TBS’s comedic host Samantha Bee on her latest episode of “Full Frontal” Wednesday night devoted the entire episode to the Georgia runoff races that could determine who will control the Senate.
She facetiously dubbed the episode “Why Georgia” after the 2003 hit song by John Mayer, who lived in Georgia for a time.
“What exactly are the Georgia runoffs?” she asks. “It sounds like a gastrointestinal issue. As in, ‘I ate an expired cobbler and got a bad case of the Georgia runoffs.’”
She then explained how the runoff system came to be. A Georgia state congressman and segregationist Denmark Groover in 1963 proposed the runoff idea after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed a county unit system that hurt Black urban voters. There was a worry that multiple white candidates would split votes while Blacks would theoretically vote for a single Black candidate, who could end up winning a plurality. So the runoff would allow whites in a one-on-one battle to win a majority.
Georgia has stuck with the system ever since and Democrats the past two decades have not fared well in them at all.
>>RELATED: A brief history of how the Georgia runoff system came to be
AJC political reporter Greg Bluestein even gets a cameo appearance in a Fox News clip noting that both sides are trying to generate enthusiasms for their respective bases to show up at the polls.
After asking Georgians to vote, Bee then mock asked for Mayer to come out and sing the song “Why Georgia.”
“He said no?” she said. “Well [expletive] him. He broke Jessica’s heart. [Jessica Simpson]. John Mayer’s body is not a wonderland. It’s, at best, a Six Flags.”
Bee interviewed Jon Ossoff, who is going up against Sen. David Perdue.
She also did an animated version of the situation using a Dr. Seuss-type rhyme scheme with lines such as “While David Purdue democracy sicken, no surprise he’s named after chicken.” Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican majority leader, in her story plays the Grinch.
Allana Harken, one of her correspondents, then traveled to Savannah. She interviewed residents of both political stripes. One Trump supporter complained that Trump won four Nobel Peace prizes “nobody ever talks about” and was worried about whether the runoff election would be fair after hearing unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud in November.
The episode opened and ended with Atlanta rap star and actor Ludacris, who got to promote his new subscription-based website kidnation.com, which uses music videos to teach kids about topics such as health and wellness, multicultural inclusivity, emotional intelligence and critical thinking.
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