Chambliss - the accidental GOP poster boy

Republicans may be celebrating the victory of Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia runoff, and because of the attention this race has received, observers may get the idea that the soon-to-be two term Senator is the next great hope of the GOP.

Nothing could be further from the truth. That is, if Saxby is the GOP's future, then the last two election cycles have not taught the party of Lincoln a thing.

Around the country, Republican seats in the House and Senate have gone from red to blue - except in Georgia. Around the country, states that have not voted for a Democrat in a presidential election in decades went for Barack Obama in 2008 - except for Georgia.

The GOP hopes the rest of the country becomes more like Georgia. After all, if we can elect old-school Republicans, then, they believe, they should be more like old-school Republicans.

Chambliss told his supporters Wednesday morning, as they dismantled his campaign headquarters, that his victory is a "model" for the 2010 election cycle.

The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, who was in Atlanta for Chambliss' Tuesday night victory, said that night's "result sends a strong and confident message to those committed to electing candidates who stand by the core principles upon which our Party was founded.”

Those principles, according to Chambliss, include "smaller government, fiscal responsibility, more individual rights (read as 'gun rights') and lower taxes.” Though that rhetoric resonated enough with Georgia Republicans to get them to the polls for the runoff, it is a huge leap to try to apply such ideals to Republicans around the country. It is, in fact, perceived as disingenuous by a majority of voters, even Republicans, who have heard such talk in every election cycle but are not blind to what their party did when they were in control of Congress.

It is not so much that Georgians have embraced Chambliss; it is that this state of the Old South is always going to be the last to give in to change.  Georgia is more like the last bastion of conservatism in a changing world, and Republicans would be foolish to make the politics here be the future of the GOP everywhere.

Knight on a Dark Horse

Is Georgia Finally Ready for Someone with Fresh Ideas?

All over this country there are invisible candidates with great ideas and no media. That is, the media does not consider them "serious" candidates. In Georgia, early voting began today for next week's primary, which features a list of Democrats running for the chance, however slim it may be, to unseat the horribly complacent and complicit Republican senator, Saxby Chambliss.

The two Democrats who have gotten the most media attention - and have the most funds - are:

Vernon Jones - a metro Atlanta county CEO who voted for George W. Bush both times and has run out of closets in which to store his various skeletons;

Jim Martin - a former state legislator, cut in traditional Georgia Democrat style, who recently lost a statewide vote for lieutenant governor.

Georgia is one of those states where the Democrats are always re-running the last election and expecting a different result. Hence, the party machine has chosen to back Jim Martin, since he has name recognition on a statewide ballot and - naturally - he's older and white. They even got the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to endorse him.

Yet in the same endorsement, in the first line of only the second paragraph, the AJC says "Rand Knight, an environmental engineer and software salesman, has the intellect and character" but they criticize him for being too young and inexperienced. "A seat in the U.S. Senate," they say, "would be too big a step, too soon."

But Rand Knight is the only candidate who has been endorsed by the NEA, the Georgia Association of Educators and the AFL-CIO. In the campaign's press release about the NEA endorsement, they quote GAE president Jeff Hubbard, who says, "Rand Knight’s education positions are forward-looking and address education as a lifelong process," and he added, "He has fresh ideas and the passion to persuade other legislators to provide our schools with the funding they need to be successful and helping college and post-graduate students finance their education."

In a campaign season where change and hope transcend their sloganism, Rand Knight is real change, positive change.

He has a very strong following among young voters. He is an environmentalist with a degree in environmental engineering. He would tackle the energy and climate crisis like a scientist and not a politician. Despite what the AJC says, we cannot wait for him to try again in another capacity. If we wait much longer and merely attend to the status quo for political expediency, it will be too late for America. I don't think we can afford to do that. He also believes that essential to our resurgence as a nation is a firm commitment to education. He would be a rarity in Washington - a Senator who cares more about filling up children's minds than special interests' pockets.

So I am urging all of my local Georgia readers to tell their friends about Rand Knight, go to his website and his Facebook pages. Let others know about this dark horse and vote for him this week in early voting or Tuesday July 15. With five candidates in this race, there will almost certainly be a run-off, and it would be great if Georgia could make one of the names on that ballot be Rand Knight. Please vote!

-PBG