Posted on 05/26/2003 10:00:46 PM PDT by LdSentinal
No one ever thought it would be a cakewalk. From that day in January when Johnny Isakson announced he would run for the U.S. Senate, Tom Perdue started hammering the north metro congressman. Perdue said Isakson favored abortion. Said he was too moderate - make that liberal. Said he was too close to the Democrats. Said he was a liar and a hypocrite.
That was OK at the time. Tom Perdue is a political consultant, not a candidate. ''Brilliant and ruthless,'' The New York Times recently called him. Some observers doubted that consultant Perdue (no relation to Gov. Sonny Perdue) could recruit a suitable candidate/surrogate to wage war on Isakson. They thought he would have to resort to an underfunded crackpot to take on a candidate of Isakson's stature.
That view has changed. Veteran Congressman Mac Collins of Hampton says he will step into the Republican primary ring against Isakson. Perdue will be in Collins' corner.
Stand by for the meanest senatorial contest this state has seen since then-Lt. Gov. Zell Miller tried to oust Sen. Herman Talmadge in 1980.
To say this will be a no-holds-barred battle will be an understatement. Isakson tried once before to run a ''high road'' issues-oriented primary campaign against a Perdue-directed candidate, Guy Millner, for the Senate in 1996. It didn't work. Millner rode roughshod over Isakson, charging him with being a liberal pro-abortionist.
Since then, Isakson has recovered. He has been elected to Congress from Newt Gingrich's old district. Before that, Isakson served as chairman of the state Board of Education. In Washington, Isakson has built a reputation as a team player for President Bush on education, transportation and homeland security. The congressman has raised $2.5 million for the Senate race, which is still more than a year away. He is prepared to do whatever he must to win the seat now occupied by Zell Miller, who is retiring from the Senate.
Collins, first elected to Congress in 1992, has found a comfortable high-profile spot on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He is generally popular with his constituents, never having faced a serious challenge to his re-election. He is the quintessential good old boy. He goes out of his way to contrast himself with the more urbane Isakson.
''I guess I'll do a fly-around to let folks know I'm running for the Senate,'' Collins said the other day. ''But I'd rather do it in a pickup truck than in an airplane. I feel more comfortable in a pickup truck.''
Don't let that aw-shucks stuff fool you. With Perdue in Collins' command center, Collins can be expected to wage a modern air and direct-mail war against Isakson.
Perdue was a paid gunslinger last year in Rep. Saxby Chambliss' successful senatorial bid against incumbent Sen. Max Cleland. But the consultant kept his guns mostly holstered. Cleland unhorsed himself by repeatedly subscribing to the national Democrats' anti-George Bush agenda, even as Bush remained the most popular political figure in the state. Besides, Perdue did not personally detest Cleland. Because of a long-past unpleasant business association with Isakson's family, Perdue makes no bones about his inward animosity toward Isakson.
In the 2004 election, the surface issues are obvious: jobs and the economy, the war on terror, federal spending and, of course, abortion.
But the subliminal question on the GOP ballot may be this: Do you want to vote for a northside metro businessman with a reputation for achievements through compromise? Or do you prefer a down-home kind of guy who feels more at home talking to the boys at the truck stops rather than hobnobbing with the suits in a boardroom?
Of course, both Isakson and Collins may be working on a strategy that presupposes the Senate contest will be all but settled in the Republican primary. Democrats are desperate for candidates.
National Democratic organizers, who seem to have lost their radar for Southern political sensibilities, are beseeching Attorney General Thurbert Baker or Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to go for the Senate. Both are African-Americans and based in metro Atlanta. Geography and race - that's two strikes against them even before they step up to the plate.
The Democrats' best bet might be 3rd District Rep. Jim Marshall, a former Macon mayor with impeccable military credentials. (He was an Airborne Ranger in Vietnam and won two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.) He is a moderate with rural connections. In the last Republican-tilted congressional elections, Democrat Marshall ran against the tide and defeated the GOP's Calder Clay, a Perdue protege. Alas, as a freshman lawmaker with little cachet outside his district, Marshall may be unlikely to leap at the Democrats' Senate '04 invitation, even if it's gilded in campaign gold.
He is pro-life. That makes him an extreme right-wing radical in Democratic Party terms. He also stopped by that "no blood for oil" press conference the Black Caucus was having to say "damn right let's go to war".
But he is plenty liberal in other respects.
I think Perdue must have run over Shipp's cat or dog or maybe grandmother. :-/
I read a lot, study the Almanac of American Politics, and follow what is discussed here from a local perspective on FR. I probably get so immersed in other states' politics that I've often neglected my own. :-P
Well, I'm rather surprised. It seems he keeps his pro-life stance well-hidden. I would still think he scores in the John Lewis range in the GA delegation. If he does run for the Senate, that pro-life stance will either have to go or he might lose in the primary. Pro-lifers just don't have much impact in even Southern 'Rat primaries anymore.
It's painfully evident here that Bill Shipp was the AJC's longtime political analyst. In fact, Isakson himself made his suppoart for "abortion rights" the centerpiece of his failed 1996 campaign. To Shipp and company, this made him a "centrist" or "moderate." To conservative voters in Georgia, it made him a "loser." As he will no doubt be once again in a contest against Mac Collins.
This is complete BS. Marshall just barely eked out a victory in a district that had been carved specifically for himself. He was very much the "overdog."
Isakson tried once before to run a ''high road'' issues-oriented primary campaign against a Perdue-directed candidate, Guy Millner, for the Senate in 1996. It didn't work. Millner rode roughshod over Isakson, charging him with being a liberal pro-abortionist.
Again, this is silly. If Millner won by claiming Isakson was too liberal on abortion, then how is it he was not also running an "issues-oriented" campaign?
This writer seems to know a lot of facts about Georgia politics, and he goes a long way to cover them up.
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