This was originally a comment in another local Congressional race, in which dirty out of district smear tactics are being employed. It’s a race i haven’t seen anything about on the Daily Kos. GA-10 which stretches from Athens towards Augusta and to Milledgeville (the former state capitol). Athens is a very liberal city of about 125,000, or so, but only has one Democrat representing it at State or Federal levels. Well, up until the big upsets in local races for State Rep. this past Fall, now there are 3!
Here in GA-10, where the odious Jody Hice is being challenged by 2 decent to great options in the Democratic primary. I already voted for Richard Dien Winfield, who is running primarily on the Federal Jobs Guarantee at $20/hour platform, which has since gotten picked up by several high profile Dems, as well as a New Social Bill of Rights. His opponent is Chalis Montgomery who also supports raising the minimum wage, but to $15, and seems to be squarely gunning for the DNC style candidate they think will play well in the South, in that bipartisany across-the-aisle way.
The lazy comparison is Bernie vs Hillary. Winfield playing the Sanders role, even looking like a tall, svelt Bernie withe glasses and largely balded-over white hair, although Winfield is much more left than Sanders on the issues, and Montgomery as the younger Clinton figure, aiming for those elusive swing, middle of the road, voters. Winfield is a former philosophy professor at UGA and has written books and taught classes on different justice issues. Montgomery’s slogan is “Fight like a Mother!”, and is generally good on most of the issues i care about.
Well, she took a big ol’ dump on the comity, by doing FB’s version of push-polling smears. I got a message saying they noticed i had been active in the Winfield site, and told me that Winfield supports parental visiting rights of rapists, and a whole host of other very disturbing personal/family/sexuality positions that he supposedly supported. They sent images of some passages that had been annotated to indicate specious arguments, that were entirely misunderstood and misconstrued by someone who doesn’t spend their time reading philosophy texts. Wholly disgraceful move, on her behalf by a polling group they hired, according to her campaign, called Bold Blue Campaigns.
I don’t think it is a good move strategically because A) you can’t out-dirty a Republican, they are simply allowed to do and say things without consequence that Dems just aren’t, and B) she can’t get “middle of the road” “salt of the earth” folks to vote for her just because she’s NOT gonna support Trump, and well she shouldn’t. Winfield however actually scores interest from people guaranteeing a job, not just welfare. People (have been trained to) want to work, particularly conservatives in GA. I don’t think people want to hear a Democrat talk to them like rubes, they want someone to offer concrete solutions. It’s a long shot for either Winfield or Montgomery.
Hice has absolutely no scandals for him to shake off, other than being a Trump toady, so the centrist Doug Jones take down of crack pot crazy child molester Roy Moore, comparison won’t hold the center for a tepid take on the current political landscape.
I don’t think any national parties have announced involvement, but Montgomery is certainly running a campaign geared around things that the DNC is promoting at the national level.
Winfield is running on a transformative platform.
That’s my take on it.
local publication's take on the race
The Nation's take on it
Winfield for Congress
Winfield's website
