Posted on 10/30/2004 1:32:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Cynthia McKinney apparently is so confident she will regain her old 4th District seat in Congress that she has been shopping for office space and meeting with constituents.
On Tuesday, she plans to celebrate her victory at the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity World Center in south DeKalb County. Her opponent, Catherine Davis, will spend that evening watching the vote count at the DeKalb County Republican Party office on Covington Highway.
In the waning days of the campaign, both still were seeking the support of district residents who did not take part in advance voting this week.
Davis, a human resources manager for Sprint, is running an uphill battle to try to block McKinney from reclaiming the seat she held for 10 years. From July through September, McKinney raised $174,345 and Davis raised $5,460, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In addition to far greater campaign resources, McKinney has more name recognition and the correct party affiliation to win the mostly Democratic 4th, which covers DeKalb and a few precincts in Gwinnett County.
Emory University political scientist Merle Black predicts McKinney will defeat Davis easily in a district that was 70 percent Democratic during the last presidential election.
"It would take a tremendous political upheaval for Davis really just to be competitive," Black said. "I think [McKinney] should win with a comfortable majority because there [are] so few Republicans in the district."
The presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry has energized the electorate this year. More than 400,000 new voters have registered in Georgia, 31,000 of them in DeKalb, the largest Democratic county in the state.
Still, Black said he doesn't think McKinney will run as strongly as Kerry will in the district.
"She ran behind Al Gore four years ago," he said. "There'll be some opposition to McKinney among Democrats, which goes back to the race two years ago. So I think there'll be a little drop-off, but I certainly don't think enough to change the outcome of the election."
McKinney got bounced from office in 2002 after suggesting the Bush administration had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but did nothing to prevent them. Her assertion that "persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America's new war" outraged many Americans.
In her home district, Republicans crossed over en masse to vote in the Democratic primary, joining disenchanted Democrats and Jewish voters to elect a then-little-known Democrat, Denise Majette, who now is running for the U.S. Senate.
"Perhaps the country wasn't ready for [that] kind of questioning of the administration," McKinney acknowledged during Sunday's televised debate with Davis.
Today, there is no coalition of angry voters eager to defeat the woman who made history in 1992, when she became the first black woman from Georgia elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
This time around, McKinney deliberately waged a low-key, tightly controlled campaign. She avoided controversy and muzzled her father, former state Rep. Billy McKinney, who angered many Jewish voters with rhetoric they considered anti-Semitic.
The strategy paid off. McKinney won a decisive primary victory over five Democratic opponents to avoid a widely predicted runoff.
McKinney, who has been largely inaccessible to major news media outlets, responded by e-mail to questions for this article. The candidate called herself "cautiously optimistic" about her chances of winning. None of her staffers would speak on the record.
As for Davis, she said, "I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing, and that's meeting the voters all over the district."
Despite the fact that she is the clear underdog, Davis declared, "I'm going to Congress."
Michael Leonard, 44, voted Thursday for McKinney because, he said, "I thought she was strong in her feelings that she wanted to give back to the community."
Leonard, a Democrat who voted a split ticket, said he has never heard of Davis and didn't know that she ran for the 4th District in the 2002 Republican primary.
He thinks McKinney has a good chance of winning Tuesday's general election and said he was pleased she got back in the political game.
"I didn't want her to get out of politics because of the controversy," he said.
Diane Grindell, 44 of Decatur, is a Democrat but in early voting Thursday, she chose Davis for Congress.
Grindell said that she would never support McKinney. "My mother is a Holocaust survivor," she said, "and I can't let that go."
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Conservative African Americans (October 2001) Note to Congresswoman McKinney: Silence is Golden*** Georgia residents have an embarrassment on their hands. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has planted her foot so deep in her throat it may take surgery to remove it. So much so that her constituents ought to remove her from office.
When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal visited Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center remains, he offered New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a $10 million check to help with relief efforts. Along with the check came a letter condemning terrorism and offering condolences to the people of New York City. Attached to the letter was a press release from the prince pointing out that the disaster and associated problems were directly related to American middle east policy in general and the Israel-Palestine face-off in particular.
"Rudy the Rock," to the collective cheers of most of the country, turned down the prince's money.2 The next day, Prince Alwaleed called into CNBC to salvage his reputation. He told the network, "The crime that took place in New York will have no justification whatsoever," but added that there are those in the Arab world who believe the United States is siding with the Israelis over the Palestinians.
Then Congresswoman McKinney jumped into the fray. The same day the prince called CNBC, she sent him a letter apologizing for Giuliani's rebuke. She suggested the prince instead donate the money to "the poor" and "people of color" in the United States who "could use the $10 million." McKinney essentially agreed with Prince Alwaleed's political machinations, writing that reports of "excessive, and often indiscriminate, use of force by Israeli security forces... breeds a hotbed of anger and despair that destabilizes peace in the Middle East and elsewhere."
McKinney further suggested accepting the money was a free speech issue. "Whether [Giuliani] agreed with you or not," she wrote, "I think he should have recognized your right to speak and make observations about a part of the world which you know so well."5 Unfortunately for her, her views and those of Prince Alwaleed run counter to that of the heart and soul of America.
Zell Miller, one of Georgia's U.S. senators and a fellow Democrat, called McKinney's letter "disgraceful." Many of her 4th District constituents are also upset with her, including many of her black constituents. Surprisingly, and shocking to me, many people in the poorer sections of DeKalb County - which comprises her core constituency - reportedly support her actions......***
Please go back to your homeworld McKinney
She really is a hatefilled person.
Wasn't she soundly rejected by her constituency just two short years ago when she lost in the primary?? They must have short memories...
From the article -
A lot of Republicans crossed over and joined outraged Democrats to kick her butt out. But her opponent in that race, Denise Majette, is running for the Senate.
This shows how "brilliant" Jimmy Carter is as a strategist. He's the one who recruited Denise Majette to run for Senate, only after one term as a US Rep.
I haven't been following her.
Is Majette going to lose?
Yep. Johny Isakson leads by double digits in the race to replace Zell Miller. This has been considered as the counterpart of IL Barak Obama (Dems pick up)
Thanks.
I expected the GOP had things under control in GA.
Yeesh, I can't believe this woman is back again.
Yes. Johnny Isakson will win.
What's wrong with this district that they saw fit to put her back in the race? They don't have any others willing or able to run? I guess they mostly think like she does. Sad for them.
She kept her head down and her mouth shut and ran on her name recognition.
Her constituents don't care about anything other than McKinney securing them a free ride and perpetuating the myth that they are the downtrodden. The 4th district would vote for bin Laden if he were on the ticket.
What's wrong with the Dems in Ga. to let her run again? I can't believe that the Democrats could let such a nut case carry the Dem banner to Congress.
If I were the Republican Party Chairman, if there was any chance that someone with the mentality of Cynthia McKinney getting elected as a Republican, I would do whatever it took to stop it, up to and including a public endorsement of her opponent. You can be sure that Zell is one of the few Democrats with that kind of integrity.
Isn't it legal for a good, solid Republican House to refuse to seat a representative? If so, this is one case in which they should exercise that option. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's disappointing that the national GOP doesn't go the extra mile to build a super-majority in Congress. They'll never find a better time to do so.
The Georgia Legislature has performed quite a feat. They have managed to put together a district composed almost entirely of utter fools, thereby greatly cleaning up the remainder of the Georgia districts.
Yep. But they somehow managed to keep this DeKalb Co fool out of her district (not that Lewis is a much better as far as voting like a RAT, but he's a way better person). But this comes from a county where your choice for CEO is Vernon Jones or well.. Vernon Jones and there is a whole one Republican on the county board.
This could really back-fire on her with voters.
I love it!
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