Posted on 09/06/2002 3:23:57 AM PDT by from occupied ga
(Atlanta, September 5) -- Georgia gun owners won a huge victory two weeks ago, although it still hasn't sunk in yet for many people.
Georgia House pro-gun leader Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta) won re-election to the statehouse in a victory that can only be described as a "stunning upset." By winning the Republican primary, he faces no Democrat opposition in November.
After the Democrat party bosses enacted their twisted re-apportionment scheme last fall, Bobby Franklin was given "zero chance" for re-election according to veteran political observers.
The Democrat-drawn reapportionment scheme virtually re-districted Bobby "into the next county" where he had to run against an entrenched Republican opponent.
Gov. Barnes had already released his political "hit list" naming Bobby Franklin as a top target. The bosses thought it would be real funny to have somebody from Bobby's own party finish him off.
But they aren't laughing now. Bobby's previous district had enough liberals that he was only getting elected by a narrow margin. His new district is far more conservative. Now that he's the incumbent, it looks like he'll be a thorn in the side of the bosses for years to come.
But for the longest, it looked like the bosses would prevail.
Bobby Franklin had served 3 terms as the State Representative from northeast Cobb County, an area that was developed years ago, and hasn't changed much. But just to the north of Bobby's old district, in Cherokee County, suburban development was booming.
The explosive growth in South Cherokee meant they should get two State House districts instead of one. The incumbent Rep. was Chuck Scheid (R-Woodstock), a two-faced gun rights compromiser who ran with the country club set. Scheid was a key player in the Cherokee County Republican organization.
Instead of splitting up the area fairly, the state Democrat bosses created a new, vacant district to the west. Then they fashioned a second district by extending the remainder of Scheid's old district down into Cobb County to include Bobby Franklin's house. That way, Bobby was forced to run against incumbent Chuck Scheid in a re-drawn district that was mostly in Cherokee County.
The Cherokee County Republican bosses were used to running their own show and they sure didn't want a hardliner like Rep. Franklin coming in and poking through their business. They were going to pull out all the stops to make sure he didn't win. Conventional wisdom said Bobby Franklin didn't have a chance.
Somebody just forgot to tell that to Bobby.
This past June, Rep. Franklin helped instruct dozens of activists at the CSG Grass-Roots Training Seminar. They were so fired up that a bunch of them got together a few weeks later to help Bobby with his campaign.
The trained volunteers helped Bobby carry the campaign into enemy territory--Chuck Scheid's home turf. And Bobby kept pace with Mr. Scheid in fundraising, matching him dollar for dollar.
By the beginning of August, incredibly, the race had shaped up into a dead heat.
That's when the alarms went off. Earlier this year, Cherokee County Rep. Steve Stancil (R-canton) resigned to run for Lt. Governor. GOA life member Brian Korff ran in a special election to replace him, and lost by 7 votes.
Nobody worked harder for the Brian Korff campaign than pro-gun leader Rep. Bobby Franklin. Losing by 7 votes was a heartbreaker, and gun owners weren't going to let it happen again.
The call went out for help, and word spread quickly through a network of Georgia gun owners.
By the final week of the campaign, more volunteers were flooding into the field for Bobby Franklin.
Alarmed by increasing reports that Franklin people were going door-to-door in South Cherokee, Scheid took a big chance.
He fired off a district-wide mailing claiming he had the endorsement of Cherokee County municipal leaders, fellow members of the Georgia House, State Senators, local Congressmen, and even President George W. Bush. All of these lies were untrue.
Coming down at the last minute, without any chance for rebuttal, Scheid's whopper should have put him over the top. Bobby Franklin had fought the favorite to a draw, but at a price: by the final week, the Franklin campaign was out of money.
Then two things happened: Scheid's big mailing arrived a day early--on Thursday. And out of nowhere, a wave of contributions poured in from gun owners who couldn't come to help in person.
The Franklin campaigners worked around the clock to secure written denials of the bogus endorsements alleged by Scheid. At 6 am Saturday morning, Bobby Franklin walked into the rear of the Woodstock Post Office with a 9000-piece mailing. By Saturday afternoon, virtually every voter in South Cherokee had delivery of his response.
Franklin's counter-blow was devastating. The rest is history.
On election night, Rep. Franklin quickly piled up a thousand-vote lead early in the Cobb portion of the district. But tension mounted as the hours ticked away with no report from Cherokee, Scheid's home base with twice as many voters. Finally, at 1 am Wednesday morning, the results came in.
Chuck Scheid won Cherokee, but by less than 200 votes. Overall, he was blown away in a near landslide, managing only 42 percent.
A stunned Mr. Scheid told the newspapers: "Apparently this is some kind of sign the residents weren't happy with the job I was doing."
Bobby Franklin attributed the victory, first and foremost, to divine providence.
But CSG President Marston Tuck had a different twist. "That's only half the story," the CSG leader said.
"In the Grassroots Activist School, where we were trained, they give you something like the Ten Commandments, but for the public policy process."
The final law on the list says this:
"Pray as if it all depended on God; work as if it all depended on you."
I need to look into exactly where the GA 45th Senate District is at. I keep hearing the ads on radio for the two Republican women in the run-off, and they seem to be running as fast as they can to the right. "Pro 2nd Amendment" in one, "100% NRA voting record" in the other, etc. Maybe I need to move!
Bump!
This is a classic! Congratulations to all Georgians who fought this battle on Bobby's behalf.
Excellent!!
You don't say? :-)
When I saw that I was tempted to edit it, but I posted it as it was sent. :-)
Scheid is a liberal republican of the Bush sort. It was good to see him get his walking papers.
Odd. The newspapers didn't pass that along to me.
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