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DEL.ICIO.USDemocrats have their U.S. Senate race, and Vernon Jones remains the man to beat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So the Democratic race for U.S. Senate is set.
You know the undergirding dynamic of the contest. Many party leaders — though they’re loathe to say so publicly — fear that as a nominee, DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones’ background would leave him, and Democrats on the ballot beneath him, vulnerable to a GOP onslaught.
That’s why Jim Martin, the former state lawmaker, Atlanta attorney, and unsuccessful ‘06 candidate for lieutenant governor, was the first to qualify last week. His campaign treasury is sure to be larger than those of his four rivals. Union leaders will put their organizations behind him.
Problem solved, right? Not hardly.
There’s no doubt that, after eight years in the rough-and-tumble of DeKalb politics, Jones — the only African-American in the contest — enters the U.S. Senate race with baggage that would crush a normal career. No other candidate in the race has been singled out with a web page dedicated to the public documents generated by his encounters with law enforcement authorities.
But we are not in normal times. Jones remains the man to beat. Under no circumstances should you count him out — for two reasons. One is Barack Obama, and the other is Hillary Clinton.
To best Jones, a candidate must be able to attract a healthy percentage of African-American voters, who make up roughly half of the Democratic electorate.
Yet the never-ending fight at the presidential level has forced a crippling black-white divide among state Democrats. In private counsels, both black and white Democratic leaders say they’ve never seen their party so polarized along racial lines.
African-American leaders in Georgia, who saw what happened to U.S. Rep. John Lewis when he stuck with Clinton too long, have put themselves on the sidelines of the U.S. Senate race.
With his campaign two months old, and three months to go before a July 15 vote, Martin has yet to receive an endorsement from a major African-American political figure — a necessary first step in reaching out to black voters. Bob Holmes, the only African-American state lawmaker to publicly side with Martin when he announced in March, proclaimed his retirement from the Legislature two weeks later.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who endorsed Martin in ’06 and shares several decades of political history with him, has been noticeably silent. (It’s also worth observing that Roy Barnes, the former governor, is in Martin’s corner. But Mark Taylor, the former candidate for governor who partnered with Martin in ’06, supports Dale Cardwell, the former TV journalist.)
Other factors bode well for Jones as well. The Democratic primary challenge to Lewis, the state’s longest serving congressman, by “Able” Mable Thomas and the Rev. Markel Hutchins could drive the African-American vote in Atlanta, presumably in the DeKalb CEO’s favor.
In Clayton County, which shares a border with DeKalb, the racially charged fight over a tanking school system has made the formation of any black-white alliance that much harder. Ditto for the primary fight in Savannah, where state Sen. Regina Thomas, who is African-American, has decided to challenge U.S. Rep. John Barrow, who is white.
Without help from African-American leaders at the top of the party food chain, Martin has two alternatives, black and white Democratic strategists are saying. He can attempt to change the primary landscape by persuading more white voters — bored by the lack of contests on the Republican side — to choose a Democratic ballot.
Or Martin can, as the only Democratic candidate capable of launching an effective blanket of TV or radio ads, try to make his case against Jones to black voters.
Neither task is easy. And will be made harder if Obama and Clinton are still be going at each other in July.
Comments
By Doug Teper
May 4, 2008 4:43 PM | Link to this
As usual, Jim Galloway does not have a clue. Jim Martin is the quality candidate in a run —away !
This opinion comes from Iraq where politics is a life and death decision.
By Will Jones
May 4, 2008 6:35 PM | Link to this
Dale Cardwell’s “evangelical honesty” and his early support of Obama for President, plus the fact that he didn’t vote for Bush, twice, as did Vernon, make him the man for all Georgians to replace Bush’s fellow draft-dodger Chambliss in the U.S. Senate.
By Nick
May 4, 2008 7:03 PM | Link to this
You can’t honestly compare Vernon Jones to Barack Obama? Cooler heads will prevail and Martin will win. Nobody in there right mind actually thinks Vernon Jones can win a general election in Georgia. It just will never happen.
By aaoperative
May 4, 2008 7:10 PM | Link to this
Will Mim Martin put money on the ground this time to support his candidacy. In ‘06 he didn’t spend any money on GOTV and he lost. I hope his strategy is different this time. He must not take African Americans for granted and put all of his money into media. If he does that—he stands a great chance against Jones.
By Will Jones
May 4, 2008 7:19 PM | Link to this
It’s easy to compare Obama to Vernon:
Barack is a righteous family man,
Vernon is some kind of sex pervert suffering from arrested development.
Barack campaigned against Bush’s treasonous false war,
Vernon admits he voted for Bush, twice.
The choice is clear: Cardwell backs Obama…G-d willing Obama will be the next POTUS…Georgia must help lead the Nation back to righteousness…
May all Georgians of conscience and patriotic blood vote for Cardwell.
By Tina
May 5, 2008 1:25 AM | Link to this
Georgia voters need to know what Vernon Jones and the other candidates plan on doing about this scandal. Saxby Chambliss is part of the problem. http://acropolisreview.com/2008/04/senate-democrats-investigate-taxpayer.html
By Not Hardly
May 5, 2008 1:49 AM | Link to this
Is that the way they taught you to write at the J-school?
By RJ
May 5, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this
“Vernon Jones remains the man to beat.” The problem with this take, like many takes on the Presidential Primaries, is that its based on a misguided premise…in large numbers Blacks will vote for Vernon because of his race.
In the Democratic Primary so far White Blue collar voters are demonstrating their increasing capability to get beyond race in making their voting decisions, e.g., the unexpected large number of whites supporting Obama’s candidacy and particular, the outcome of last Saturday’s special election in Louisiana. They refused to be lured by suttle plays to race.
One thing this year’s election has demonstrated so far…voters are tired of the politics of division. Some say Blacks are voting for Obama in large numbers because of his race. Others say its the same reason a large segment of the white community have turned to him…its because of the substance of his message of unity. In other words, the theory here is that Black voters in Georgia will be just as discriminating in Georgia and as such, will look beyond race to make their voting decision in this Senate race.
Vernon Jones enters this race with baggage, which he will have to overcome in the Black community.
By Mableton Mom
May 5, 2008 9:42 AM | Link to this
Jim Martin is so far to the left, that even if he were able to pick up a segment of the black vote, he still will not be able to win the primary. He represents trial lawyers over children, opposed measure to curb drug sales in and near schools, ran a dismal campaign for Lt. Gov., and now wants to jump into this race at the last minute and be our nominee for U.S. Senate.
I say NO TO JIM MARTIN!
By Rarl Kove
May 5, 2008 11:00 AM | Link to this
Saxby is the man to beat. None of the Democrat candidates are up to the task.
By Will Jones
May 5, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this
As friend and supporter of homosexual, 9-11-committing draft-dodger George Bush, Saxby is no man.
By tom ga hunter
May 5, 2008 11:47 AM | Link to this
if the electon can be bought “Race horse” Shameless will surely buy it..
By tom ga hunter
May 5, 2008 11:53 AM | Link to this
Mableton Mom
Since the dtaft dodger prefers Race Horses to wounded vets, who are you for?? Saxby Chambliss the PETA canadate.
By Realistic by nature
May 5, 2008 12:18 PM | Link to this
Jim,
Your analysis of the Democratic field can only be described as “racist.” What evidence do you have that African Americans will vote for Vernon Jones simply because he’s black? Could it be his 58 percent “unfavorable rating” in the latest poll? No, that would lead a pundit to believe his abhorrent behavior over the years would have registered negatively with the most highly educated and affluent African Americans in the U.S.
Could it be the fact his African American predecessor, Denise Majette, landed only 40% of 2004’s primary vote? No, that would show you that a reputable African American candidate with no negatives could only capture 85 to 90 percent of the African American vote, even against a fatally flawed white candidate (Cliff Oxford) who had an alleged history of threatened spousal violence.
Jim, I challenge you to post your or your paper’s prognosis of the “Barnes vs. Perdue” race, just before that election. I suspect you and your paper predicted an overwhelming victory for Roy Barnes. You should be ashamed of yourself for painting African Americans in such a predictable corner.
By Unrealistic by nature
May 5, 2008 12:55 PM | Link to this
Does it really matter who wins the Democratic primary? There is no way they’ll beat Saxby and his warchest come November.
The Dems are dying a slow death in this state.
By George Clements
May 5, 2008 2:28 PM | Link to this
There is a political axiom that voters make their final choice by selecting the candidate that they dislike the least.
It’s clear that Martin and Jones both have a lot of political baggage, and Cardwell is an obvious lightweight who will drive up his unfavorable ratings every time he talks.
And since I cannot recall who the other candidates are in the Democratic primary, I can only hope that voters — black and white — will somehow figure out which Dem candidate will be able to position themselves favorably in the fall against the Draft Dodger.
Right now, I don’t know who that would be, other than to sense that I shouldn’t be in the same corner with the nutcase who uses Will Jones as his handle. You don’t win votes by chastising everyone who doesn’t think like you.
Let’s concentrate on taking Saxby down and hiding behind a phony name isn’t going to help, Will Jones. If you really want Cardwell to win, keep quiet.
By Will Jones
May 5, 2008 3:20 PM | Link to this
Papist.
By No one takes Vern seriously
May 5, 2008 9:27 PM | Link to this
http://broadcastatlanta.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2366&Itemid=2809
By AO
May 6, 2008 7:58 AM | Link to this
Oh, how soon we forget. It was just four short years ago that an unsupported, “unchosen” African American candidate won the US Senate primary. That candidate won without ONE SINGLE TELEVISION AD in the Primary. This same candidate beat the very well-funded “chosen” candidate of the Democratic Party. The nomination was won through a strong grassroots field operation, not the nod of Democrats on the 4th floor of Spring Street. This same candidate was disrespected by the Party, the press, but not the people of Georgia. It proved that voters truly choose their candidates, who are not being swayed by the infiltration of hundreds of television ads. Millions of dollars have been spent in the past, only for candidates to lose because of a lack of “retail politics”. That is they still did not connect with voters. Just look at the failed campaigns of Gov. Barnes and Senator Cleland. I predict that even though the press is making this a black and white issues Georgia voters are not that easily categorized. Vernon Jones has in the past run well organized, and highly energized campaigns in which he has been in the field asking for votes. I further predict that he will be the Democratic nominee of the US Senate, despite the disrespect and disregard from the Party and the press. The people will choose once again!