This morning, the Georgia Gang had some interesting opinions on the Dem. gubernatorial race. The show is taped on Friday mornings, so they could not express opinions on Saturday's debate where Cox was an even more apparent winner. But the host, Dick Williams, declared Cathy Cox the winner of Thursday night's debate and the panel agreed. Jeff Dickerson of the Atlanta Business Chronicle also said, "It ain't over," when discussing the outcome of Tuesday's primary. That's the good news for Democrats anxious to defeat Perdue in the fall, in my humble opinion.
Okay. Now the bad news. Williams pointed out that in 1990, 1 million voters cast their ballot in the Democratic primary. The projections for Democratic ballots being selected this Tuesday is anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000. In just 16 years, we've lost that much ground in Georgia.
The AJC provided some more bad news in terms of money:
Big companies have kept giving to the majority party. But it's now the Republicans. For example, so far this year Coca-Cola has given $100,000 to the Republican Party. The Democrats got $5,000. In 2002, Coke gave $45,000 to the Democratic Party and about $19,000 to the Republicans.
A CAU political science professor is also mentioned in the article. And he points out something that Democrats need to pay attention to:
"What the Democrats have yet to come to grips with in this state is that they are the minority party, and you have to fashion your strategy to win around that fact," said William Boone, a political science professor at Clark Atlanta University. "It's a very difficult time for them."
Everyone knows that the Democratic party is now the minority party in Georgia. That's not my point for highlighting that quote. We just need to hear it more often to remind ourselves of what we need to do and what the consequences might be if we don't. I think there are some Democrats who are either ignoring or welcoming those consequences of being the minority for a long time to come by either not voting at all or voting in the Republican primary.
I've seen and heard some questions like, "What has the Democratic party done for me?" Well, we all know and have known that Democrats in Georgia aren't like national Democrats. For those of us of a liberal or progressive line, we have to work within the perameters of a party that doesn't always reflect our values as we'd like. But the question that shoud be FEARED doesn't have anything to do with the Democrats. It's "what will the Republicans do for you,?" that should be on your mind.
This is not the time to run the white flag of surrender up the pole. If you're a Democrat or most identify with the Democratic party and you're not happy with your choices for governor, vote Democrat and skip that race. Now is the time to dig our heels in and make sure that we don't allow a Republican sweep of the constitutional offices. It took the Republicans over 100 years to get back in the game. Let's not allow that to happen to us.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0716democrats.html
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1 comment:
You're exactly right, John. You did a better job of saying it than I did.
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