Eggs And Issues

originally published March 7, 2007

It was déja vu all over again: Doc and me at Mama’s Boy for breakfast, with the Cobbham crowd in the corner making comments like a Greek chorus. Disclosures up front: we pay for our own breakfast; the restaurant keeps a big bottle of Doc’s favorite hot sauce, which he uses liberally; I like Doc, and that clouds my political judgement; I share his belief that we need a Congressman from Athens. I’m not sure I’ll vote for Doc until I see what the Democrats do; Doc’s not sure he’ll run, in part depending on what the Democrats do.

The point of all this egg eating is that there is an open seat in the 10th District of the United States Congress in Washington, DC. That’s an event rarer than a total eclipse of the moon, and it causes a tidal pull on politics. A Congressman represents a certain geographical area of a state—the district—in the national legislature. In the 21-county 10th District, the Congressperson or his or her staff can run interference for citizens with Social Security problems or lobbyists needing favors while at the same time voting on matters of national interest like war, immigration, health care, education, etc. A Congressman is in a position to help people—little people as well as big people, though of course we all know that big people have big problems and contribute big money to Congressional campaigns so they can get help big-time.

You will surely remember that 10th District Congressman Charlie Norwood died shortly after being elected to his seventh term in Congress. The Augusta part of the district is the most populous and the richest. Those suburban Republicans expect to continue controlling this Congressional seat, and the Governor and the Georgia legislative leadership agree with them on that. They’re behind State Senator Jim Whitehead, a tire dealer and former Columbia County Commission Chairman. When I asked Sen. Whitehead what he sees as the main issues in the campaign, he said the number-one issue is “how many ball games are the University of Georgia bulldogs going to win.”(Well, okay, he played football here, and you know how people use football to connect with us Athens folks.) Whitehead mentioned three important issues: “Education is always big, big, big;” responsibility for the way we spend the taxpayers’money; reform for illegal immigration. “I’m not against immigration, just illegal immigration.” Whitehead also said we can’t hogtie our troops and should let them win the war.

His fellow State Senator from down our way, Ralph Hudgens, is also in this race and nobody’s going to talk him out of it. Ralph ran for Congress in South Georgia and then he moved up here to run for Congress twice, almost beating Norwood in the Republican Primary runoff in 1994 when Norwood won his first term in Congress. Ralph is a Christian Coalition conservative who was a big supporter of Ralph Reed for Lt. Governor. Hudgens is the guy who split Athens-Clarke County into two senatorial districts to dilute our Democratic vote; his conservative ideology tells him exactly where he stands on the issues: win the war, send the illegal aliens home, defeat efforts to raise the minimum wage. (Recently, as committee chairman, he singlehandedly killed legislation to raise Georgia’s minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.) Ralph’s got 11 years experience in government and during that time has represented 14 of the 21 counties in the district. He says that when Norwood beat him in 1994, two-thirds of the votes were in the Augusta area; now, two-thirds are in Athens and north of here.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are grasping at straws trying to come up with a candidate at least attractive enough to help them build up grassroots voting strength. In football parlance, this is a re-building year for the Democrats, without much expectation of winning. Columbia County jeweler Terry Holley, a moderate Democrat, is already running, but, considering his poor showing last time, the Democrats want to find a stronger candidate.

So, what would you do if you were Doc? You love politics, love to be involved, enjoy meeting people and campaigning, would love to be in Congress and don’t dread the chief burden of that office, the constant campaigning for the elections that come up every two years. On the other hand, the Republican leadership is committed to somebody else and is telling you not to run. The Democrats don’t trust you, even though you ran for office three times as a Democrat. And then there’s the daunting task of raising a half-million dollars or more to get the word out.

My hunch is that Doc will run. When opportunity opens, you go for it or spend the rest of your life wondering. As a political junkie, I hope he does it, but I worry about his running in a high-stakes fixed race. Win or lose, though, a campaign will keep his adrenalin going and get him back into the action, leading who knows where?

Pete McCommons