This column is reprinted with the permission of Randy Evans.
I don't know how Randy does it. He has complete objectivity even when it comes to Republican candidates. Here are his thoughts on this primary cycle.
Republicans: Will There Be
Time To Recover?
J. Randolph Evans
Column No. 1028 (8/6/10)
In 2006, Georgia Democrats faced one of the most
bitter Democratic
primaries in the history of Georgia. It
really was a race to decide the
future direction of the Democratic Party of
Georgia for a decade. The
two candidates were Lieutenant Governor Mark
Taylor and Secretary of
State Cathy Cox. The winner got the chance
to face Governor Sonny
Perdue, Georgia's first Republican governor since
the 1800s, in the
General Election on November 7, 2006.
Like all primaries between political heavyweights,
the Democratic
Primary was bruising, contentious, and personal.
It is the nature of
primaries. While Democrats thought at the
time that the 2006 Democratic
primary was especially bitter, it was in reality
about the same as every
other primary where the stakes are so high.
Supporters of Mark Taylor
passionately believed in him; supporters of Cathy
Cox passionately
believed in her. When there is such passion,
the cuts are deep, and
often take a long time to heal. Some never
heal.
In 2006, the Democratic Primary, like in all
primaries and runoffs, was
about voter turnout. Each candidate works
hard to get their people to
actually show up in the middle of summer and vote.
But that is not all
they do. Each candidate and their campaign
work hard to dampen the
enthusiasm of their opponent's supporters to show
up and vote. This is
where negative campaigns come into play.
Unfortunately, the most effective single tool for
dampening the turnout
of your opponent's supporters is negative
campaigning. So, candidates
and their campaign teams say really nasty things
about their opponent.
The goal of these attacks is not to convince
people to vote against
their opponent (although it does have that effect
on a few people).
Instead, it is really aimed at convincing the
marginal supporters that
they have more important things to do on election
day than going to the
polls to vote for such a bad character.
And so the 2006 Democratic Primary went.
While the average voter got a
small dose of the negative campaigning between
Mark Taylor and Cathy
Cox, party activists and regular Democratic
primary voters got a heavy
dose. In the end Lieutenant Governor Mark
Taylor handily defeated
Secretary of State Cathy Cox with over 51% of the
vote, and importantly,
without a runoff. The margin was just over
37,000 votes out of over
480,000 votes. At the time, Mark Taylor
believed that his win without a
runoff (with four candidates in the Democratic
contest) was a major
victory. The problem is that winning
political battles is very
different from winning election wars.
The fact was that in becoming the 2006 Democratic
nominee, Mark Taylor
did successfully drive down his opponent's
support. Indeed, Cathy Cox
got just over 211,000 votes or 44%. The
problem was that her supporters
(both those who voted on July 18, 2006 and those
that would have
supported her on November 7, 2006) never came
back. Governor Sonny
Perdue easily won reelection with almost 58% of
the vote. As an example
of how badly things went, Mark Taylor did not even
get 40% of the vote
in 2006. (He received a total of just
38.2%.) To put this in context,
Democrats swept the country that year, regaining
control of Congress and
winning governorships along the way - just not
Georgia.
In 2006, Democrats had 112 days to recover from
the July 18, 2006
primary until the November 7, 2006 General
Election with the rising tide
of a national Democratic surge. It was not
enough.
In 2010, Republicans will have just 84 days from
the Republican Primary
runoff until the General Election on November 2,
2010. The historical
context of the 2006 Democratic Primary sits in the
back of the minds of
both Georgia Democrats eager for a return to the
days of old, and
Georgia Republicans fearful of political
self-destruction that could
jeopardize Georgia's status as a solid red state.
Indeed, around the
country, political pundits have moved Georgia from
a 'leans Republican'
to a 'toss-up' state.
Of course, there are some notable differences
between 2006 and 2010.
Republicans are strong in Georgia at both the top
of the ticket with
Republican United States Senator Johnny Isakson
and at the bottom of the
ticket where Republican control of the Georgia
General Assembly is not
really at risk. In addition, President
Obama's unpopularity continues
to grow, especially in conservative states like
Georgia. Indeed, it was
not lost on anyone that when President Barack
Obama came to Georgia,
Democratic nominee and former governor Roy Barnes
was not just in a
different city, he was in a different part of the
state altogether.
As some might say, all of this makes the political
situation in Georgia
'very fluid.' The fact is both Democrats and
Republicans have their
work cut out for them.
.
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