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But two weeks ago, everything was turned on its head. Sonny Perdue, returning from political oblivion after he left his state-senate president job and became a Republican, highlighted an amazing election night by ousting Democratic Governor Roy Barnes.
Republicans ousted a Democratic governor, senator, statehouse speaker, state-senate majority leader, and won two of the four congressional seats the state legislature had drawn explicitly for Democrats. The story is an important one to follow because it may be a road map to a south that is not majority Republican, but monolithically Republican. Sonny Perdue had a fairly easy road to the GOP nomination because nobody wanted the job of running against Gov. Roy Barnes. Barnes was so entrenched that pundits were more focused on his 2004 presidential chances than on his 2002 reelection bid. Perdue won the primary with the quiet help of the state Republican establishment while Rep. Saxby Chambliss coasted to Senate nomination over Bob Irvin. After these primaries, there was little suspicion that the picture in Georgia would be improving for Republicans. Barnes looked safe, Sen. Max Cleland was still untouchable as an affable triple-amputee war veteran and Democrats had gerrymandered the districts for maximum gains in the statehouse, state senate, and U.S. Congress. But beneath the radar, the pieces were all in place for the state's oldest party to become grand once more. Each of the individual problems that had kept the Georgia GOP down had a solution in the 2002 ticket. Rural voters who believed in God, owned guns, loved their children even before birth, and didn't want their children in pup tents with homosexual scoutmasters still were voting Democratic as recently as 2000. Those voters who saw the Republican party as being on their side in the culture wars still didn't trust the individual GOP candidates who had all invariably come from Atlanta (one of the few Republican metropolises in the nation). But in Sonny Perdue, Georgians who had always voted Democrat saw a kindred spirit — but one who had overcome bitterness from Reconstruction and made the leap from the party of Nancy Pelosi to the party of George W. Bush. And Perdue and Chambliss were not entrenched insiders from Atlanta — they were from south and central Georgia and acted like it. Mailings, grassroots work, and campaign ads from the state party and the campaigns drove home the point to rural voters: If you support President Bush, vote for Republicans. Meanwhile, Democrats were shooting themselves in the feet. They acted as if nothing they did could hurt them politically. Despite consistent bad press even from one of the most Left-wing papers in the country — the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Democrats rammed through their abstract-art redistricting plans on every level. Tom Murphy, the autocratic house speaker since 1974, didn't think he had to shore himself up while redrawing lines aimed at huge state House gains. He fell on Election Day. State Senate Majority Leader Charles Walker Sr. tried to draw his son Champ into Congress and absurdly redraw the state-senate districts while not covering his own rear. Both Walkers lost and Democrats dropped enough seats in the state senate that three conservative rural party switchers were able to hand the GOP control over that chamber. These mistakes, Barnes's attitude towards teachers, and Walker Sr.'s constant bullying of his constituency all reflect a systemic Democratic flaw throughout the state: colossal arrogance borne of 130 years of uninterrupted control. To the extent that arrogance is the problem, Democrats can solve it quickly and get back on their feet. But there is a deeper problem for Democrats, one that GOP chairman Ralph Reed saw and exploited: Most voters in Georgia are conservative. Republicans have known for years that God-fearing, gun-toting folks were voting for Democrats. This year they did something about it with campaigns that stressed defense and social issues and an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort coordinated by Reed. And now that these voters have seen that the Republican party is the conservative party, they may never go back. Expect to hear Democrats imply that these folks are racist. That the white rural voters jumped on board the racist GOP ticket. The undercurrents in the governor race of the confederate flag's removal from the state flag will be the only "evidence" presented, but don't be surprised to hear Perdue compared to George Wallace. These will be desperate tactics by a desperate party. Georgia Democrats look east and see that South Carolina has become a one-party state. They look south and see Jeb Bush clobber his Democratic opponent becoming the first Republican governor to win reelection in Florida. Alabama, too, is drifting steadily towards the Republican party. The south may soon become one giant photo negative of Massachusetts. If Republicans stay true to their social conservative roots, all the good country people there who believe in God will vote straight GOP. And Sonny Perdue, Ralph Reed, and Saxby Chambliss will be remembered as the shepherds of the new era. — Timothy P. Carney is a reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report. |
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emocrats
were illegal last time a Republican was governor in Georgia. Rufus Bullock
won the 1868 election, but abruptly resigned in 1871. In every election
after that, Democrats carried the Peach State's top spot. 
