Thank you, had forgotten Majette's name. Wonder if she was bought off by the McKinney's in some way?
As I commented earlier, we're still not sure what happened there, and I've asked a few people who were my contacts with her campaign, when I was helping with some grunt work on reaching out to get Republicans to cross over for the primary.
The papers claimed the Republican crossovers didn't matter, that Majette would have beaten McKinney in that primary in any case. I think that is likely B.S.
Based on that, one scenario is that Majette thought that she wouldn't be able to win the primary against McKinney in 2004, without the R crossover votes. We were too interested in the Senatorial primary to do it again. So she became the sacrificial lamb in the Senate race, which gave her more name recognition for future races, as well as a semi-graceful way to bow out, rather than be defeated by McKinney.
My take is that it was either that, or pure hubris/idiocy on Majette's fault, as she was just *never* going to win the statewide Senate race.