Post-election
Musings
Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA), Dec. 10, 2022
On what happened
this week …
“Blue
must be the color of the blues,” twanged George Jones back in the 20th
century. Republicans of the 21st century are now moaning, “Blue must
be the color of Cobb County, Georgia,” a county that once upon a time was
called Newt country. Cobb was once to metro Atlanta as Orange County was to
California, a bastion of conservatism beside a sea of liberalism.
Cobb County gave more votes this past week to
Democrat Raphael Warnock than to Republican Herschel Walker. Cobb County is a
highly educated county with a high standard of living. It is the home of large
conservative churches and of an aircraft company that has long fueled the
nation’s military might. Cobb is known for its good schools, the school board
of which currently has a Republican majority membership.
But,
today more securely than ever, Cobb County is governed by non-Republicans. As
the saying goes, “the old order changeth.” Currently Cobb is 27% Black. The Cobb County Commission is predominately
Democratic as is the county’s legislative delegation to the General Assembly.
Its sheriff and county attorney, both Blacks, are Democrats. These developments
in Cobb County will certainly be given strength by the victory of Warnock.
On
why it happened …
Was
it that bundles of voters in Dawg Nation defected? One’s guess may be as good
as another’s. Many voters in Cobb were concerned about the quality and the
preparedness of the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker. Frankly, this is a
new concern. Neophytes have generally been attractive to Americans generally.
Sometimes the only way to get rascals out, the thinking goes, is to get new
blood in, preferably candidates who have had absolutely no experience and are
not tainted by “the system.”
As
for a candidate’s level of intelligence or mental capacity, four simple
specific things are necessary for success in a legislative body: the ability to
read, to weigh and thoughtfully consider legislative proposals (bills), to
influence/argue/persuade others, and to keep close contact with one’s
constituents. Oratorical skills and a brain like Einstein’s are not required
for political success. Neither, regrettably, is hard work. Lazy legislators can
ride for decades on backslapping, winking, and even devious behavior, but even
if they are honored at their funerals, their poison has been spread. The
numbers of such hangers-on who don’t take politics seriously and are not in it
to improve people’s lives are legion. Often, thankfully, the successful
politicians are the quieter ones who work hard, care for people, and stay in
touch with them. If Walker was misjudged for intellectual incapacity, his
defeat was a travesty.
Doubts
about Walker were surely not the only reason for his defeat. There were other
issues. One wonders if college student voters age 18 to 22 didn’t turn out in
droves because of Warnock’s support of President Biden’s college student loan
forgiveness, one of the most unfair ideas progressives have ever proposed.
There are many thousands of college students and graduates in Georgia,
particularly in Cobb County. Although the President’s forgiveness plan was
tabled just before the election (Biden must have gotten the message that
non-college folks don’t like the idea of paying for someone else’s college
education), college students may have been trusting Biden when he said he would
resume pushing the issue come spring.
If
Walker’s personal issues were the chief concern of Republicans who abandoned
him, let’s hope that they railed against the personal lives of John F. Kennedy,
Bill Clinton, and all the Warren G. Harding- type Republicans whose lives
weren’t always exemplary.
On what it forebodes …
So
Georgia has gone blue. Or maybe she hasn’t. Georgia has two liberal U.S.
Senators who are already vigorously pursuing the progressive agenda, but
Governor Kemp is still popular. If he challenges Ossoff, we might see that the
Warnock-Walker election was not a contest of political philosophy as much as a
contest of personalities. Many voters like Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan declined
to vote for either candidate.
What
we can be sure of is that Georgia’s two Senators will chase the false,
misleading trinity of diversity/equity/ inclusion while ignoring the invasion
of our southern border. They will promote homosexual marriage which Warnock’s
Bible forbids and will be hunky-dory with requiring bakers to decorate cakes
for homosexual weddings. They will stay tight with the deniers of free speech,
labeling the things they disagree with as dis-information. They will be ok with
a woke military and with the sexualization of our children and grandchildren
via sheer, bald-faced indoctrination.
But
that’s what Georgians chose and both Warnock and Ossoff will deliver.
Roger Hines
December 8, 2022
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