Georgia Primary Wrap-up...sort of
This entry was posted on 7/19/2006 7:57 PM and is filed under Georgia Politics.
Well, the first round of primaries is over. There will be run-off elections Aug 8th for the Secretary of State in both parties as well as Lt. Gov. on the Democratic side and the 4th congressional district. Statewide results here.
Before I get into those races I want to discuss a race I volunteered for just a few weeks ago. Torry Lewis is a 22 yr old Political Science grad who ran in the 96th state house race against Pedro Marin, a 2 term incumbent. Torry, like a number of his fellow citizens felt like not enough was being done for his hometown of Norcross so he decided to run for office. He spent $800.00 on this race and came within 96 votes of upsetting the incumbent who had over $20,000.00 at his disposal. Turnout was abysmal with only 816 voting in a district with over 10k voters.
What troubled me the most about this race was the total lack of respect and fairness from the local cmte. Almost a "How dare you run" bunker mentality. Regardless of their personal feelings about an 'upstart' challenging an incumbent, Torry should have had access to the same information and data files available to any other Democratic candidate. It is the burden of the incumbent to state his record and prove he should be re-elected. That is why the state house races are every 2 years in the first place.
The real killer in this is that there was no republican challenger. This was it, whoever won the primary would be unopposed in the general election in November. Torry gained some very valuable experience and I can't wait to work on his campaign to get him elected in 2 years.
On to the other races.
I watched Cathy Cox, my choice for Gov., slip in the polls for the past few months. I'll never understand why she insisted on bringing in a republican strategist to head up her primary bid. This is NOT the time to try to woo republicans, especially with Christian Coalition mouthpiece Ralph Reed running on the republican side for Lt. Gov. His being on the ballot kept moderate republicans from crossing over because they were worried about their own party being hijacked. Cathy got caught up in the negative ad web and was never able to untangle herself. She'll learn from this and be a strong candidate in the future for either Senator in 08 or make another run for Governor in 2010 since she is only 47 yrs old.
The republican race for Lt. Gov has been sleazy for months now, the ads have been ruthless. Casey Cagle managed to whup Ralph Reed by a surprising margin of 56% - 44% after polls showed it within 1% for weeks. I kinda wish Reed had won. He would have been a drag on the republican ticket this fall helping the chances of a Democratic win.
The Secretary of State race on the Dem side was kind of surprising. I figured Holcomb and Reddy would finish 1 and 2 but it looks like they attracted the same kind of voter which allowed Buckner and Hicks to slide into the runoff. I really don't care who wins the republican SOS run-off between Handel and Stephens.
The Democratic Lt. Gov. race got pretty nasty the last few weeks before the primary. As I stated in another post, I was supporting Greg Hecht but his recent ads crossed the line so I voted for Martin. Now Hecht and Martin will go at it again in the run-off. Hecht has the bulldog mentality but I think Martin is a genuinely nice guy.
And now for the finale...Congressional District 4 - Cynthia McKinney vs Hank Johnson. I've heard Johnson called a right-wing fanatic, a fraud,you name it. The newest theory is that he is working with Diebold and the Rs to steal the election. Someone reported "vote flipping" from a machine in the primary yesterday and it took off on the internet by McKinney supporters. Anyway, McKinney was unable to win the majority in a 3 way race 47% for McKinney, 44% for Johnson and 8% for Coyne. I personally am tired of McKinney's antics.
D