It's official: Barrow's win certified

In the midst of all this South-bashing going on around here, I wanted to pass on the breaking but not unexpected news that John Barrow of GA-12 was officially certified the winner today over Max Burns by 864 votes.

As I write this the Burns campaign has not decided whether to call for a recount, which is their right since the margin is less than one percent of the vote total.

Why does this matter? More below...

As most of you know, if Barrow holds on the Dems will have defied history by taking both houses of Congress without losing a single seat.

I wish more Kossacks would give Barrow credit. For weeks now all I've heard is that he's some kind of weak link in the chain because he was the most vulnerable Dem incumbent.

But you know, he won in this district a second time despite being redistricted out of his own hometown by the GOP power structure in state gov't here. It's not like he's had much to work with.

Hell, Burns had both Bush and Cheney down here in the weeks before the election, in an area where those two crackpots still have some bedrock support.

And Barrow still pulled it off.

I for one am happy to have a Democratic representative here in the South, an area apparently many Kossacks would like to simply "write off" (a ridiculous concept to begin with when you're talking national politics, but I'll leave that debate for another time). Update: Burns has until Friday to request the recount. The pending issue has to do with provisionals and absentees, since the Diebold machines we use are highly unlikely to change very much in any recount scenario. Barrow's staff informs me that even if 100 percent of those go to Burns he still cannot win.