Georgia Elections

The primaries are upon us. I'd like to offer a few thoughts for those of you in Georgia who are committed to doing your civic duty and voting.

I'm only going to speak to the two statewide races, Governor and Senator. Since most of you are Republicans, I'll cover the Republican as well as the Democratic primaries.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal is running for re-election. He was my congressman for many years, and I was generally happy with him there. However, he has been a serious disappointment as governor, and I urge you to vote for someone else. He was in Washington too long, and has come to care what DC thinks more than he cares what Georgia thinks.

While I think Common Core's math education is more interesting than it is often credited as being, I don't like its social education at all. We would be much better off with local control of school issues in any case. Likewise in terms of 2nd Amendment issues, Deal has focused his attention on Washington, supporting the national NRA over Georgia's local 2nd Amendment groups in every case. Finally, in the snow emergency, his mismanagement came from an assumption about how snow and cities work that derives from having lived up north for a very long time.

If you are a Republican, I would suggest that your best option is David Pennington. If you are a Democrat, there's really only one candidate in the race at all, Jimmy Carter's grandson Jason Carter. At this time we have only his words to rely upon, but he sounds like a very different man from his grandfather. His thoughts on education and the economy at least sound like his heart is in the right place -- especially the focus on small business -- and he refuses to defer to identity politics in favor of freedom of expression, as exemplified by his support for the (purely symbolic) freedom to purchase Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates.

Turning to the Senate, whatever we do let us not send another Senator like the one who is retiring this year. If at all possible, let us elect a Senator who represents the people of the state, rather than the national party to which they belong -- either of those parties.

On the Republican side, the two candidates I tend to favor are Jack Kingston and Paul Broun. Both of these men have been my congressmen at different points. Kingston is the less ideological of the two, and presents himself as the more thoughtful. Broun is probably more reliably attached to conservative interests, but already has a reputation as something of a crackpot. Nevertheless, there are worse things than crackpots who will always vote in line with the common and deeply-held opinions of the people he represents.

On the Democratic side, I think the two candidates who are best are Michelle Nunn and Todd Robinson. Nunn, another heir of the last generation of Southern Democrats, is far more likely to win. Her work with the Bush family's 'Points of Light' group has been the biggest part of her professional life, which indicates a genuine openness not often found at the national level. I think you'll find that she has been devoted to worthy causes throughout. She has a lot of experience building public/private partnerships to effect improvements in Atlanta and elsewhere. In addition to her famous father, the greatly respected Sam Nunn, her current family seems to exemplify the kind of unity and values that suggest a strong moral foundation.

Todd Robinson is a former US Army Ranger. His issues are not the usual ones for a Democratic candidate for Senate: getting people off welfare, improving Veterans' benefits, reducing unemployment. He would likely join the Congressional Black Caucus, and would be a wholesome addition to it in terms of helping to drive it away from its reflexive embrace of hard-left positions.

So that's what I think about the two biggest races this spring. Feel free to tell me what you think in return, especially if you are from the Great State of Georgia yourself.