The apparent victory of Dr. Paul Brown in Tuesday's special election runoff to fill Rep. Charlie Norwood's seat in Georgia's 10th District is already being spun as bad news for Republicans, with one liberal blogger in California seeing it as evidence that "the Republican brand is completely trashed."
This would no doubt come as a surprise to Dr. Broun, a conservative Republican who proudly describes himself as:
Founding president of the Georgia Republican Assembly. Life Member of the NRA and President of its state affiliate, the Georgia Sport Shooting Association. Member, Gun Owners of America.Nor does Dr. Broun's campaign platform suggest good news for liberals:
Restore Constitutional GovernmentDr. Broun is a pro-life Christian conservative. An e-mail to 10th District voters earlier this month, attributed to Dr. Broun's wife Niki, appealed to "REAL Christians" to support his campaign.End the Federal Income Tax & Abolish the IRS
Secure our borders. Stop the Invasion of Illegal Aliens.
Support our Troops. Win the War on Terrorists.
Protect Private Property Rights
Stop the ACLU and Activist Federal Judges from Destroying America's Heritage of Religious Freedom and Religious Expression.
So if Dr. Broun's upset win -- the unofficial results, showing him edging state Sen. Jim Whitehead by fewer than 400 votes, won't be certified until later this week -- doesn't represent the trashing of "the Republican brand," what does it mean? I called Broun campaign headquarters, where the telephone was answered by his campaign manager, Joshua Evans. I also interviewed Whitehead supporter Phil Kent. Here's the inside story:
While Mr. Whitehead was backed by top Republican officials and amassed an overwhelming fundraising advantage, Mr. Broun won by being "the anti-establishment candidate," his campaign manager Joshua Evans said in a telephone interview yesterday.That's from a story in Thursday's edition of The Washington Times. It's important not to let spin gets ahead of the facts.
"While [Mr. Broun] is very conservative, he is also very independent," Mr. Evans said. "We were down significantly, financially, and [Mr. Whitehead] received all of the endorsements from the Republican establishment. ... We just focused on taking our message to our voters and implemented a massive grass-roots effort." ...Geography may have been more important than ideology in a district dominated by two major population centers, Augusta -- Georgia's second-largest city -- and Athens, home to the University of Georgia. Mr. Broun is from Athens while Mr. Whitehead is from Columbia County in the Augusta area.
Mr. Whitehead's "Columbia County base did not turn out the way he expected .... and that really hurt him," said Phil Kent, a veteran Georgia journalist and conservative activist who endorsed Mr. Whitehead.
"Whitehead's remarks in a recent Augusta civic speech were turned against him to indicate he was anti-Athens, and Broun used that effectively," said Mr. Kent, adding that Athens-area voters "wanted their hometown boy. They wanted an Athens guy."
Mr. Broun "very successfully mobilized Democrats and independents in the Athens area,” Mr. Evans said. In addition to getting nearly 90 percent of the vote in Clarke County, which includes Athens, Mr. Broun also tallied 27 percent in Columbia County.
"We were pretty successful at reaching Mr. Whitehead's home area, because they never expected us to be able to [do so well] in his back yard," Mr. Evans said.
-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times
Comments (4)
My entire point was that yes, it was insider-versus-outsider, and unless there are an historically unusual amount of Republican primaries next year, the GOP wll be running 200-odd insiders. As for the seats held by Democrats, how many of them did y'all win in 2006? And how many victories do you expect based on mobilizing Democrats?
Fun times in Rev. Moon's personal no-spin zone.
Posted by dday | July 19, 2007 2:13 AM
Georgia has the misfortune of being repersented by a bunch of big spending, owned by special interest liberals who call them self Republicans. Both our Senators were for the Bush-Kennedy-McCain destroy America bill before they were opposed to it. We actually have a good old fashion Southern Democrat running for the senate this year so maybe he will put the fear in Chambliss.
Posted by tomgahunter | July 19, 2007 7:51 AM
The Ron Paul Revolution has begun.
Posted by Ryan Rabalais | July 19, 2007 11:36 AM
As a resident of the GA 10th district I can tell you this was an election between dumb and dumber, particularly for Athens voters. Both guys running to replace Norwood, who didn't represent most Athenians ideologically, were far far far from ideal candidates. Whitehead wanted to get rid of UGA (with the exception of the football team)...how is that good for us? And while it has be widely reported that Broun was raising money prior to Norwood's death because of comments by Whitehead, people at that supposed meeting have refuted Whitehead's claim.
And I would beg to differ from tomgahunter's assertion the Chamblis or Isakson as liberals. Both have consistently been ranked as some of the most conservative senators in the country. The only real danger they face is that they supported a bill for a short time that was terribly unpopular in GA.
Posted by ben | July 20, 2007 2:07 PM