Obama, the New South and Submarines

The rumors are all over the Internets that the state of Georgia is up for grabs this November.  From your mouth to God's ear!, but lets dig a little deeper.

My exboyfriendandrewsullivan is oh so tepidly tossing around the "L" ( landslide) word , and I've also read that the Obama Campaign is already spending hard in the Georgia tv market, . Andrew is citing this poll showing McCain with a very small lead and Barr having a real effect . As far as I can tell this poll is an anomaly, and the poll of polls and most all others showing , AT THIS VERY EARLY DATE McCain with the expected lead of 7-10 points. Not at all the huge lead that Zippy won the state by ( 12 points in 2000, and 17 points in 2004) ,but still a lead.

Georgia is basically 40% Democratic, or at least has been since 2000. Clinton did take the state, but that I think was the death knell of SOUTHERN FIRST politics in Georgia. In 2005 Georgia was 28.7 % African American, and the state does have one of the highest turnout of African American voters, a good thing for Senator Obama. BUT, that still leaves him with the huge mountain to climb of turning a new 20% or so of white Georgians BACK to the Democratic party.

 Also, in his favor is the large number of young voters in the state, but there are not any , (at least I can not find any) polls  stating that young Georgians will vote in large numbers for Senator Obama. Outside of Athens and Atlanta, I am sure that the youth of Georgia are just as conservative as there daddies and mamma's. Apples don't fall far in that deep Southern heat....

Add  SAM NUNN ( a blast from the past!) to this equation and it does change a little bit. I think it is very far fetched that Senator Obama would reach back that far and pick Senator Nunn as a running mate, UNLESS, he is hell bent on taking Georgia. One factor against this is the fact that all those young voters probably don't have a clue who San Nunn is , another is "the gays" do not like him. 

• footnote: In 1992 Bill Clinton ran a very , surprisingly,  pro gay race. One of his very first acts as President was going to be a executive order that would allow gays and lesbians to serve proudly and openly in the US armed forces . Seemed like a no brainier to lots of folks. There had always been gays and lesbians  in the military , they would just be able to live their lives openly and safely. Well, it was 1992 ( which does not seem like that long ago, but LGBT politics have come an almost impossibly far way in those brief 16 years) and then head of the Senate Armed forces committee Sam Nunn went NUTS. Took a film crew into a submarine shower to show just how close these brave young American boys would have to be naked with the coming hoards of pink menace-the horror , the horror, indeed. The wretched "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy came out of this

The AJC ran an editorial this past Tuesday basically asking the oh so powerful ( wtf? ) gay and lesbian vote in Georgia to forgive poor ole Sam. He knew not what he was doing. I do not think that the LGBT vote in Georgia can do much more than elect progressive candidates in Fulton and DeKalb counties, but its nice that Mr Bookman thinks they are that powerful. On a personal note, I was very surportive of President Clinton's actions, and was hurt deeply by then Senator Nunns venomous attacks, and I have a very long memory. I do not want Sam Nunn to be the Vice President.

My bellweather for Georgia politics has always been goodoleDanaBass. For good or bad, she sees the world in such a completely different way than I do, -( but I am guessing sees things much more like most Georgians) -  that it is good for me to listen to her. Now , with out asking out right, I bet, B.G. would  wear white shoes after labor day and full blown GEORGIA TECH drag rather than  vote for an uber liberal African American Democrat from Illinois. I could be wrong. I'll check into it and get back....