That whack job who ruined Komen versus Herman Cain? Sounds like fun to me:
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), one of the Republicans most vulnerable to a conservative primary challenge, will retire in 2014 rather than seek a third term.
wo Republican House members, Paul Broun and Tom Price, were considering campaigns against Chambliss. Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel was also interested in the race.
[….]Given how many big names were already interested in the seat, there will almost certainly be a crowded primary. Polling suggests former presidential candidate Herman Cain would be a strong contender.
I’m skeptical that Dems have a shot at this seat, but with a nutty enough Republican nominee, anything can happen, as we saw in various 2012 Senate races.
redshirt
Wingerdome! Two idiots enter, one idiot leave!
Johnnybuck
i live here, so it just makes me sad.
TR
There are enough sane moderates in Georgia and enough insanity in the state GOP to make this possible.
Gin & Tonic
Isn’t that title recycled?
JPL
@Johnnybuck: A friend mentioned that the state is bigger than Atlanta and north GA. Actually I think she is wrong. Jim Marshall came close but there was a big turnout for Obama in ’08. I’m not sure Kaseem Reed could get that type of turnout. I’m thinking it will be Price since he can string two sentences together and hide his voting record.
Foxhunter
I don’t see what TR sees.
I have no hope for a ‘D’ contender, and fully expect a rightward lurch in this election. ODS is very powerful in these parts…especially outside of the perimeter.
Foxhunter
@JPL: I don’t think Reed could pull it off, even with decent turnout numbers.
Not sure how his full support of a new stadium for the Falcons plays into this, if at all, but it could.
BGinCHI
GA needs a big name-recognition candidate on the Dem side.
Kim Basinger?
REM?
MattF
There’s a few states… LA, AL, MS, GA, and SC, at a guess… that may really try to secede from the real world, if not from the Union. So, we shall see, but I’m staying in MD.
Nina
Too bad Stephen Colbert gave away all that PAC money…
JGabriel
Doug Galt:
Yep. I really wish someone at the DNC would revive Howard Dean’s 50 State Stategy.
.
JGabriel
@redshirt:
Fixed that for you.
.
Violet
What about that Mayor of Atlanta guy? Is he the one I’m thinking of? Saw him on Meet the Republicans or something and he seemed like he didn’t suffer fools lightly.
JPL
@Violet: That’s Reed. It’s doubtful any dem could win the state at this point.
Steve M.
After the Supreme Court overturns the Voting Rights Act, I’m not sure there’ll be any legally registered Democrats in Georgia, or anywhere else in the Confederacy.
Zifnab25
@JGabriel: Wasn’t there an article just yesterday about Obama’s SuperPac taking aim at Texas for 2016? :-p
Regardless, I think its worth noting that Georgia is right behind North Carolina in terms of “States that Almost Voted Obama President” just two months ago. Obama lost Georgia by 8 points. That’s fairly close for a state everyone writes off as bright red.
I think a concerted effort in Georgia, combined with an underwhelming Republican nominee, could see a Democrat come out of the state in 2014. Lord knows, Republicans have had a long and established history of nominating duds in their primaries. I mean, Claire McCaskill is still sitting pretty in Missouri, and that state couldn’t be much redder at the moment.
Foxhunter
@Zifnab25: The demographics statewide (GA) are changing and changing rapidly. This does bode well for future elections, but I don’t think 2014 is going to be the year.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think the 10 year window looks better than 2 years out, even with a large influx of money from national.
I guess now is as good a time as any to start a foundation like that Texas effort we’ve read about over the last day or so.
redshirt
Any Red seat which goes through a primary fight is in play for the Dems, since it is almost a given at this point the Wingnuttiest of the bunch will win the primary, and thus be a terrible general candidate.
They have lost so many seats they should have won because of this already, and there is certainly nothing that has happened for them to turn down the crazy.
SenyorDave
If Herman Cain ends up in the Senate, I have two choices:
1. Leave the country because we have now sunk to a new low
2. Move to Georgia and start some type of Ponzi scheme because the people there must be ripe for the picking.
JPL
@Foxhunter: It’s a waste of money until there is a Democrat with a strong voice. I haven’t donated to the local party and I’m probably not alone.
JPL
@SenyorDave: The current Governor beat you to it.
Foxhunter
@JPL: The state party is a mess. My family is very active, but there are leadership issues. Even something as simple as phone banking for the November election proved to be a difficult task.
You are right, the voice problem is a tremendous obstacle.
JPL
Cain just took over Bozo’s radio spot and I don’t think he’ll give it up so soon.
rptrcub
@JPL: Most of the rest of the state HATES HATES HATES Atlanta and its libruhls. Kasim Reed, as mayor of said hated city, would have NO chance in Hades.
Cluttered Mind
Considering the last guy the Dems ran for Senate that had a chance of winning was a triple amputee war hero who lost because Saxby Chambliss somehow managed to convince a majority of the Georgia voters that he was unpatriotic and soft on defense, I am not holding out much hope either. Still, it will be a relief to say goodbye to Chambliss. The sooner the entire membership of the Gang of Six is out of DC, the better.
Violet
@JPL: Thanks. I couldn’t remember his name off the top of my head.
@redshirt:
Maybe the smart thing to do is to donate to the wingnuttiest candidate in hopes he or she wins the primary.
Violet
@JPL: Bozo? Who is that?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Would Mexico consider taking Georgia as part of a deal to return Texas and Arizona? If we offered South Carolina too?
JPL
@Foxhunter: A friend who is republican said she thinks the Republican nominee will be from outside of north Georgia and Atlanta which rules out Price and Broun. Any ideas who she meant? She was on her way out so I didn’t have a chance to quiz her further.
Violet.. Boortz retired and Cain took over his time slot on the radio.
rptrcub
@Violet: In my home state, that would severely backfire, because the majority of the population is that backward. Unlike even Missouri or Indiana where Team Rape candidates shot themselves in the feet.
Violet
@JPL: Oh, thanks. I didn’t know who you meant by that.
The Republic of Stupidity
Gosh… that pairing brings back fond memories of ‘Celebrity Death Match’…
David Hunt
@redshirt:
I’m for the Riply scenario. Two idiots enter, we take off, and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure…
Riley's Enabler
You know..I’m sorry, Georgia, but if you elect Cain, I’ll be able to point and laugh and rest better at night knowing someone, somewhere has a worse Senator than Ted Cruz.
The flip side of my mirth is…Cain in the Senate. And there simply isn’t enough booze in the Lone Star State to get through that debacle. FSM save us.
Roger Moore
@SenyorDave:
If the wingnuts have their way and secede, you’ll be able to do both at once!
KG
Just jumped over to wikipedia to see if they have any early polls (yes, take them this far out and this unsettled with a whole mine full of salt)… PPP has one poll out. This clown Price is within the margin of error against four different Dems (losing to two, Cleland and Barnes) with somewhere around 15-20% undecided in each hypothetical. Chamblis is tied with Cleland and at or very near 50% against everyone else.
Again, whole salt mine in what it means, but I’d have to think that bodes well for Dems in Georgia.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
From the GOS, the Hermanator ruled out running this morning on his radio show.
The fact that my so-called Democratic Senator, Blanche McCaskill, is still collecting a gubmint paycheck is a testament to how a loony wingnut candidate helps keep the Senate in our hands. Believe me, if it can happen here in Misery, it can happen in Georgia.
redshirt
What’s Billy Carter up to these days? He’d be a great candidate, I’m sure.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
How do you expect there to be any Democrats with strong voices if there’s no local party to support them? Great candidates don’t just appear out of the woodwork; they develop from local races on up.
KG
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I’ve grown fond of Arizona as I’ve visited more and more in the last 5-6 years. Not really sure we should give it back. Texas, I’m all for giving back, if Mexico won’t take them we can always call Spain and France, their’s are two of the six flags, right?
eemom
Like Joan Baez before me, I’m a workin man.
KG
@redshirt: the kind of guy you’d like to have a (billy) beer with?
(ducks, runs… ok, back to work)
mdblanche
@redshirt: This just goes to show how gerrymandering has been exaggerated as a cause of the Republicans’ insanity. You can’t gerrymander the Senate and yet you’ve got the same kind of ideological purity kneecapping going on in Senate races too. Without guaranteed victories they actually pay a price for this, but they’re still willing to pay it. Meanwhile any comparable primaries on the Democratic side are few and far between. Gerrymandering is a big, big problem but claiming that it’s what’s responsible for making politicians more afraid of punishment by their base than punishment by everybody else is just a way of saying both sides do it.
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): But if Mexico agrees to do this, what do they get in return?
someofparts
Atlanta native here. I’m with the folks who don’t see a Democrat taking this from the Republicans anytime soon.
I’m not sure it’s even a Southern thing though. National leadership has never backed Southern liberals that I’m aware of. Any success Southern liberals have, we have to be able to protect locally without help from the national Democrats.
Funny thing is, if somebody found the time and personnel to do the long haul work of organizing all the fucked-over, underpaid people here, the potential is immense. Problem is, nobody give a flying fuck about the working class anymore.
When I worked for a shitty local newspaper in Athens, Georgia to put myself through college, I invited the typesetters union rep up from Atlanta and we even voted on having a union at our shop. The working stiffs at the paper, local people with children to feed, were right there with me voting for that union. It was the college kids, who were just passing through those jobs for something to put on their resumes, who fucked the vote and kept that union out.
The problem is not the working people, or those folks you consider ignorant. Frankly, they are the only ones who will really fight.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@eemom: It’s petty of me to resent that she had the far bigger hit with her version, sung with the wrong fucking words. I’m aware of that, and remain resentful.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: He’s been dead 25 years. Does that make him better or worse than Cain?
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: That’s a rhetorical question, right? :)
Gin & Tonic
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The only voice I hear in my mind’s ear is Levon’s.
Villago Delenda Est
@Foxhunter:
Exqueeze me, but didn’t the Falcons just get a new stadium 15 years ago or so?
They want another one?
burnspbesq
Unless the Dems can convince Matt Ryan to be their nominee, I don’t see this seat turning in 2014.
Villago Delenda Est
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I hear you. It all has to do with that magic name of hers, so she got the airplay, not The Band, who were relatively unknown as far as AM radio was concerned back in the early 70’s.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
If you’re asking that question, I can only assume that you’ve never attended a sporting event at the Georgia Dome.
The only worse place I’ve ever been is Shea Stadium.
Doug Galt
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I like her voice but she really fucks up the words.
Villago Delenda Est
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
The Mexicans may be naive, but not naive enough to take Georgia and South Carolina, too.
NotMax
Coomented here not all that long after the election that Allen West will be inveigled into moving to Georgia to run.
Still stand by that.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Worse than Shea Stadium?
I’ve been to Braves games at the old park that was nuked for the Olympics, and to Shea. Not the Georgia Dome. Hard to believe that anything built after the 70’s “utility” stadium craze didn’t take the lessons of that craze to heart, but we are talking Georgia here…
Heliopause
Indiana: Obama 43.9%, Romney 54.1%, Donnelly 50.0%, Mourdock 44.2%
Missouri: Obama 44.4%, Romney 53.8%, McCaskill 54.8%, Akin 39.0%
Georgia: Obama 45.5%, Romney 53.3%
In other words, Georgia is even closer to being a competitive D state than Indiana or Missouri, and those two states elected Ds to the Senate rather than lunatic Rs. Who knows, maybe Georgia is the next North Carolina and the Dems would better spend their resources there than in Texas.
Villago Delenda Est
@Doug Galt:
Yeah, I’ll go with that. However, I prefer The Band’s version simply because Levon’s voice gives that song it’s aura of authenticity as a period piece.
lol
@JGabriel:
State in concrete terms what you think the DNC was doing in Georgia under Dean that the DNC is now no longer doing. You’ll have to be more specific than “Compete everywhere” and other slogans.
Most of the griping about the 50 State Strategy ending seems to come from people who don’t understand what it did in actual practice.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: As do I. Which is among the reasons I’m annoyed at even a mention of Joan Baez. Not a rational response, to be sure, but a real one.
@Doug Galt: I like Levon’s voice better. Did I mention that I’m quite cranky on this topic?
Cassidy
So why aren’t we finding young unknowns to try for these seats. Am I wrong in thinking that some charisma and money really makes these Southern seats competitive?
eemom
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
oh, not petty at ALL. I feel the exact same way about (1) Rod Stewart’s piece of shit histrionic Reason To Believe, and (2) James Taylor’s whiny ass You’ve Got A Friend.
Could NEVER understand either one, as in both cases the actual songwriters’ version — Tim Hardin and Carole King, respectively — was so infinitely better, imo. And yes, it pisses me off.
FlipYrWhig
Time for a Jimmy Carter comeback!
eemom
For a good Joan Baez experience, see (hear) Diamonds and Rust.
Raven
On a rainy, windy morning that’s the day that I was born on
In the old sharecroppers one room country shack
They say my mammy left me, same day that she had me
Said she hit the road and never once looked back
And I just thought I’d mention, my Grandma’s old age pension
Is the reason why I’m standing here today
I got all my country learning, living and a churning
Pickin’ cotton, rasin’ hell, and bailin’ hay
I’ve been to Georgia on a fast train honey
I wudn’t born no yestday
Got a good Christian raisin’ and an eighth grade education
Ain’t no need in y’all a treatin’ me this way
Raven
@Cassidy: Yes, these retrograde, knuckle draggin, moon pie eatin pissed off old honkies have this joint locked up tight as a tick.
Violet
@eemom: I love that song.
Raven
@Violet: I like Plane Wreck at Los Gatos better.
Jay
Re Dems & this seat-Id be willing to join ABL and Cole in a “Draft Goldie Taylor” movement. :-)
handsmile
With Tim Scott being appointed to deMint’s Senate seat, the GOP has already checked off the racial diversity box in the Confederacy. (Besides according to the Daily Caller(via Wikipedia), Herman’s not running: a Senate campaign must not be sufficiently griftastic).
National support for Karen Handel, however, would signal that the “new and inclusive” GOP is all about the wimmenz. And other than Lindsey Graham, there are no women Republican Confederate senators.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@lol: My direct experience is that during the Dean tenure I had three phone banking mavens from the DNC vying for my calling capabilities. After Dean, there was only one, and she kept it going in our area pretty much alone.
I don’t know what was causative, but there was a correlation.
Foxhunter
@Villago Delenda Est: the Georgia Dome was part of the Olympics bid/package. Apparently, it’s outdated now because:
1). Atlanta now needs an outdoor facility!
2). We cannot get another Superbowl until we get new digs.
The current plan is to leave the dome intact and run in conjunction with the new retractable roof stadium. Partially funded by a bed tax (300 mill), the rest by Arthur Blank (700 mill).
? Martin
@Heliopause:
Turnout. Turnout is everything for Dems. There are votes to win the seat, but someone needs to drag their asses to the polls. The lower turnout the election, the harder it is for Dems to win it – so special elections and primaries are just lethal to electing Dems. Midterms are hard. Presidential’s are best.
Gotta build up that turnout operation locally.
Just Some Fuckhead
How would you be able to tell if a Republican in Georgia is nutty?
ET
Unless every registered Democrat votes and votes for the Democrat candidate, and sane Republicans either stay home or protest vote this will stay a Republican seat.
Maude
@Gin & Tonic:
#46
I don’t know about better than Cain, but better than Romney.
Raven
@? Martin: They do all kinds of slick shit. We lost a progressive state rep when they put booze on the ballot and the yokels streamed to the polls.
lol
@Kip the Wonder Rat:
All the 50 state strategy did was throw money at the state parties to hire staff. There was no strategy for who was hired, what positions or what they were actually supposed to do. They didn’t even need to be new positions. Some state parties just used it to free up cash in the budget.
Not surprisingly, the results were uneven. Great state parties hired great people. Shitty state parties hired shitty people that campaigns had to work around. So nothing changed on the ground and it had very little to do with the victories in 2006/2008 despite what the liberal bloggerati might have you think. Adding 3-4 random people to every state party simply doesn’t swing elections.
(It’s also worth pointing about that once Obama got the nomination in 2008, his people were running the show at the DNC and were the ones making decisions that year, not Dean.)
Obama replaced the 50SS with OFA 2.0 and hired people for specific positions in an organized fashion in every single state. Some states got more people but every state got at least as many people as they would’ve otherwise and most got a substantially higher investment than they did before.
Dean also did a lot of technology infrastructure building but that obviously continued under Obama.
tldr: The 50SS gets a lot of undeserved credit.
GregB
2010 was the GOP’s high water mark. Without a serious reboot they are withering on the vine.
A voter demographic apocalypse.
Their only hope is conservative affirmative action to give the poor aggrieved white right-wing minority a hand up by reducing the worth of non-white votes to 3/5ths of a white vote.
sharl
@someofparts: I really appreciate your comment. I think you get at an issue that is at the core of working class – and for that matter, rural – dissatisfaction with Democratic and “Establishment Liberal” positions.
Thanks for your input.
/son of a good man who is/was a ‘Reagan Democrat’
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Cluttered Mind: You reckon Cleland would be at all interested in taking a run at it? He’d beat the hell out of anybody mentioned above, and it’s not like he’s just dropped off the face of the earth. I seem to remember him making some minor headlines with a comment centered on the word “bullshit.” Too lazy to Google it, though.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@someofparts: Toccoa nate here. Good to “meet” you, paisan. Always good to hear thoughtful words from somebody who grew up there and got away. I know being a “self hating” something or other is a pretty frequent joke here, but it’s hard not to be a self-hating Southerner. And I’m not joking a bit. And the longer I’m away and in what I’d consider a much healthier intellectual environment, and the more I see it from a little ways away, the more I feel that way. People dog on Southerners and I just nod my head in agreement and say “Yep, we’re a damn genetically, culturally inbred tribe of people.”
John
@rptrcub:
Obama came closer to winning Georgia than he did Indiana or Missouri.
redoubt
@JPL: I’m thinking Lynn Westmoreland. He’ll do what he’s told.
Nathan Deal and Sonny Perdue were Democrats once upon a time, and the party tended to be moderate-conservative anyway (three words: Senator Sam Nunn). The Democrats want to regain this state, they have to contest every district.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@redoubt: I was wondering if Sam Nunn were still alive, in any meaningful sense, but he’d have to be getting on up there now. But to his credit (and probably handsome profit) he did a lot of work post-career on pragmatic, realpolitik nuclear arms reduction. And I think the people in the Senate who were there when he was would be genuinely glad to see him.
Fluke bucket
A (D) next to your name here means you are a gun grabbing homosexual atheist. Anybody who thinks any Democrat has any chance here just does not live here. Personally I am hoping for Dr. Paul Broun to win it. He is the craziest fucker in all of politics and would represent this dumb ass home state of mine better than anybody I know.
Another Halocene Human
@someofparts: Funny thing is, if somebody found the time and personnel to do the long haul work of organizing all the fucked-over, underpaid people here, the potential is immense. Problem is, nobody give a flying fuck about the working class anymore.
Word.
Another Halocene Human
@Heliopause: My theory is the Tejas fever is coming from Californians.
Georgia is ripe to be a domino in the New Dem wave, ehehehe. Tennessee is also more in play (well, some parts of the state) than anyone realizes. It’s not Kenfucky, is what I’m saying.
ellennelle
not at all sure you should write off a dem contender at this point.
if i recall correctly, chambliss did not enjoy a clean win; he was forced into a runoff.
sadly, he trounced the dem by 15 points in the runoff, but the fact that it was a runoff and hard to get the obama winners back out there so quickly, and just the fact that obama was prez! fired up those lily white GA republicans.
but, in a standard election? with the proper campaign management and candidate? i wouldn’t assume too much too soon.