According to the AJC, the Coalition for the People's Agenda, an Atlanta civil rights group chaired by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, gave Cathy Cox the highest score on their candidate evaluation of gubernatorial candidates. According to the results, Cox supports 93% of the group's agenda compared to 80% for Mark Taylor. Rev. Lowery said that the group does not endorse candidates.
Amongst candidates for Lt. Gov., Steen Miles received the highest score. The article goes on to say that Republican candidates "rarely respond" to the questionaire - no surprise there.
Coming off of the heels of last week's endorsement by the Association of Black Women Attorneys and a hard hitting Cox ad that uses Taylor's own words in his 1990's attempt to reduce the state's minority congressional districts from 3 down to 1, the Cox campaign is reaching out to the African American community. Add to that the fact that several months ago Cox secured the support of the vast majority of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.
I stated two months ago on this blog that I thought African-American women might decide this race. I still believe they will be heard quite loudly on July 18th regardless to who wins. And as probably the most underated segment of Georgia voters, I'm hoping that both major candidates will speak to the issues that African-American women most care about.
2 comments:
There is much talk about "the black vote." Needs to be more about the individual black voter.
Certainly there are unifying issues among people of color, but there's also a healthy variety of of points of view...hence, no monolith..hence, the possibility for surprises.
There was some interesting discussion on how the black vote would go on this morning's "Georgia Gang." Bill Shipp continues to put a dark cloud over anything about Cathy Cox. And after his "faggot marriage" comment a few weeks ago, he almost stuck his foot in his mouth again by suggesting that blacks always vote the same way. He then went on to say that this race was not close.
However, the other panelists disagreed with him. Jeff Dickerson pointed out the fact that Georgia's civil rights leaders are split between Cox and Taylor. He also shrewdly reminded Shipp that women of all persuasions would play a significant role. Alexis Scott couldn't wait to get her comment in as Shipp was finishing and said that black people do not always vote the same way and won't in this race.
The clincher was from Martha Zoeller, who never misses a chance to club Cathy over the head about something. Not only did she make Cathy her winner for the week, but she also agreed with Jeff and Alexis that the black vote would be split. Everyone except Bill thought this race was far from over.
Obviously we don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. But for anyone to take anything for granted at this point would be crazy. As you've been saying, the debates are going to settle this once and for all.
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