Candidates set rules at privatized rallies

In August 2014, citizen-journalist Nydia Tisdale was at a pumpkin-farm gathering of the Republican general election ticket in north Georgia, a public event on private property.

Gov. Nathan Deal was in the audience. Tisdale was close by, her video camera pointed at the stage and state Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, a man with a reputation for impolitic statements that play well on YouTube. Organizers panicked. At least one other journalist was on the scene, but Tisdale was the only one singled out and told to stop recording. When she didn’t, a Dawson County sheriff ’s deputy dragged her away, pinned her face-down on a nearby table, placed her in handcuffs and tossed her in the hoosegow.

Attorney General Sam Olens took the stage soon afterwards, and while he used more polite phrasing, in essence wondered aloud whether his fellow Republicans had lost their minds.

Last Tuesday, Tisdale was arraigned on charges associated with the event. The arresting deputy, by the way, is on the May primary ballot. He’s running for sheriff.

“I would suspect there are a number of issues, including First Amendment issues, that have to be litigated pretty thoroughly,” said Bruce Harvey, Tisdale’s attorney.

“Some of the issues of the case are going to be whether it was a public or private event, and whether she had permission or not. And then the overreaction. There are a number of issues to work through,” he said.

It isn’t often that Georgia Republicans are pioneers. But in this case, they were 18 months ahead of the curve. The incident at Burt’s Pumpkin Farm in Dawsonville was, in fact, a precursor to a new,

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