The political strategist who helped get Georgia a lottery two decades ago says his team can convince metro Atlantans to pass a transportation referendum in 2012.
Business and civic groups mounting a political campaign for a transportation referendum in 2012 have hired that consultant, Virginia-based Glenn Totten, and two other campaign leaders to help shape the project list and convince voters to back it next summer.
By Oct. 15, a group of 21 local elected officials will pick a list of transportation projects within the 10-county Atlanta region. The region's voters in summer 2012 will decide on the list and a 1 percent sales tax to fund it. Polling will help the leaders pick the projects and campaign ads will aim to sway voters. The effort altogether could cost at least $5 million to $6 million, said Renay Blumenthal, senior vice president at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, a key member of a coalition that is organizing the campaign.
Backers say the referendum could be a turning point in metro Atlanta's history.
“We think this is one that’s going to be very difficult to win,” Totten said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “Nonetheless we think we've got a team in place that can do that.”
Totten, a Democratic strategist, will work with Paul Bennecke, a consultant who had leadership roles in the Republican Governors Association, the Georgia Republican Party and the 2002 gubernatorial campaign for Sonny Perdue. Auburn-based David B. Hill will provide polling and research.
Totten said he has worked on referendum issues like the transportation tax that brought light rail to Phoenix.
"We've hired people who have experience doing exactly what we want to do," said Dave Stockert, CEO of Post Properties and transportation chairman at the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
Their opposition may not be as well funded -- yet -- but it's not laying down. Harold Bost is mobilizing tea party organizations and other opponents from all ten counties against it.
"We've got an awful long way to go and a big mountain to climb," Bost said. "But we’re going to fight it tooth and nail."
Though the consultants cautioned that it was too early to define the political landscape, there are some parallels between the lottery vote in 1992 and the transportation fight to come. Both face opponents who stand on principle: Churches opposed the gambling that the lottery would enable and many tea-party activists say they oppose any new tax. Advocates of both the lottery and the transportation referendum expected to face the most difficulty in suburban or rural areas. In their favor they touted an issue of high importance to all voters: education in the case of the lottery and regional transportation in the case of the tax referendum.
There is at least one political difference. The lottery started out far ahead in the polls, then the gap closed as opponents mounted a strong campaign. What polling has been done so far shows the transportation referendum, when described to polling respondents, is already close.
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