Back then, almost every politician in GA was a Democrat. Jim Tysinger and a few others in the state house were about it, on the Republican side.
I think that there was some specific point in time that most Democrats became rabid senseless dogs at the beck and call of their own party’s venomous ambitions.
It didn’t get to that point with Macdonald because he was killed, but it did for Zell Miller. It ended up with him writing a book called “A National Party No More,” I believe. I have a signed copy of it my best friend got for me.