I'm no expert on the Democratic Party of Georgia, and the internal politics of any party can be difficult to decipher, as I've learned after covering a couple of Georgia GOP state conventions. That said, there are a couple of things about Georgia Democrats' selection this past weekend of DuBose Porter as their new party chairman that stike this outside observer as rather interesting.

Porter did not have the backing of the last Democrat to run for governor (and, years earlier, to have won a gubernatorial race), Roy Barnes. He did not have the backing of Kasim Reed, who is probably the Democrat with the best chance of winning a gubernatorial election in the near future (i.e., 2018 or later). Nor did he have the backing of state Sen. Jason Carter, who has the most famous last name in the party and as much upward political mobility as any other Georgia Democrat. All three of them backed former state Sen. Doug Stoner of Smyrna, who lost office last year after Republicans redrew his district to their benefit. Stoner has a reputation as a relatively centrist, pro-business Democrat, and he was the metro Atlanta candidate for the job. (For today's purposes, and given the results, let's treat the race as if it was a two-person contest between Porter and Stoner.)

Porter, on the other hand, had the support of Stacey Abrams, the House Democratic leader. And he hails from Middle Georgia. Both of these factors -- aside from his personal history as Abrams' predecessor as the top House Democrat -- strike me as significant.

What it says about the fact party leaders voted against the endorsements of Barnes, Reed and Carter remains to be seen. And had Stoner won, he of course would have been expected to work with the party's current elected leaders, Abrams included.

But in my view, Abrams is the most impressive Democrat under the Gold Dome today in terms of knowing which battles to fight and knowing how to fight them. She is brilliant, articulate, prudent and focused on the long term. As a result, Democrats in the House have had more success than their Senate counterparts in recent years at having a say in legislation -- such as the HOPE scholarship reform and the scuttling of the personal income-tax reform, both in 2011 -- when Republicans could have ignored the minority party and passed most anything they liked. This was a little harder to gauge this past session, when the GOP for the first time had the two-thirds majority needed to pass even constitutional amendments without Democrats. But I saw her several times manage to raise substantive points in committee hearings that influenced legislation; ethics reform comes to mind. If Porter and Abrams have an especially strong bond from the beginning, they may be able to create more synergy between the party's legislative and political efforts.

Do not discount Porter's geographic advantage, either. Georgia Republicans won power when they were able to break Democratic dominance down-state. South Georgia's numeric importance decreases in relative terms all the time, with the vast majority of the state's population growth taking place north of I-20, much less I-16. Still, metro Atlanta, depending on how you define it, is largely a draw between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP's margin of victory often comes elsewhere in the state (including, it should be said, solid-red North Georgia). Neither Stoner nor Porter was likely to render the party uncompetitive in metro Atlanta or the state's other metro areas. But Porter might be better-suited to make inroads south of the gnat line -- particularly on issues like education (despite Abrams' influence on HOPE, many South Georgians view the reform of the program as tilted in favor of metro Atlanta) and immigration (if federal reform isn't passed, or fails to address farmers' concerns after the state immigration reform of 2011).

Ultimately, Porter's performance will go a long way toward establishing whether Democrats can take advantage of some favorable demographic trends in the state. Stoner would have had his own advantages, but I see reason for Democrats to be optimistic about their new chairman.