The coming election runoff
The Democrats have now invested over $20 Million in a 30-yearold young man in Congressional District Six in Georgia. This is forcing the Republicans to raise money for Karen Handel, and I am getting about four emails each day asking for a donation. I have sent a small donation and may send another one. Some of this money has gone to mailers which has been a good uplift for the U. S. Postal Service, but most of it has gone to TV advertisements.
At the Georgia State Republican Convention in Augusta recently, there was a telephone bank of several lines with a list of telephone numbers beside of each phone for people to call. They asked each person to call 15 numbers before they left the telephone. As far as I know they had enough volunteers to keep the telephones going about ten hours each day for two days.
No one can trust the polls since they were so far off on President Trump’s campaign. They are sponsored by the news organizations and they are reporting that Ossoff is leading by about 2 percent. In the General Election, they predicted that Ossoff was going to win without a runoff. The Republicans had twelve candidates in the race but when you total the split vote they accumulated about 52 percent of the vote.
A Liberal Judge allowed voter registration between the General Election and the Runoff for the first time in history. The citizens in the district that were not registered were more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, but both parties have been registering new voters.
Nancy Pelosi has been the moving force behind this particular race. There have already been several elections to fill Congressional seats left by President Trump’s appointments. They were all Republican seats and the Republicans kept all of them. Nancy Pelosi believes that the whole country believes like she does and the election of Donald Trump was just a fluke. This Sixth District Seat was the former seat of Newt Gingrich and Tom Price and it would be a real coup for Nancy Pelosi to take this seat away from the Republicans.
Very little was learned about Jon Ossoff before the General Election because the Republicans believed that the election would have a runoff and the Republican that came out on top would win the runoff, so they concentrated on the Republicans in the race. Some of the claims Ossoff made have been found to be untrue. He never had the security clearance that he claimed. His part in searching for dishonesty in government was to produce the video that told the story. He was not in charge of the investigations. It was determined that he did not live in the district that he wishes to represent. He is not married and lives with his girlfriend near Emory University. This will not sit well with a lot of the churches in the Sixth District.
The months of April, May and June are convention time in the Republican Party. It started out in April with a Gordon County Convention an,d elected a new set of officers. This is generating new enthusiasm and plans for building up the party for the 2018 elections. Kathleen Thorman is the new Chairman of the Gordon County Republican Party. This was followed in May with a 14th District Republican Convention where a new chairman and officers were elected. Ed Painter from Dalton is the new District Chairman. This is also generating a lot of excitement with plans for improving the county parties and helping them to get out the vote in the Governor’s race in 2018. Five Republican candidates have already announced for the governor’s race and others may join them.
On June 2 the Georgia State Republican Convention opened with about 2500 people present and over 1550 official delegates to conduct the business of the party. On Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. it was one speech after another from folks running for office and folks serving in offices that wanted recognition for the things they had accomplished. On Friday evening there were a number of parties sponsored by folks running for positions in the state party. On Saturday morning it was time to get up early, get breakfast and check out of the motel so that it was possible to arrive at the Convention Center in time to get a good parking place to cut down on the walking distance at the end of a long day.
Saturday is the business day of the convention. Additional speakers begin at 10 a.m. and go until close to noon. At noon the voting begins. The first thing that happens is that the elected chairman appoints a Convention Chairman to conduct the business of the convention. The first item of business is to establish the number of delegates present. Any county that has open delegate positions can put alternates in place at this time. This can take a considerable amount of time since the State of Georgia has 159 Counties. After this there is a report on how many delegates are present so that it is established what the number of votes are required for a vote to be decided. Next there is a vote on any rules changes. After this is settled, the elections begin. The chairman reads the slate of nominations from the nominating committee. When this is accepted, the election for the Chairman of the State Party begins. The floor is opened to additional nominations to the slate nominee. There were three additional nominations so that there were four in the election. The rules say that on any ballot where no one candidate gets 50 percent plus one vote the lowest candidate drops out of the race and the remaining are voted upon. On the third ballot which was between two candidates a winner was decided. The counting of the votes was unbelievably slow which made many of us suspicious that something fishy was going on. The candidate that most of the delegates from our area were supporting came out in the number two position and John Watson was elected as chairman for the next two years. The rest of the positions were voted with a standing vote and went rapidly but it was after 6 p m and a number of us started home before all of the activities were completed. The State Party is again “The Establishment” and the rest of our group will work as a 14th District Party where all of us have a voice.