posted about him.
Also, I had an election night live blog ready to go, but when I pressed Publish, I realized I'd posted the previous diary about the Blue House too recently and couldn't post another the same day. Oops!
I tried turning that other diary into an election night live blog, but that didn't work, either.
No, Obama didn't win Lowndes County (M 54.4% O 44.9%), either, nor Georgia (M52.4% O 46.8%). But we came close enough to keep a bunch of you up late at night wondering what was going on with Georgia! And we still don't really know: those percentages are for 96% of precincts reporting, with some unknown number of votes still uncounted. Miss Handel is still up to her tricks; she deserves that Katharine Harris award.
We did improve the numbers in Lowndes County. In 2000, Bush beat Gore 57% to 42%.
In 2004, Bush beat Kerry 60% to 40%.
All the activity at the Blue House was not wasted. The Democratic base is activated now, and ready for the Jim Martin runoff against Saxby Chambliss for GA-Sen, operating locally out of the Democratic Party headquarters in Valdosta.
Oh yes: Democrats won every local election in Lowndes County, mostly by huge margins. County Commission chair, sheriff, Board of Assessors, coroner: all Democrats.
Now I must run; the current county commission is trying to do something before the new chair takes office.