Posted on 06/08/2003 11:38:30 PM PDT by LdSentinal
You wouldn't think the fight over the state flag referendum has played a role in the 2004 U.S. Senate race, but it has.
Privately, leading Democrats will tell you the flap has soured the climate for prominent African-American politicians who otherwise might consider running for a top-tier statewide position -- and the chance to make a bit of history.
Instead, the flag referendum -- along with the overwhelming figure of Zell Miller -- has kept strategists searching for a white, conservative Democrat who is not Mark Taylor or Cathy Cox. Last week's news that Mary Squires might seek the nomination only sharpened the appetite for a Zell-figure.
Squires' tearful "Sonny is a racist" speech already is available on the Internet, through the General Assembly's Web site. In mass e-mailings across the state, or targeted ones outside metro Atlanta, it wouldn't go down well, they fear.
So what will happen?
Sometime this week, J. Tom Morgan, the DeKalb County district attorney and a white Democrat, will have a conversation with his good friend, Thurbert Baker, the state attorney general and a black Democrat. There had been talk that Morgan would run for A.G. if Baker were to make the run for U.S. Senate.
It looks like that's going to flip.
Once Baker rules out the run for Senate, as is likely, Morgan will announce for the U.S. Senate. Key Democrats are pressing Morgan to make the move quickly.
Jim Marshall, the rookie Democratic congressman from Macon, remains in the hunt -- but otherwise it may be down to J. Tom.
We saw this on the news during dinner. I immediately lost my appetite. What a pitiful moron.
I agree - it might be fun to watch her get squashed like a bug.
FYI pings.
I was in metro Atlanta this weekend. As I pulled into the NG armory in Kennesaw, I was pleased to see the Denny's Placemat had been stripped from the flagpole and replaced with the newest design. Once I got inside the armory I saw the d.p. still on display but I've no doubt that will change soon. My unit has not received our new colors yet but my guess is that some butterbar's OER down on Confederate Ave is heavily weighted on how quickly they are disseminated. (Sometimes, working for the DoD can be a hoot.)
As I arrived home on the coast yesterday evening, I noticed that city hall was also flying the new design. Frankly, I've never seen mutitiered government move so fast!
Of course, the acid test is how quickly (if at all) the county sheriff will change the front tags of the patrol cars from the CBF design. It took a court order a few months ago just to keep him from continuing to fly it at the jail. Gotta love that guy.
While my preference would have been never to have changed to begin with, I have to admit the new design looked remarkably good in a stiff breeze.
It's the Urinal-Constipation, so that's a 10-4. Taylor is a thug, but he is more interested in getting back the State Senate, for whom he now is only a figurehead over, rightly stripped of his power, and after that's done, running against Sonny in '06.
Unfortunatly, Michigan took some fairly unknown Detroit city councilman lightly in 1978. The result? 24 years of Carl Lenin. :(
Where we had Engler for 12 years, have possibly the best Supreme Court in the country(Markman, Taylor, Young, and Corrigan, sometimes Weaver), a GOP state senate since 1984, state house since 98, GOP secretary of state since 94, and a GOP Attorney General for the first time(2002) since 1954(Frank Kelly was AG for over 40 years). We also have a majority GOP congressional delegation of 9-6, with a chance for 10 if Stupak(whose safe) goes statewide(That's a swing seat on the level of the Michigan or Indiana's old "bloody 8" if that ever happens.)
We're more than Detroit.(although we have to overcome a 267,000 defecit there to win - Bush lost by 217,000.) The good news is that many dems don't vote down the ticket.
In 1984, then RAT Jim Blanchard raised the income tax, and we recalled a few state senators and won that way. We had a weak candidate in 1986 for governor. Bill Lucas. Blanchard won by Engler-Fieger numbers. In 1988, Bush beat Dukakis heavily largely because of taxes and his Warren Tank fiasco.
We started to turn the tied in 1990. Blanchard was up 13 points in the polls the weekend before the election. Detroit stayed home however over a personal tussle with Coleman Young(Warlord of Detroit). Engler won one of the biggest upsets in state history. Engler had two landslides. 94 and 98. We took the house in 94(lost it in 96) and 98, and increased our senate majority. Term limited were implimented in 94 as well, and there were mass retirements which worked to our advantage. The 20+ year rats were gone.
To explain a bit, if you're familiar with Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court decision that was based on a lawsuit that originated here in TN (surprise, surprise). The allegation was that there was a gross discrepency in representation (specifically, the House) which hadn't reapportioned itself in something like 40-50 years after the 1960 census. As a result, the most populous county had 8 members (Shelby, with 627,000 people) all elected at large and the least populous (Moore, where they make Jack Daniels, with 3,500 people) had 1 member, shared with no other county. Do the math and you'll soon realize that Shelby received one member per about 78,375 people, and Moore with the paltry 3,500. Moore County voters then had 22 TIMES the power of one voter in Shelby. The state (then heavily 'Rat outside of East TN and some scattered Western counties) argued it was perfectly within their rights to keep it like that and the court disagreed and ordered the one-man, one-vote implemented in its 1962 decision. Within 3 elections, the House went from an 80-19 'Rat to GOP majority in 1961 (and all White), to having African-American members and a dramatic increase in Republicans (the former not necessarily at odds with the latter before the radicalization occurred) until there was a 49-49 split in January 1969 (with 1 Independent). The Independent, an old coot from the sticks, refused to have any part in the matter in the selection of a Speaker and went to have a nap (no joke). That left a hopeless deadlock, and neither side would dream of having a co-speaker. The young 32-year old GOP leader from East TN went over and had a talk with Knoxville's lone African-American Democrat member (himself a 2nd term member) named Robert J. Booker. He persuaded Booker to break the deadlock, and Booker voted for the GOP Speaker. The Speaker's name was Bill Jenkins, a Detroit, MI native by birth but raised in TN. Jenkins would serve just that term as Speaker before jumping into the Governor's race in 1970 (he lost the GOP primary to Winfield Dunn, who went on to be the 1st GOP Governor since 1920). 26 years later upon the retirement of the venerable Jimmy Quillen, he was elected to Congress (not quite that youngster anymore, turning 67 this year). Ironically, just as we won the Governorship, we narrowly lost holding the House. The 'Rats took control and drew the lines going into '72. Despite the gerrymandering, we were still down just by a few seats, but after Watergate in '74, we dropped back down into the 30s (roughly 1/3rd) and stood there for quite awhile. We have, ever since, always made small gains after getting gerrymandered down to 1/3rd, but just as we'd be within 7 seats, we'd always do it right before a reapportionment and get smacked down again. It happened like clockwork every time for the next 3 decades. The 'Rats stopped getting a majority of the vote in the last few election cycles, with their candidates winning by unimpressive numbers in the usual 60 seats+ they would hold and ours by huge numbers in the 35+ we would hold. They were about to do it to us again (after we received about 50% of the vote in '00) and wipe out nearly 10 seats of ours (back down to 1/3rd) with the endorsement of Scumquist, most of which those members opposed his illegal income tax. They raised holy hell at that prospect and wiser 'Rat heads realized that they would be able to accomplish nothing with that and that it was better to keep the gerrymandered ('90s style) status quo. For the first time since Baker v. Carr, we gained about 2 seats, but that was far less than we expected after last year's debacle. The ratio stands at 55-44 (with the 'Rats now having slid to 45% of the vote), but shift a few thousand votes (or much, much less in some cases, fewer than 100 in an adjacent seat to mine) and that can go to a 51-48 GOP majority. We also had an embarrassment of 2 RINOs holding GOP seats (one of whom was indicted and the other was a pervert who blew his brains out) go to the 'Rats, further preventing our rightful majority. Even most liberal pundits admit that it may be near impossible to prevent a GOP win before the end of the decade given our usual gains. So we'll get it in spite of ourselves (and lack of vision on the part of our leaders).
As for the Senate, which wasn't effected nearly as much, remained heavily 'Rat even after Baker, has been roughly just a few seats down for most of the past decade or so. Even when we briefly had it, the old fart RINO leaders there who've been there for decades did nothing to exercise their newfound majority control in '95, and the 'Rats quickly took it back in 2 races we lost by only a few hundred votes. The Senate is regarded as a club, and it isn't as if we have no say there. The Lieutenant-Governor, the longest-serving one in U.S. history, a Conservative 'Rat from West TN named John Wilder, has served in that position since 1971. He rules with a bipartisan coalition and dispenses Chairmanships to those with the most seniority, regardless of party (but still makes for a lot of inactivity, since those GOPers that have Chairs do nothing with them). Wilder never campaigns against a single member, regardless of party, and will always endorse an incumbent. I can say he's given us a fair shake, preventing more extremist members on the 'Rat side who equally chafe under him, from going with their radical agenda and overthrowing him (though they did try once), but we really do need new leadership in both bodies badly.
"Here in IL we had both houses after the 72 election (I don't really know what the balance was prior to that) and the dems had both after 74 and kept them till we won the house in 1980(SPEAKER WAS GEORGE RYAN)."
Yup, I know a bit about the legislature there. I think it was usually GOP pre-1972 more often than not. Remember, too, you had that wacky proportional representation when you had that huge amount of members that was reduced after 1982, and that often made for a lot of hijinks.
"The rats won the 1982 NAME DRAWING FROM A FREAKING HAT GOD IS THAT DUMB, and kept both houses for 10 years. We almost took control back in 86 cause of the LaRouche dem that got the nomination for Guv but Adlai Stevenson ran as an Indie and prevented the negative coataills."
Yup, I remember reading about that. Funny, I was talking about LaRouche on another thread a little while ago.
"We won the 1992 DRAWING OF A NAME, this time from a bowl. We drew the map and won the senate but not the house till 94 (lost it in 1996) and we lost the senate last year cause you guessed it THE RATS WON THE STUPID NAME DRAWING."
Yup, utterly idiotic.
"I should tell you about that, if no redisticting map is agreed on by a certain date there is a commission appointed by the Speaker of the House, Prez of the Senate and minority leaders of both. It is of course tied. When they also fail to agree the names of various repubs and rats are stuck in a hat or bowl and the Sec of State draws a name and that guy is the tie breaker on the commission."
Right.
Re: GA "Do you think they'll succeed in taking back the state senate? I hope not. We ought to have all the southern legislatures except Arkansas probably."
I'm not sure. Some of those party-switchers and at least one other Senator are clearly in gerrymandered 'Rat districts, and that puts them at jeopardy. They're probably at a greater disadvantage than we were going into '96, but at least they have a GOP majority that WANTS to be in the majority. We might drop a seat or two, and we might very well gain. My guess, either status quo or a razor-thin majority. As to other Southern legislatures, yes, we should have a majority in practically all of them (my state should clearly have become a solid GOP legislature after their initial '68 win, the first in any Southern state since Reconstruction, BTW). AR is a work in progress. The Houses in states like AL, KY, LA, & MS, will be tough, and may take at least 10-15 years before we can reach parity, if at all. If you had told me that MS (which will probably have a GOP Senate this year) would have surpassed TN at a regular election (not through switching in the middle of a session), before we could get our majority back, I'd have thought you were crazy. 5 states surrounding us will have GOP Senates (MO, KY, VA, GA & MS), and that is just remarkable given our situation as recently as 1980 when we had literally low double or single digit members.
"I wish I had a book that showed historic party control of all state legislatures for the past 50 years or so. That would be cool."
I don't have a specific reference book, but I've got numerous encyclopedias, etc., after 1950 in my house that if I need to find a breakdown for party control in a given state and year, I probably can. Just ask if you need a state and year, and I'll see if I can get the info.
"I did find a website with the results of all senate races since the popular election of senators began."
Yeah, I've got that on my favorites and occasionally refer to it. There are two other websites you may find of interest, The latter of which has general election figures going back to 1920 for Congress.
http://www.politicalgraveyard.com/
http://clerk.house.gov/members/election_information/index.php
Well, I wouldn't go that far. If a King Roy type comes along again, all we'll end up with is a yo-yo from one party to the next. Perdue, despite his missteps, is far preferable to Barnes or Taylor. The South will always be competitive for us now, and that's the way it should be.
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