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Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Triumph of the mods
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not that every race in the country this year bears this out. But sitting here at the Hank Johnson victory party, with the sound of “Celebrate” filling the air, we can’t help but be struck by the success this year of candidates who’ve been called the ugliest name in modern politics: moderates.
The Johnson-McKinney race, the Jim Martin-Greg Hecht race, the Karen Handel-Bill Stephens race — all these were different, but we’d argue that in all of them voters chose the candidates they perceived as the less extreme choice within their parties. Litmus tests, it would seem, are out this year. You can even find evidence in the GOP ag commissioner’s race, where Gary Black, branded as a “liberalâ€? by his opponents, was coasting with a 60 percent majority over Brian Kemp.
You saw the same pattern with Bob Corker’s victory last week in the GOP U.S. primary in Tennessee, and of course in the Ralph Reed-Casey Cagle race.
Tuesday’s marquee race, Ned Lamont’s victory over Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, could be read the other way. But that race was about something other than the traditional political labels. The big swing we see, in races in both parties’ primaries, is toward the middle.
The waiting game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At a little past 9:30, Hank Johnson came downstairs to his victory party at the Decatur Holiday Inn and announced to his supporters that “we’re in for somewhat of a long night.”
Worthy caution. Johnson was holding to a strong lead in the early returns, but DeKalb is still a blank in the early returns.
This is when the house band reverts from energizing funk to elongated lounge. There’s time to kill.
Greetings from the land beyond deadlines
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve covered a lot of election night bashes, but tonight for the first time we’re doing it digitally.
We’ve set up at the bloggers’ table at the Hank Johnson celebration — so far anyway — in Decatur, with bloggers Will Hinton, Andre Walker and Jeff Emanuel. And not having a hard deadline feels…. nice.
Let us know what you’re hearing.
The 45 percent solution to run-offs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Monday, House Majority Leader Jerry Keen raised the possibility of tweaking Georgia’s election law to reduce the number of run-offs, by declaring a winner when the leading candidate passes the 45 percent mark.
It’s a matter of cost, the St. Simons lawmaker said. “In my county, we’ve had early voting for a week and had to open up all the polling places for two votes,â€? Keen said. (Think of it as the only thing that he and Cynthia McKinney might agree on.)
While he was jawing with reporters, Keen said he thought he’d read somewhere that, in a multi-candidate field, the candidate who reaches 45 percent or more wins 95 percent of the time.
That seemed like something that could be instantly vetted. Chuck Bullock, the University of Georgia political scientist, went home early to run the numbers on 30 years’ worth of run-offs. Few other people carry that kind of information on a hard drive.
As it turns out, the 45 percent bar is far from magic. Bullock’s research has found that, in Georgia over the past 30 years, the lead vote-getter in a contest wins the run-off 70 percent of the time. That’s without considering the lead vote-getter’s share of the initial vote.
If you just consider those cases in which the lead vote-getter wins 45 percent or more in the first balloting, chances of victory are only mildly greater — 74 percent.
On the other hand, Jim Dobson might object
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This week’s issue of U.S. News & World Report speculates on the topic of succession among evangelical leaders who came to power in the 1980s — think Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson — but are now getting long in the tooth.
Says the news weekly: “One idea percolating in conservative circles: Make Ralph Reed, the former top Robertson aide who lost his bid to be Georgia’s lieutenant governor, the movement’s new leader.”
