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DEL.ICIO.USLessons for aspiring judges
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By David Simpson dsimpson@ajc.com
How hard is it to unseat an incumbent Superior Court judge?
Two failed attempts from 2004 and this year in DeKalb offer a sobering comparison for any future challenger.
In 2004, Celeste Brewer ran against Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker. Brewer declined to criticize Becker in the typically gentle judicial campaign. She drew 22 percent of the vote.
In 2008, Tom Stubbs ran against Superior Court Judge Linda Hunter. He launched his campaign with an endorsement from former Gov. Roy Barnes, raised more than twice as much money as Hunter as of Sept. 30 and attacked Hunter’s courtroom demeanor and decisions. Near the end, Hunter apologized for ordering her husband released from jail in 2005 after his arrest on a minor trespassing charge. (The charge was later dropped.) The result: Stubbs got 30 percent of the vote.
DeKalb pols likely would point out that Stubbs is white and Hunter is an African-American woman in a county where blacks outnumber whites and female voters outnumber males.
But Brewer is African-American, and Becker is white. Strictly by the numbers, incumbency was more powerful than race and gender.
Challengers might take heart from Harris County, Texas, where 22 incumbent civil and criminal judges were unseated in the general election, according to the Houston Chronicle.
But the biggest factor in the Texas revolution won’t apply in Georgia’s nonpartisan judicial elections. The successful Harris County challengers all ran as Democrats and defeated incumbent Republicans.
Only four Republicans survived the onslaught. What was their secret? According to the Chronicle, “The most common theory is that voters were wary of Democrats with uncommon names.” The losers’ names were Ashish Mahendru, Mekisha Murray, Andres Pereira and Goodwille Pierre.
So two quick lessons for would-be judges. When you see an incumbent judge, talk about the joys of retirement. And if you have a funny name, start telling your friends to call you “Mack.”
Jim Galloway is taking a few days off.
Comments
By saxby greed for six years
November 26, 2008 12:51 PM | Link to this
Mothers against $axby shameless
By saxby greed for six years
November 26, 2008 2:45 PM | Link to this
MOTHERS AGAINST $axby
By sam
November 26, 2008 6:15 PM | Link to this
WHY did GA lose Ft Mac, Ft Gillem and 4 other military bases when Saxby is on the Armed Forces Committee? That’s reason enough to fire him!
By The Barrister
November 26, 2008 9:46 PM | Link to this
Incumbent Judges CAN get beat when they run terrible campaigns and act badly.
In Gwinnett, Judge Winegarden got beat by a weak challenger because he ran an bad campaign. He wasted our campaign contributions after squeezing us for them. He did nothing.
The challenger Karen Byers had no business winning. But she attacked Winegarden, who did nothing.
It goes to show that ANYONE can defeat an incumbent judge when that judge doesn’t campaign and try to EARN it.
By Alan Roebke
November 26, 2008 10:40 PM | Link to this
For All Georgia Voters! Georgia: Please Add Peanut Policy/Windfalls to Senate Race!
As Georgian’s, before you vote again for Senator, explore Senator Chambliss’s true record, by first reading the USDA report “Peanut Backgrounder” for some insight. See how Chambliss and his friends changed the no cost peanut program into a $3.5 billion dollar peanut windfall, directed to peanut insiders at taxpayer expense.
This classic unexposed “Congressional windfall”, for the friends of Chambliss was listed as a peanut buyout and a change to a market driven system. Yet it was anything but market driven, only subsidy cash driven with bankable cash, in some cases even, non-taxed land exchanges/purchases. Including taxpayer’s picking up the storage and handling fees for six U.S. peanut crops and annual subsidies of about $150/acre. Paying off about 70,000 historic peanut quota holders for a cost of $1.5 billion to taxpayers. Yet the report shows we only had about 9,000 peanut farmers to begin with. Who were also bought out but still raise peanuts today and under the farm bill, continue to receive more subsidies.
Then while 47 million American’s lived without health insurance, Chambliss and friends focussed there time on crop insurance. Insuring, 250 million acres of subsidized crops like corn soybean’s wheat and others with ever increasing revenue protection from taxpayers. All while the press focussed on the 2002 and 2008 farm bills perennial costs and guaranteed direct payments of $5.2 billion annually sent to farmers even in the best of times. While Chambliss and friends dealt out more insurance subsidies of $5.7 billion for all types of crops grown in 2008. Reducing the Farmers crop insurance premium by about 58%, giving the Farmer $4 billion in premium reductions for all insured crop production grown in 2006-2008. Ignoring this period of record crop income, which shows the farmer could have easily paid his own insurance premiums in this government profit and price guaranteed program.
Then conclude your research on the true record of Senator Chambliss and friends by reading the Inspector Generals “interim report” on peanut price reporting. Which has USDA delivering two different peanut price reports each week. In November 2008 the reports show a $171/ton difference in the price offered for runner peanuts compared to the price reported as received to USDA. Which allows peanut farmers to be subsidized without the Inspector Generals Auditors able to verify the reported prices. Which under 2002 farm bill generated huge subsidy checks to peanut Farmers. Yet today private sources say the 2008 peanut crop is no longer a free market crop, but a contracted crop with a guaranteed price in the upper range of the reported data or about $500/ton. Which is higher than the 2008 farm bills target price for peanuts of $495/ton, yet still subsidized as a open market crop under the 2008 farm bill.
So Georgia, vote with facts and figures in hand this time and not with sound bites and attack ads. For voters seldom get a chance to do it right the second time around. So make this vote count for people and not peanuts.
To see these reports go to www.CongressionalChange.com Alan Roebke (REB-key) Independent Republican/Lincoln Republican, in Alexandria Minnesota.
AHR
By Barrister is a Coward
November 27, 2008 12:49 AM | Link to this
Dear “Barrister” If you are going to write false and disparaging statements on a website, please have the guts to use your real name! Winegarden was actually outspent 3 to 1 in that race because he didn’t want to “squeeze” contributors for money. He ran what everyone always says they want….a positive campaign. The only thing his loss proved is that you can buy seats on the bench, negative campaigns work, people are very uninformed on these races and being first on the ballot (as his opponent was) IS worth a few critical percentage points. Be a man (or, I think, woman in this case) and use your real name in a reply to this message!
By NO GREED LEFT BEHIND FOR SAXBY
November 27, 2008 11:40 AM | Link to this
IMPERIAL SUGAR WORKERS AGAINST SAXBY,..Chambliss interrogated the employee who warned about potential disaster at the Port Wentworth Plant,what a jerk. $axby was trying to protect the Fat Cats responsible so they would keep lining his greedy pockets.
By NO GREED LEFT BEHIND FOR sissy $axby
November 27, 2008 10:34 PM | Link to this
MOTHERS AGAINST sissy saxby chambliss
By The Barrister: Barrister is a Coward is a Coward
November 27, 2008 11:12 PM | Link to this
Barrister is a Coward is, well, a Coward. How ironic that you ask for real names but sign yours anonymously.
Truth hurts, so it seems.
It seems we agree, too! It’s exactly my point that a lazy judge who doesn’t run a good campaign can get beat by a weak challenger who goes negative. Beyer’s campaign wasn’t that great, but it was better than the incumbent judge winegarden who did nothing.
You’ve twisted yourself into quite a pretzel there by agreeing with me. Well done.
By THE BARRISTER: BARISTER IS A COWARD IS A COWARD
November 27, 2008 11:15 PM | Link to this
Barrister is a Coward is, well, a Coward. How ironic that you ask for real names but sign yours anonymously.
Truth hurts, so it seems.
It seems we agree, too! It’s exactly my point that a lazy judge who doesn’t run a good campaign can get beat by a weak challenger who goes negative. Beyer’s campaign wasn’t that great, but it was better than the incumbent judge winegarden who did nothing.
You’ve twisted yourself into quite a pretzel there by agreeing with me. Well done.
By LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR MARTIN.........
November 28, 2008 12:56 AM | Link to this
Chambliss is a socialistic liberal soft on crime and his son is a congressional lobbyist.
By Aaron Burr V. Mexico
November 29, 2008 2:01 PM | Link to this
Never overestimate the intelligence of the voters of this neanderthal state.
Chambliss is going to win. It doesn’t matter what he says. It doesn’t matter what he does.
He has an R next to his name. The party is mother. The party is father. The party is all.
Eternal vigilance against the liars who hate America while saying they love it is the only hope of freedom we have…but not in this state. This state has too many of the 30% in it.