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I'm no fan of either party. But I'm not going to forget what the state Democratic party did in our mayoral election. They will not simply get my support across the board because Trump is a narcissist. I'm going to be to balancing punitive action against the state party w/ a sound choice for governor in this next election.
We need more choices in parties so one doesn't rule the roost while in power. Their efforts go too far then things swing hard the other way at the next election...and nothing of a long term nature gets accomplished.
Don't get mad because they knew how to play the game. That's like getting mad at the Patriots for beating us in the SB. They just playing the game
No, it's wrong and they shouldn't have "corrupted" the process. It may not be new, but they did it and I'm not just going to accept it. That attitude is one of the cornerstones of why politics sucks so much
Ah, glimmers of hope! I guess if a Democrat can become a Senator in AL, anything is possible. Maybe one of those rumored skeletons will be revealed on Cagle.
I actually am not that unhappy with our Governor and the direction Georgia is headed. The GOP here is pretty moderate and their bark is worse than their bite. If a Democrat won, I don't think the policies would be all that much different.
Personally, my big complaint is Governor Deal's cronyism. I understand that appointing friends is the name of the game in politics, but Governor Deal has taken this to an extreme level. Case in point: Sam Olens' appointment at KSU. These kind of appointments seem to be happening at all levels of state government and could at some point impact the functioning of our government.
The concerns about Deal's cronyistic-type appointments are understandably very concerning and definitely should be questioned.
Though, on the other hand, Deal is the type of person that really values loyalty. So (for better or for worse) many of his cronyistic-type appointments of friends and associates have been motivated by his desire to place people that he trusts in key positions as an attempt to minimize the chance that they will turn on him and make things more difficult for his administration.
Although, some of the seemingly cronyistic-type appointments Deal has made have actually impacted Georgia government for the better... Like in the case a few years ago when Deal appointed then-Georgia Senate Republican Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock to a plum make-work position over at GPB (Georgia Public Broadcasting).
Deal appointed Rogers to the six-figure job at GPB (which Rogers eventually washed out of) as a means of getting Rogers out of both a position of leadership in the Georgia Senate and as a means of getting Rogers out of the Georgia Senate altogether because Rogers was one of the lead troublemakers who had led a rebellion of about dozen or more senators against Casey Cagle right after he was re-elected as Lt. governor back in 2010.
Rogers and a few other deeply conservative Tea Party-aligned senators led a rebellion against Cagle and Georgia GOP establishment leadership that pretty much completely destabilized and derailed almost all of the 2011 and 2012 Georgia General Assembly legislative sessions.
Aside from the destabilizing legislative rebellion against the duly and popularly-elected Cagle, the absolute last straw for Rogers was when he held a gathering of far hard-right Tea Party-associated conspiracy theorists to rail against public transit (as if it was part of the United Nations-led Agenda 21 conspiracy to impose a one-world government on the U.S.) in the Senate chamber.
Deal basically had no choice but to remove the trouble-making Rogers from the Georgia Senate if he wanted to get anything meaningful done and return at least some semblance of stability back to Georgia state government before his re-election run in 2014.
After Deal removed the Tea Party-backed troublemaking, conspiracy-theorizing Rogers from the legislature, the Georgia Senate and the legislature as a whole seemed to run much more sanely by comparison.
As for Deal's appointment of former Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens to the position of president of Kennesaw State University...
Deal basically appointed Olens to the job of KSU president so that the Georgia Republican Party could get Olens (who was widely believed to be gearing up for a run for governor in 2018 while serving as Georgia AG) out of the way of Georgia Lt. Governor Casey Cagle's 2018 run for governor.
The Georgia GOP wanted to clear the way for Cagle (who has been a golden boy inside the Georgia GOP establishment apparatus since he beat national Christian conservative darling Ralph Reed to win his first Lt. governor's race in 2006) to run for governor with as little meaningful competition as possible, if possible.
The Georgia GOP establishment did not want Sam Olens in the 2018 GOP primary race because:
1) The Georgia GOP establishment was afraid that Olens could hurt Cagle (and hurt the overall GOP establishment vote) by potentially attracting the votes of college-educated suburban voters (particularly college-educated white women).
The Georgia GOP establishment was especially afraid that Olens would split the establishment vote by attracting the votes of college-educated Republicans in an electorally-crucial suburban enclave like Cobb County (where Olens was a popular and successful business-friendly chairman of the Cobb County Commission for 8 years) and Northwest metro Atlanta.
The Georgia GOP establishment was especially afraid that Olens would cause problems for Cagle in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary by taking much of the establishment and moderate vote and potentially allowing an less business-friendly or anti-establishment candidate like a Brian Kemp or a Michael Williams to dictate the tone of the campaign and force (and possibly win) a primary runoff.
The Georgia GOP establishment knew that a good way to get Olens out of the race and out of the way of Cagle was to offer Olens the president's job at KSU in his home county of Cobb that he loves so much.
2) The Georgia GOP establishment did not want Olens in the 2018 Georgia GOP Gubernatorial Primary race because Cagle had been grooming to run for governor ever since he won his first Lt. governor's race back in 2006.
The good-ol'-boys who currently control the Georgia GOP establishment (who are centered on the vaunted 'Hall County Mafia' that currently controls Georgia state politics) did not like Olens because he was a Jewish suburbanite from Cobb County and not an evangelical Christian exurbanite from Hall County and Northeast Georgia like them that they thought that much of the Georgia GOP's overall coalition of outer-suburban, exurban and rural voters might be able to best relate to, particularly in a primary and general election setting.
The Georgia GOP establishment (which is dominated by outer-suburban, exurban and rural evangelical Christians) did not feel comfortable with Olens because he was a Jewish, inner-suburbanite from East Cobb with a South Florida background... A background which the Georgia GOP establishment felt was too cosmopolitan for its coalition of outer-suburban, exurban and rural evangelical Christian voters to relate to.
The Georgia GOP establishment feared that the presence of the Jewish inner-suburban Olens in the GOP gubernatorial primary race would throw the race to a volatile Trump-inspired anti-establishment candidate like Michael Williams and potentially put continued GOP rule of Georgia in extreme jeopardy in the 2018 general election... So the Georgia GOP establishment got Olens out of the race with an appointment to the president's job at KSU where Olens eventually washed out of public life with the National Anthem controversy in the fall of 2017.
I'm no fan of either party. But I'm not going to forget what the state Democratic party did in our mayoral election. They will not simply get my support across the board because Trump is a narcissist. I'm going to be to balancing punitive action against the state party w/ a sound choice for governor in this next election.
We need more choices in parties so one doesn't rule the roost while in power. Their efforts go too far then things swing hard the other way at the next election...and nothing of a long term nature gets accomplished.
The Georgia state Democratic party inserted themselves into the Atlanta mayoral election because their national donors demanded that they move to stop Mary Norwood from getting elected mayor of Atlanta because of the widespread public perception (in Atlanta proper, in Georgia and nationally) that she was a not-so-secret closet Republican.
The national narrative during the Atlanta mayoral race had become that the traditionally black and Democratic-dominated City of Atlanta was getting ready to elect a white Trump Republican to the Atlanta mayor's office.
National Democratic and progressive donors basically let it be known to the Georgia state Democratic party apparatus that the state party would not get any money to adequately compete in the 2018 gubernatorial election if they let a candidate like Mary Norwood (who national Democratic and progressive donors perceived to be a secret Trump Republican) get elected mayor of the traditionally majority-black and majority-Democratic City of Atlanta.
National Democratic and progressive donors basically asked how the Democratic Party of Georgia could be counted on to compete in the coming gubernatorial election if the state party could not even stop Mary Norwood (whom national Democratic and progressive donors perceived to be a Trump Republican) from getting elected mayor of what is generally a Democratic and progressive-dominated City of Atlanta.
The involvement of the Georgia state Democratic Party in the Atlanta mayor's race was about the major sums of money that their national donors threatened to cut off from them if they did not stop alleged closet Trump Republican Mary Norwood from winning the election.
There's a thread here by a Democratic data analyst, looking at Alabama that I think is applicable to recent special elections with Democrats outperforming, and the 2018 GA contests.
twitter.com/tbonier/status/953991364143960064
- difference in turnout % from the '16 general to the '17 special. GOP turnout dropped 30 points, while the Dem drop was just over half that.
- in '16, 68% of white women, and 65% of black women voted. In the '17 special 37% of white women voted, as compared to 48% of black women. So white women saw a 31 point drop in turnout and black women saw a drop of only 17 points.
Georgia political website GeorgiaPol.com reported on Monday that Georgia Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle's gubernatorial campaign issued a press release stating that Cagle has so far been endorsed by 103 current and former Georgia county sheriffs.
From Lawton Sack of GeorgiaPol.com:
Quote:
A press release from the Cagle campaign states that 103 former and current Georgia sheriffs have lined up to endorse Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s bid for Georgia Governor. Sheriffs tend to carry a lot of political clout in most Georgia counties, especially those in the smaller and/or more rural areas outside of metro Atlanta.
Amongst the sheriffs who have endorsed Cagle's candidacy for governor are some pretty powerful figures from some pretty powerful Atlanta metro/region counties such as Neil Warren of Cobb County, Butch Conway of Gwinnett County, and Gerald Couch of Hall County.
Sheriffs from other metro Atlanta counties, like Gary Gulledge of Paulding County, Keith McBrayer of Henry County,Tim Pounds of Douglas County, Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County, and Mike Yeager of Coweta County, have also endorsed Cagle's candidacy for governor.
Publicly, Republicans peg Democrats’ chances of winning the gubernatorial election as a faint possibility. But privately, some Republicans are less confident.
“The Republicans have a very weak field of candidates,” a veteran Georgia Republican strategist, offered anonymity to assess the field candidly, said of the gubernatorial race. The strategist said the two leading Republican candidates in the primary, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp, are deeply flawed.
How is Kemp? Is he one the hypocrisy bible thumpers that will push religious liberty laws and destroy our economy?
His website says he and his wife attend an Episcopal church in Athens. That seems rather moderate. He's not a Southern Baptist.
But other parts of his website vaguely talk about "Georgia Values". And of course how much he hates immigrants. All the standard Republican talk.
All in all I think Kemp is to the right of Cagle. And Cagle has that one other bonus good thing going on, where he's particularly interested in funding and expanding transit.
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