Stirring Up The Waters
originally published February 7, 2007
News of 10th District Congressman Charlie Norwood's health setbacks has stirred political speculation all over the district. Norwood, who in 2004 underwent a lung transplant, has lung cancer and a tumor near his liver. He has been out during most of this new term and received President Bush's good wishes for a speedy recovery during the recent State of the Union address. Norwood is undergoing chemotherapy and is impatient to get back to work.
There is always the chance that his health problems will prevent a return to work, and so, prudent political observers must at least acknowledge the possibilities. At the same time, no one would wish (or want to be perceived as wishing) anything but a speedy recovery for the popular Norwood, formerly a dentist who used his skills on the front lines in Vietnam as an Army captain before setting up his practice in Augusta.
If Norwood should be forced to resign from Congress, Gov. Perdue would call a special, non-partisan election to fill the empty seat until the next general election. Since Norwood, a conservative Republican, was just re-elected to his seventh term in November, the next general election would be in 2008.
For political junkies, discussing an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is the equivalent of throwing corn meal cakes into a catfish pond. At this point, though, the frenzy is purely speculative and of course tempered by the realization that it is far too early for anyone to appear (publicly) interested.
That being said, a potential candidate, should the seat become open, would have to be our own Republican State Senator Ralph Hudgens, who ran against Norwood when Charlie was first elected. Yes: Ralph, who split Athens-Clarke County in two in order to assure the election of Republican Bill Cowsert over Democrat Jane Kidd. The good news is that Ralph would have to resign from the state Senate in order to run for Congress. Another potential candidate is surely former State Senator Brian Kemp, Bill Cowsert's brother-in-law, who vacated the Senate seat Cowsert won, in order to run a (losing) race for the Republican nomination for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture.
And of course, former Athens-Clarke County Mayor Doc Eldridge might run, should the seat come available. Doc has wide contacts around the district and even while he was mayor, pushed for a more compact, Athens-centric district than the previous one which had Athens at one extreme of a district that reached all the way to Savannah.
When the Republicans in the Georgia legislature re-drew the districts, they moved Athens-Clarke into Norwood's 10th District, forcing Democratic Congressman John Barrow to move to Savannah, where he narrowly won re-election in his re-drawn 12th District. Now, Athens is safely within the fold of a heavily Republican district that stretches from the Augusta suburbs all the way to the North Carolina line, comprising primarily rural and small-town counties.
The district belongs to Norwood for as long as he wants it, but should he resign, the prospect of a non-partisan election means that Democrats are not automatically out of the running. Columbia County jeweler Terry Holley ran against Norwood in the last election, garnering 32 percent of the vote. State Representative Allen Powell, from Hartwell, is a conservative Democrat who beat back a strong Republican challenge in the last election. Former Athens Mayor Gwen O'Looney has name recognition. Newly elected State Democratic Party Chair Jane Kidd grew up in Lavonia, in the heart of the district, and now lives in Athens.
A candidate who could draw well in Athens would start with a strong base, but so would an Augusta-area candidate such as State Rep. Barry Fleming, from Columbia County, who is said to have the support of the powerful Rep. Ben Harbin, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
An open Congressional seat to be filled by a non-partisan, special election simply opens a Pandora's Box of possibilities. For instance, if Brian Kemp doesn't run for Congress but Ralph Hudgens does, Kemp could run for Hudgens' State Senate post (they're in the same district now) to return to the Senate and take his seat alongside his brother-in-law.
But it's a big district, with some well-known political players, like Jackson County's Gary Black, who beat Brian Kemp in the Republican Primary for Agriculture Commissioner but lost to longtime Democratic incumbent Tommy Irvin. Also from Jackson County, there's Mike Beatty, who ran for Lt. Governor and is presently head of the State Department of Community Affairs.
Who knows? Mayor Heidi Davison? Commissioner Elton Dodson? Charlie Maddox? For that matter, Zell Miller lives in this district, and Hershel Walker will apparently have a unit in the new luxury football condos now building on East Broad Street. And a candidate is not even required to live in the district, so it's completely wide open. Newt Gingrich could come over and run, if he decides he's not ready to be president. Lake Oconee is in the district, and all that money might coalesce behind a candidate of their choosing.
Should the occasion arise, whoever runs will have to be committed to a fast, hard campaign in a crowded field that will surely spill over into a runoff. And whoever is elected will have to start running immediately for re-election, shuttling back and forth from Washington every week and fanning out over the gigantic district, constantly politicking and begging for money, foregoing family life.
Charlie Norwood is still the Congressman from the 10th District. That's a fact. The rest, at this point, is just a tempest in a catfish pond.
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