Posted on 05/31/2002 4:59:02 AM PDT by CFW
Sure, the world changed after 9/11. But did the 4th District change enough for U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney to be in real trouble?
Skeptics who have watched McKinney over a decade of congressional elections will be prone to think not. Running in districts that have changed dramatically in configuration, her election performance has been as dependable as her national image has been controversial.
The last time McKinney had a Democratic primary challenge, she handily defeated three white male opponents. Is there any reason to suspect Denise Majette, a little-known former state judge, has any better shot in the Aug. 20 primary?
Enter Alan Secrest, who has conducted a poll for the Majette campaign.
It's no secret Secrest's most prominent former client in the state is U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, who appointed Majette to a judgeship and has had little good to say lately of McKinney. But Secrest has a long track record in Georgia to point to for validation and says he hasn't talked with Miller about this race. And he says there is an upset in the making.
Although her name recognition is only 28 percent, Secrest says, Majette led McKinney 41 percent to 37 percent, with 22 percent undecided.
The first salt to pour on what Secrest acknowledges to be a "dramatic" finding is that, in the words of state Rep. Ron Sailor Jr. (D-Decatur), it's "very, very, very, very, very, early," and the high undecided number leaves McKinney plenty to work with.
The poll of 509 "likely Democratic primary voters" was conducted May 5-7, so it was taken before the latest round of stories about FBI warnings prior to 9/11, which McKinney has claimed as vindication for her comments suggesting President Bush withheld information about the attacks to enrich his friends.
But Secrest said the poll reflects an "absolutely abysmal" incumbent profile for McKinney and suggested her strong African-American base has been weakened. He wouldn't divulge the percentage of black voters in this survey other than to say they were a majority. Had it been weighted to increase the percentage of African-American voters by another 5 percent, he added, McKinney would still be in no better than a tie.
"Broad swaths of the primary electorate have already written [McKinney] off, and where she had not been written off, she's bleeding," Secrest said.
About the swath of the electorate that could be crucial to this race -- African-American women -- Secrest had nothing more to say. At this stage it would be hard for any poll to give a solid read on it, but the big question in this race is whether McKinney's demographic advantage breaks down in a race against another African-American Democratic woman.
The GOP blood-pressure level regarding this particular Democratic incumbent is enough to guarantee some crossover votes, but this seldom turns out to be decisive.
DeKalb County's politics usually divide along north-south, black-white lines. But in this election an east-west division is also coming into focus: the political differences between the more affluent, predominantly African-American suburbs on the eastern side of the county, and the older neighborhoods closer to the city of Atlanta.
It says something about trends in the county that when Majette stepped down from her judgeship there were nearly 40 applications to fill the spot from within her district. To turn any poll into a reality, Majette has to do very well within the rapidly growing professional ranks from which these applications came.
But Majette also has to makes some inroads on McKinney in the less affluent neighborhoods to the west, where McKinney has always rolled up big numbers.
If the poll is accurate, she'll be needing them.
She is a stain on the House of Represenatives
Here's the link
Merely one of many, however, there are some good "stain" removers available.
"....but the big question in this race is whether McKinney's demographic advantage breaks down in a race against another African-American Democratic woman.
"A hyphenated American is not an American at all.
This is just as true of the man who puts 'Native' before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or French before the hyphen.
Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul.
Our allegiance must be purely to the United States.
We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance."
Theodore Roosevelt... 1915
And do you realize how low you have to go to look worse than Congress....
I'm guessing they send a bus around to all the projects and welfare offices to take them to the polling places. Then they make sure that even if they can't read, they can at least recognize Mckinney on the ballot.
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