Mood of voters: State of discontent

By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

All across Georgia, residents have critical issues for this year’s political hopefuls to address in an election season marked by economic turmoil.

Adults need jobs. Children need education. We need stronger borders.

Our politicians? Well, they’d better watch out.

With the coming of Memorial Day comes another election season. This year, it’s a big one. In addition to sending state and federal lawmakers to office, voters also will choose a new governor to succeed Gov. Sonny Perdue.

It’s not a job for the politically timid. The next governor will take office in a state where the unemployment rate exceeds the national average; where school districts have axed thousands of teachers; and where immigration remains a thorny issue.

With that in mind, reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 10 other newspapers from Chattanooga to Valdosta last week interviewed more than 150 residents about their hopes, concerns and priorities for the campaigns.

The reporters’ findings? We’re fretful about the economy, fearful for our schools, frustrated with illegal immigration, fuming at lawmakers.

“There ain’t but one difference between the government and the Boy Scouts,” said McDonough grower Harold Woods. “The Boy Scouts have adult leadership.”

The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico had spread to some voters’ conversations, too. No one said it better than 22-year-old Malachi Williams of St. Simons Island, who wants political candidates whose “values are aligned with protecting the Earth.”

The issues may be clear to voters, but the candidates aren’t. Less than two months before the primaries, few could name the frontrunners among those running for governor. Most voters appeared only vaguely aware that another political season is imminent.

Sean Richey, a political science professor at Georgia State University, wasn’t surprised. Memorial Day is the traditional start of the political season, he agreed — but voters may not know that.

Candidates will do their best to get their attention in the coming weeks. Voters will be asked to choose Democratic and Republican nominees for governor and other races July 20.

This will be a tough season for incumbent and newcomer, Richey predicted. Voters are distrustful, worn down by a recession that won’t go away and a recovery that won’t come. They need to be convinced.

“This will be the challenge the campaigns face,” Richey said. “They’ll have to keep the people engaged.”

‘People are losing jobs’

The economic numbers are daunting. Georgia last year lost 94,000 jobs. Its unemployment rate last week stood at 10.4 percent. The state leads the nation in bank failures.

The solution? “Jobs, jobs, jobs, which will spur our economy,” said Jeff Gorelick, 65, general manager of Ruben’s Department Store, a mainstay in downtown Augusta since 1879. “It’s the only thing candidates should be talking about.”

Fort Valley florist Larry Smith was just as emphatic. “Get people to work,” the 58-year-old said. “This jobless rate is too much.”

Dahlonega resident Bobbi Sutton, 62, could only agree. The North Georgia mountain community enjoyed a revival of small businesses and tourism in the last decade. No longer. Some of the businesses that bustled are dark, their doors bolted.

“They [lawmakers] need to get their priorities in order,” said Sutton, who manages a pet boutique on the square.

Legislators also need to take a hard look at government programs, said Lance Linton of Gwinnett County. He’s 43.

“People are losing jobs and don’t even get enough unemployment to live, and when it runs out, then what?” asked Linton, eating lunch at Loretta’s Country Kitchen in Oakwood, 30 miles north of Atlanta. “What is the stimulus stimulating, and how many people are benefiting?”

Athens barber Patrick Watkins, 29, wondered what careers await this year’s University of Georgia graduates.

“[A]re you going to be an [economics] major and get a job at McDonald’s?” he asked.

‘Gutting education’

Last week, the state Board of Education voted to lift all limits on class sizes. It was an attempt to bridge a nearly $1 billion gap in school funding. Across the state, local boards of education sliced left and right: teachers were laid off, programs consolidated.

The cuts are enough to make Columbus mom Laura Saliba worry about her son’s education. Stone Saliba is 2.

A recent afternoon found mother and son at a downtown Columbus sweet shop. Education, said the 36-year-old, is the biggest issue in Georgia this political season.

“I want to know my son will receive as much of a quality education as people in other states,” she said.

Allison Spears says she got a quality education in Connecticut’s public schools, and thinks Georgia’s children deserve no less. She’s got three children, two enrolled in private Atlanta schools. The third, 3-year-old Graham, will follow his siblings.

“Something needs to be done to [improve] intown schools,” said Spears, who lives in Atlanta’s Buckhead community. “Maybe school vouchers are the answer.”

Teacher furloughs are not the answer, said the Rev. Marvin Smith. A resident of rural Berrien County, he was in Valdosta, eating lunch at a popular spot.

“They belong in the classroom teaching our children,” he said. “I also think it’s a bad idea to overcrowd the classrooms just to cut back on teachers.”

Make sure students learn the right things, added Augusta resident Dan Cook, 77, a retired advertising executive. “Teach young people not to just line up behind cash registers,” said Cook, in downtown Augusta recently. “We need to teach them ... to go after a better kind of job.”

Children may be learning the wrong lesson, said Charles Graves, who is 71 and lives in Rome. The lesson: school is not important to lawmakers.

“We’re gutting education,” he said.

Dublin resident Johnny Stover wondered about legislative priorities, too. He took a few moments from a pastors’ meeting at a coffee shop to toss a barb at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s $30 million Go Fish Georgia marketing initiative.

“They need to cut projects, like the governor’s fishing lake,” said Stover, 32 and a youth pastor. “How many teachers lost their jobs so we could have a lake?”

‘No durn business 
being here’

They may not know her name, but Georgia’s voters know who she is. Jessica Colotl, a Kennesaw State University student facing deportation after officials discovered she has lived in this country illegally for 11 years, is the new face of illegal immigration in Georgia.

“I feel for this girl at Kennesaw State,” said Dan Sosebee, 51, who operates Sosebee Auto Supply in Lawrenceville. “But she doesn’t have the same rights as my daughter.”

Ray Charles Ellis, 55, of Brunswick threaded a fresh shrimp on a hook and cast it into the East River. Laid off eight months ago, Ellis worries about illegal immigration and its effect on people looking for work.

“There’d be more jobs if we’d get the [illegal immigrants] out of here. If a company hires me, they have to pay me $12 an hour, but they can get two of them for $6 an hour,” he said. “They ... send all their money out back home to Mexico or Indochina, where it helps their country, not us.”

McDonough resident Debbie Woods took a similarly hard line. She sells produce at the State Farmers Market and believes a lot of the workers she sees at the Forest Park facility are in America under questionable circumstances.

“If they’re legal, that’s fine,” said Woods, 52, speaking over the thrum of a forklift motor. “If they’re not, they’ve got no durn business being here.”

They should be allowed here, countered 18-year-old Shermany Hickman. A Marietta resident, she just graduated from high school. She knows other young people, said Williams, whose circumstances are identical to Colotl’s.

“It [immigrant status] doesn’t matter to me,” said Hickman, who’ll be attending Michigan State University this fall. “They might as well be a citizen.”

‘Something different’

What about our state’s politics? You may as well ask a bull about a red flag.

“They run [for office] and say all these things, then when they get in office they forget what they promised,” said Robbie Jones of Kingsland in southeast Georgia. “I would love to hear different ideas from candidates.”

New politicians would be nice, said Dalton State College student Casey Hope. He spent a recent afternoon sitting on a bench in Dalton, about 40 miles south of Chattanooga.

“I just want something different,” said Hope, 20. “They’re [incumbents] obviously not doing what they should be doing.”

Frank Griffin doubts current office-holders can do the job anymore. He owns a pawn shop at a crossroads community on the flat high ground that dips toward the Satilla River in Brantley County, west of Brunswick.

“Our government worked for a long time, but now it’s broken,’’ he said. “I hate to say it, but I don’t know of anything that will fix it.’’

Rome resident Brian Hampton, 63, wasn’t as pessimistic. The machine, he said, is OK. Perhaps the operators need to be fired.

“We have to get the machinery of government working again,” he said. “It’s just been run badly.”