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Remember the Recent Unpleasantness and Vote

I was a very young girl, about the same height as the lever that closed the curtains to the voting booth, when my father took me by the hand and led me into the phone-booth-sized metal contraption to experience democracy in action. At the risk of dating myself, I’ll tell you that he pointed to the names in the governor’s race section of the poster-sized ballot, and let me push down the little lever next to the name “Jimmy Carter” for him. A decade later, I entered a voting booth in that same small north Georgia town and again pushed down a lever next to the name “Jimmy Carter,” this time casting my own vote–my first “official” one–to register my support for the re-election of then President Carter.

That first vote was for the losing candidate, a disappointment I have since experienced more often than not. You see, I was raised a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. My father was named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One of his best friends named his son Joseph Kennedy. Where I came from, Southerners didn’t vote Republican. Georgia had been a Democratic-leaning state since the “Recent Unpleasantness of 1860 to 1864.” At the risk of sounding like a Cracker, I have to say that it was quite true, in my experience as a native of this state, that there was no tolerance for the party of Lincoln in the North Georgia mountains. For me, and for my family, it had nothing to do with slavery. There was no racial language or attitude in the community where I grew up. Being anti-Republican was a reaction to the destruction our area endured during the Civil War. There was a sense that we Southerners knew who we were. We were Democrats. Everyone was. In rural Georgia, there were a lot of yellow dogs. By the time I turned 18 and cast that first vote, things were starting to change. In little more than a decade, more than a century of Georgia loyalty to the Democratic Party was fading fast. I have never missed an election, and I have never voted for a single Republican. As a Georgian, that means I have supported the losing side in a lot of political races.

In the last several general elections, Georgia has been written off by the Democratic Party as too red to win. The Republican Party, and the media, also assume our color. Until now. Suddenly, with the audacity of Barack Obama’s candidacy, Georgia may be a battleground state. It’s just too bad the Georgia Democratic Party didn’t hold out much hope. Democrats have refused to fight in many critical Georgia races of the last several election cycles, fielding mostly unknown, inexperienced and drastically out-financed candidates. The party didn’t put up much of a fight in the 2004 election that sent Johnny Isaakson to the Senate. The state’s two strongest and best known Democrats, Kathy Cox and Mark Taylor, chose to fight instead for the Governor’s mansion in 2006. When the Democrats’ leading contenders fight each other rather than coming together to defeat Republicans, we all lose. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton replayed a similar scenario on the national stage this year. The wounds are still healing.

Now we find ourselves just four months away from the general election, and Georgia Democrats are barely paying attention. Even though there’s only a razor-thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, few seem to have noticed that Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss is up for re-election. Few seem aware of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee’s goal to maintain a “firewall” of about 45 Republican Senators, for the purposes of filibustering any legislation, rendering as ineffective a slim Democratic majority in the Senate and cloture-blocking a possible President Obama. Few Georgia Democrats seem motivated by what the Republicans consider their most difficult election cycle since Richard Nixon resigned. Secretary of State Karen Handel told the Atlanta Journal-Consitution that turnout will be mostly motivated by local elections, not the statewide contest that will decide the Democratic challenger to Sen. Chambliss. She projected turnout statewide to be only 30 percent. Where is the momentum for change?

I will be among the minority again–among the 30 percent of voters who will go to the polls tomorrow. Because no matter how red the rest of my home state leans, I was born and raised a yellow dog. It’s not about the Civil War for me. For me, there’s been much more recent unpleasantness under the control of a Republican majority, and I will continue to fight, even if I end up licking wounds of defeat in the end. In the case of Senator Chambliss in particular, there’s been plenty of unpleasantness, starting with his attack ads during his campaign in 2002. You may remember the ad showing then-Senator Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran, next to a photo of Osama bin Laden. I have tried to erase that outrageous attempt to demonize a true patriot, but I can’t. That attack ad is still used as an example of how far the Republican Party will go for power–decency be damned.

There’s plenty more unpleasantries in Mr. Chambliss’ record as a Senator. In the current Congress, Sen. Chambliss has voted with his party about 92 percent of the time, according to a Washington Post Congressional database. He’s voted for the President’s domestic spying legislation, against ending the war in Iraq, for tax breaks for oil companies… again, 92 percent of the time, our Senator supports President Bush and Senate Republicans. Let it serve as a reason to vote tomorrow for the strongest Democratic opponent of the generally unknown and underfinanced options the party has produced. And let it serve as motivation to support the Democratic Senate candidate in the November election. Fellow Democrats, fellow Georgians: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.