With 89-year-old Jimmy Carter, 75-year-old Sam Nunn, and now 82-year-old Zell Miller jumping into the fray, Georgia is headed for the grandfather of all election seasons.
The next-generation, legacy ticket that Georgia Democrats celebrated last week at their state convention in Dublin — topped by Michelle Nunn, daughter of the former senator, and Jason Carter, grandson of the former president – has taken on all the wrinkles of a 50-year high school reunion.
And maybe some of the aches and pains, too.
Miller bowed into the race for U.S. Senate on Thursday, with a fresh haircut reminiscent of the Marine-style flat-top he sported in the early ‘60s. Gone is the trademark, shelf-like swoop of silver that overshadowed a set of eagle eyes.
Miller was always at his best when ticked off. And he is again.
“I’m so angry about what’s going on in Washington, partisanship over patriotism – they can’t stop themselves. But we can stop them. Let’s send Michelle Nunn to the Senate,” the former governor and U.S. senator says in a TV spot that was quickly distributed by a gleeful Nunn campaign.
Ten years ago, in his famous 2004 speech at the Republican National Convention, endorsing the re-election of President George W. Bush, Miller rebelled against his fellow Democrats. But this latest bolt appears to be directed at the tea party wing of the GOP.
But lest you think that Miller has renewed his Yellow Dog Club membership, he declined to extend his good wishes to Jason Carter. Miller endorsed the re-election of his fellow mountaineer, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal.
His split-ticket endorsement could make Miller’s backing more valuable to the two recipients, not less. Jason Carter can’t besmirch the former two-term governor without hurting his ticket mate. David Perdue, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, can’t belittle Michelle Nunn’s new patron without also hurting an incumbent GOP governor.
Well played, Zell.
But Miller’s entrance also gives new momentum to a stone that Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn, and their hefty biographies had already set rolling.
Democrats want 2014 to be about the next iteration of Georgia politics – a new, New South. But by invoking this triumvirate of Democratic glory days, they also risk turning the contest into a debate over what’s done and gone.
Biography is about both glory and baggage, and these elders of the church have plenty of each.
By state law and several city ordinances, the name of Zell Miller can’t be uttered in public unless it is immediately followed by the phrase “founder of the HOPE scholarship.”
Miller gave us the political strategist James Carville and, thus, Bill Clinton – weigh that how you will. But he also saddled us with “two strikes and you’re out” sentencing, which filled Georgia prisons. And many Democrats have yet to forgive him for his endorsement of George W.
The cerebral Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a key figure in the rebuilding of the U.S. military in the post-Vietnam era. Even now, in retirement, his hobby is protecting us from stray nuclear weapons.
Yet Nunn also negotiated “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which in the ‘90s gave gay and lesbians a significant legal foothold in the U.S. military – but is now scorned, in hindsight, as an insulting halfway measure.
But it is Jimmy Carter who remains the poster child for William Faulkner’s dictum that we are never really done with the past. The former president has spurned irrelevance for the last 34 years – building a network of financial backers that that his grandson has tapped.
Thus posing a threat to Republicans throughout the state.
But relevance requires the grandfather to speak of the Middle East, global warming and everything in between.
Deal, the Republican incumbent, has made every use possible of Jimmy Carter’s criticism of Israel, requiring the grandson to own them or deny his grandfather.
The connection between Deal’s emphasis on Middle Eastern politics and campaign finance was underlined last week by a quiet trip to Las Vegas taken by the governor – perhaps to meet with the pro-Israeli billionaire and casino magnate, 81-year-old Sheldon Adelson, who underwrote Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential bid.
Deal won’t say whether the meeting took place, but even 71-year-old governors need a grandfather now and then. And rich ones are the most convenient.
The calendar will dictate that the Georgia’s 2014 election season will retain a focus on old men.
On Oct. 1, Jimmy Carter will turn 90 years old. This is a significant event, given that he will rightly be remembered as the most influential ex-president in American history.
But coming in the middle of a hot campaign for governor, the birthday will present a tough balancing act for news outlets. It will also point countless TV cameras to the past – not the direction that certain, younger Democrats would prefer.
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