According to the Yoda of the Numbers, Nate Silver, punditry is not only useless but is comparable to a cardinal sin. Well, either I could turn this blog into a never ending stream of kittens (and make more money than a porn mogul) or I could commit a little sin. I hate cats, so sin it is!
Let's play what if.
The what if is not what if Michelle Nunn wins in next year's Senate election. The slavering national press already has that covered and I've already said I don't believe it will happen. (To be Nate Silver-like, I'd put her chances at about 20%)
Instead, what if after Michelle Nunn, the Georgia Republican Party rests on its laurels believing its shield of righteousness will protect it from all challenges?
What if they start to lose elections?
Sound far fetched? One only has to look at the resolutions of the last Georgia Republican convention - a sop to a specific industry, opposition to an education proposal - to infer that a decade of white washing Democrats has led the Republicans to a place where they are obsessed with the tactical while believing the strategic is a given.
If we accept this as valid, where might another electoral victory lead them? Let's speculate.
2014 - Republicans elect Phil Gingrey/Paul Broun in the primary. Gingrey/Broun beats Michelle Nunn, 52-47
2016 - After two years of Sen. Gingrey/Broun and continued demographics changes, State Rep. Jason Carter uses a strategy focused on not only Metro Atlanta but the other four metro areas (plus Libertarian defections) to narrowly beat U.S. Representative Tom Price for U.S. Senate. Democrats win Gwinnett County for the first time in a generation.
2018 - Using the groundwork laid by the new Senator Carter, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed not only wins Gwinnett but peels off Henry County to decisively beat U.S Rep.Austin Scott and becomes Georgia's first African American governor.
And then the fight really begins. What insiders understand is despite the importance of these races, they are brushwars compared to the all out war that 2020 will be. In that year, whichever party holds the Presidency will be up for re-election, we'll have a census and this will ripple all the way down to the state house where the representatives who will draw the next voting districts will be elected.
If the Democrats hold the governor's mansion and are within striking distance of taking back either side of the Capitol, it will be a bloodfest.
Is that all a little out on a limb? Likely. However, once you leave the fever swamp of over-confidence where the ardent currently wallow, I guarantee there are a few furrowed Republican brows who have pondered these scenarios.
3 comments:
"Little sins" are for amateurs.
This is far better outlined by you than "demographics" is the new black nonsense I keep hearing from others.
As far as races Dems could win in 2014, I bet if someone serious ran for Labor Commissioner and School Super they would do a lot better than some might think. The GOP dislikes their incumbents and these races are a bit off the sexy grid for folks to key onto, so candidates if they were smart, stayed off tv and ran a semi stealth campaign could do very well.
I hate to disount Nunn off the bat, she's only been a candidate for 4 days, but if she wants to win-she's going to need a serious statewide campaign connecting her message to the entire state about what she can do for them. It's not just a partisan connection, it's a community one, and I'm not seeing that yet.
It's fine to talk about gridlock and dysfunction but she has to connect the dots to why that matters if the Senate holds up judicial appointments, or bills that never make a vote because of procedural stalemates.
That Lori Geary interview, lesigh.
Jules
Your "what if" is by no means crazy. Those of us in my party should always operate as if the worst case scenario is going to happen.
I am hopeful that they will. Being shot at, and missed, should focus the mind...not make you think you are invincible.
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