Celebrities, politicians focus on georgia
THE HOTTEST RACE IN THE U.S. MIDTERMS ATTRACTS CELEBRITIES AND CONTROVERSY
In a rousing speech in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Atlanta, Oprah Winfrey urged voters on Thursday to make history next week by electing Stacey Abrams to the office of governor. The race for the Georgia governor’s office is one of America’s premier midterm matchups and is a neck-and-neck battle between Abrams, an unapologetic liberal — aiming to become the first black governor in U.S. history — and Brian Kemp, a staunch conservative who has embraced Donald Trump and the administration’s hardline on immigration.
A host of stars have — or will descend — on the state in the run-up to the election which has been marred with allegations of attempts to disenfranchise voters of colour.
In Georgia, election officials have suspended more than 50,000 applications to register to vote, most of them for black voters, under a rigorous Republican-backed law that requires personal information to exactly match driver’s licence or Social Security records.
“The myth of voter fraud is used by those who wish to curtail the right to vote of specific populations, usually minority voters,” said Ezra Rosenberg, an attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a participant in a lawsuit filed Thursday that seeks to block the “exact match” registration law.
Kemp, who as Georgia Secretary of State enforces state election laws, said the focus on the suspended voter registrations was a crisis manufactured by his Democratic opponent.
“While outside agitators disparage this office and falsely attack us, we have kept our heads down and remained focused on ensuring secure, accessible, and fair elections for all voters,” he said in a statement last week in which he touted Georgia’s record number of registered voters. On Thursday, Winfrey called Abrams a “changemaker” who represented the values of all Georgians.
“I am here today because Stacey Abrams cares about the things that matter,” she said to a mostly female audience north of downtown Atlanta. About 120 kilometres north, Vice-President Mike Pence stood alongside Kemp, in Dalton, and mocked the billionaire media icon as just another liberal outsider trying to impose on Republicanrun Georgia.
“Stacey Abrams is being bankrolled by Hollywood liberals,” Pence said, after drawing boos when he mentioned that “Oprah is in town” and noted that actor Will Ferrell was recently in the state for Democrats.
“I’d like to remind Stacey and Oprah and Will Ferrell, I’m kind of a big deal, too,” Pence said, adding “a message for all Stacey Abrams’ liberal friends: This ain’t Hollywood. This is Georgia.” Former president Barack Obama will follow on Friday for Abrams. President Donald Trump will appear with Kemp on Sunday. Abrams has tried to draw new voters to the polls and prove that Georgia’s growth and diversity make it a legitimate two-party battleground.
She touts her experience working with Republicans as a state legislative leader, but she doesn’t back down on her promises to expand Medicaid insurance, prioritize public education and push for tighter gun restrictions.
Kemp wields guns in his ads and lambastes Abrams as a tool of “socialists” and “billionaires” who “want to turn Georgia into California.” Both candidates have taken to describing the race as a battle for “the soul of our state.”
For her part, Winfrey sought to cut through the party-line framing.
The entertainment icon, who rarely makes political endorsements, drew cheers when she said she’s a registered independent who was not in Georgia at anyone’s request.
“I paid to come here myself, and I approved this message,” Winfrey said, explaining that she tracked down Abrams’ cellphone number and called her to say she wanted to offer assistance in the final days of the campaign.
She added a note to the throng of media gathered for the event, urging against any reboot of recent speculation that she might run for president in 2020.
“I’m not here because I’m making some grandstand for myself. I don’t want to run. I’m not testing the waters,” she said.
As a black woman, Winfrey noted her kinship to two groups historically denied ballot access in the United States. She recalled generations of black Americans who faced “lynching … oppression … suppression,” and declared that “their blood has seeped into my DNA” and forced her to the polls. Then she encouraged women of all races — “sisters ... not just ‘sistahs,”’ she joked — to remember that they would have been “just a piece of property” with no ballot barely a century ago. Kemp is trying to extend the Republican domination in Georgia, which hasn’t elected a Democrat as governor since 1998. He’s banking on running up wide margins outside metro Atlanta and holding most of the GOP votes closer to the city. Goosing a GOP base that holds Trump and Pence in high regard is key to the approach. The voting may not end Tuesday. Under Georgia’s rules, if neither major candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote, the top two candidates will face each other in a run-off Dec. 4.