(Note: these learning modules encompass the
actual class lectures, and are designed for those students who have to miss
class through no fault of their own, and also as a refresher for all students.
Bold print in the notes are what the professor writes on the board.)
Georgia is an
interesting case study of how the Democrats were successful in
constructing a biracial coalition after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 to
remain the dominant power right up until the turn of the century. I
already have enough questions for the midterm, so I doubt that I would ask
anything on the test about Georgia. But it is still an important state to talk
about, especially given the Democratic resurgence in the Senate in 2020.
Jimmy Carter was elected
governor in 1970, which started a string of racially progressive Democratic
governors that lasted until 2002. Carter successfully formed a broad
ideologically and racially inclusive coalition. Republicans were not able to
paint him as a liberal, as the state legislator was a Naval Academy graduate, a
peanut farmer, and a candidate who showed respect for George Wallace supporters
by seeking their votes and sweeping the small towns and rural areas in the
Democratic primary. Carter had great people skills, as he spent four
years travelling across the state making speeches to small groups and shaking
every hand at country stores. He painted himself as the common-man
candidate compared to his wealthy, “country club” lawyer Democratic opponent. Carter
was viewed as a racial liberal, as he shook black as well as white
hands, a big change for the historically segregated South. As governor, he
appointed the first African American to the state Pardon and Paroles Board,
created a biracial commission, and hung Martin Luther King’s portrait in the
state capital. He also met weekly with the AFL-CIO president, and implemented
good government measures such as state government reorganization and requiring
that banks bid for state funds. He of course went on to be President in 1976, was
very active as an ex-President, and died two years ago at the age of 100.
The next two governors, George
Busbee and Joe Frank Harris, were also ideologically inclusive
Democrats, and both served two terms (Carter served only one 4-year term, as he
spent the next two years campaigning in the early states of Iowa and New
Hampshire for the party’s presidential nomination.). These governors
successfully pursued economic development projects, such funding the
Georgia Dome sports arena (which attracted the Super Bowl and the Olympics),
and an ambitious four-lane highway program. They also stressed education
by establishing statewide public kindergartens and significantly increasing
public elementary and secondary education funding. Both were racial liberals
and worked with organized labor, such as by removing a waiting period for
unemployment eligibility. Both had solid resumes of public office experience,
with each boasting 18 years of experience in the state legislature and eventual
leadership positions (House majority leader, and House Appropriations Committee
Chair).
The last two-term Democratic governor
that Georgia has had (one, one term Democrat followed) was Zell Miller,
who was initially elected governor in 1990 at a time when the Republican party
had become such a force that they were winning at least 46% of the vote in
gubernatorial and U.S. senate elections. So how was ole Zell Miller able to
pull off two final victories for the Democrats? First he had a common man
image, being a country music fan from rural north Georgia, and painting himself
as an “outsider” who as lieutenant governor had stood up to the long-time house
Speaker. Second, he had an impressive political resume, having been the
state lieutenant governor for four terms (despite being a moderate liberal
overall, he had opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an act of political weakness
that he later viewed as shameful). He supported an education lottery to
better fund public education, and got enacted the lottery-based HOPE
program providing college scholarships for high school students with B
averages. He also succeeded in removing the regressive sales
tax on groceries. Miller praised Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic
national convention, and unsuccessfully sought to have the Confederate battle
emblem removed from the state flag (the next two governors, a Democrat and a
Republican, succeeded in changing the flag). Miller appointed the first two
African Americans to statewide offices- Attorney General Thurbert Baker
(who had been the governor’s floor manager in the state house), and Labor
Commissioner Mike Thurmond (who as a gubernatorial staff member had created an
innovative Work First welfare reform program). Both were reelected repeatedly
to these statewide offices, a rarity for African Americans in southern politics
even today. Miller took a conservative, tough on crime stance, backing a
tough DUI law, boot camps for prisoners, and a 2 strikes and you’re out
(life in prison) law.
Zell Miller briefly served in the U.S.
Senate at the turn of the century after a Republican Senator died in office.
His voting record in the Senate dealing with federal issues was a moderate
conservative one, which was in the mainstream of the southern Democratic party
back in the 1970s (like Sam Nunn of Georgia), but by this century he was the
most conservative of the 7 remaining southern Democratic senators (today there
are only 4 southern Democrats, 2 each in Virginia and Georgia, none to the
right of center). Zell blasted the modern Democratic Party as being too
liberal, which was why they were A National Party No More (his book
title). Miller’s conservative positions included: putting national security
before the interests of government unions after the 9-11 terrorist attacks; supporting
tax cuts (pointing out that President Kennedy had cut taxes to stimulate the
economy); anti-abortion; pro-workfare instead of welfare; pro-2nd
amendment, though supporting background checks; opposing extreme
environmentalists (he made fun of them wanting to protect areas in Alaska that
nobody visited); anti-quotas (he made well qualified black appointments as
governor). Zell Miller ended up backing President Bush’s re-election, and at
one time got so mad on television that he challenged a political opponent to a
duel! A former State Democratic Chairman in Mississippi brushed off Miller’s
criticism of the liberal direction of their party by accusing Zell of being a
hard-core segregationist from way back. Perhaps if Democrats had listened
carefully to Miller’s criticisms of their national party, Democrats today would
hold more than the 4 U.S. Senators that they have in Dixie, while Republicans
hold the other 18 senate seats.
Beginning in 2002, Republicans elected
three 2-term governors, Sonny Perdue, Nathan Deal, and Brian Kemp. The
first two were former Democrats, and both had respectable political resumes
(11 years in the state senate, a longtime congressman). Perdue and Deal had
appealing personal or management skills (described as folksy, or steady).
Both benefitted from a booming economy and from job growth in Georgia.
Both Republican governors showed sensitivity to African American issues.
Perdue personally escorted the casket of Coretta Scott King (Martin Luther
King’s widow) into the state capitol, where she became the first African
American to lie in honor there; he also prevented a flag referendum from
including any Confederate emblem by working with legislative Democrats. Deal
backed a bipartisan criminal justice reform measure that provided lighter
sentences for non-violent crimes and a non-prison drug courts alternative. Deal
also shielded education from budget cuts. Compared to these two inclusive
governors, you might ask how conservative Republican secretary of state Brian
Kemp ever got elected governor in 2018 over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Kemp’s ads
had him wielding a shotgun that he said no one would take away, riding in a
truck pledging to round up criminal illegals, and blasting Abrams as an
outsider and a socialist. Liberal African American state legislator Stacey
Abrams was actually raised in Gulfport Mississippi, and has lived a life where
religion, hard work, and her family are important values. She has also been a
leader in voter registration drives and she sued Kemp for voter suppression
measures. Well, that election was decided by party identification- 97% of
self-identified Republicans and Democrats just voted for their own party’s
candidate. Republicans in the 2018 exit polls outnumbered Democrats by 5%, yet
Kemp won a cliff hanger with only 51% of the vote, so Abrams actually did
better than he did among Independents and moderates. It is interesting that
Governor Kemp in the disputed 2020 election upheld his state's voters and
rejected Trump's claims to have won Georgia, prompting a Trump-endorsed challenger
in the GOP primary two years later whom he defeated. Kemp's reelection victory
mirrored the 54% of voters who called themselves Republicans, as he stressed
the state's strong economy due to his early lifting of Covid restrictions, the
state’s budget surplus, and his endorsement by police groups.
Now we turn to the seesaw where Democrats
first lost both of the state's two U.S. senate seats, but then gained both of
them back, as the losing candidates in all cases seemed to pursue more
ideologically extreme and overly partisan campaigns. In 2002, Republican Saxby
Chambliss beat Democratic incumbent Max Cleland (a war hero and triple amputee)
by accusing him of being soft on national defense and too liberal.
Cleland had upheld the national Democratic party’s pro-labor union stance in
opposing President Bush’s desire to move federal employees across departments
to deal with terrorism, and his roll call voting record in the Senate was in
the most liberal one-fifth of my ADA-ACU ideological scale. Chambliss
had a good political resume, being a 4-term congressman and chairing a
key subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security. Chambliss was followed by
Republican businessman David Perdue in 2014, who nationalized the
election by attacking President Obama and the senate Democratic leader.
Democrats offered a strong candidate, Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator
Sam Nunn (a defense hawk), but Perdue won 59% of Independents and Republicans
outnumbered Democrats in exit polls by 2%. Republicans also won Zell Miller's
seat in 2004 with Johnny Isakson, who had an impressive resume of 18
years in the state legislature, 3 as state education board chair, and 6 as a
conservative congressman. Isakson called himself a compassionate
conservative, and knocked off two more conservative opponents in the GOP
primary. Democrats nominated liberal African American first-term
congresswoman (but with 9 years previously as a state court judge) Denise
Majette.
Democrats won both of these Senate
seats back in the 2020 senate runoff elections, which gave Democrats a
Vice Presidential tie-breaking control of the U.S. Senate. In this increasingly
competitive two-party state, Republican Governor Kemp appointed businesswoman
(WNBA Atlanta Dream co-owner) Kelly Loeffler to the seat vacated because of
health reasons by Senator Isakson, thereby passing over a more controversial
conservative Trump loyalist leader Congressman Doug Collins (who had fought
against Trump's impeachment on the House Judiciary Committee). The other
candidate who made the special election runoff was an African American
and senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church (Martin Luther King's
home), Raphael Warnock. In the regular senate election runoff,
Republican incumbent David Perdue faced Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former
journalist and media company owner, who had money and name recognition thanks
to a recent unsuccessful congressional campaign. Both Republicans in the early
January runoff blasted their Democratic opponents as socialists with
Loeffer calling herself "the firewall for stopping socialism" and
Perdue labeling himself as "the last line of defense against this radical
socialist agenda" (Hannah Miao, "Here are the issues at play in the
Georgia Senate runoffs," cnbc.com, January 4, 2021). Democrats emphasized
such popular issues as Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform, and the
John Lewis Voting Rights Act. President Trump campaigned for both
Republicans, raging that the election had been stolen from him, with some party
officials afterwards claiming that he had inadvertently discouraged Republicans
from voting. Indeed, exit polls found that Republicans had only a 1% edge over
Democrats in the runoff election, a clear decline from the 4-5% advantage that
they had enjoyed in the first elections. With both Democrats polling 2-3%
higher among their own partisans than were the Republican candidates, and with
both Democrats winning 52% of Independents, the Republican dropoff became
decisive in the twin 51-49% Democratic victories
(https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/). Warnock narrowly won
re-election in 2022, despite the GOP holding a party identification advantage.
Warnock avoided mentioning President Biden, and instead emphasized his
bipartisanship. Indeed, Warnock had co-sponsored a successful senate resolution
with Mississippi Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith honoring Gold Star Families, which
he touted on his Senate website (itself titled: Reverend Raphael Warnock, U.S.
Senator for Georgia). As his Republican opponent, Trump-backed football legend
Herschel Walker, faced allegations of abuse of his ex-wife and other women and
of paying for a woman's abortion (despite his pro-life posture), Warnock
stressed that the election was about "competence and character."
Walker's rambling campaign comments even led him to talk about a fright movie
and whether vampires or werewolves were stronger, prompting a campaigning Obama
to jokingly remark: "Since the last time I was here, Mr. Walker has been
talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia...
Like whether it's better to be a vampire or a werewolf... This is a debate that
I must confess I once had myself- when I was 7. Then I grew up." (Chloe
Folmar article in The Hill, December 2, 2022).