Egg On My Face

originally published March 21, 2007

Well, I said nobody was going to talk Ralph Hudgens out of the 10th District Congressional race, and he talked himself out of it. I also said my hunch was that our former Mayor Doc Eldridge would get into the race, but he’s not. Doc told me at Mama’s Boy Friday morning that he’s not going to run. Period. Except that Doc is politically sophisticated enough to know that it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and there’s a lot of time between now and the closing of qualifying, and, look at Ralph: anything can happen. In other words, Doc’s leaving the door cracked just enough that if the wind shifts, it could still blow open.

Doc really wants to run, but he’s also a realist, and he has talked to a lot of people with deep political experience. They have basically told him that it’s a slam dunk. The Republican movers and shakers and power brokers have coagulated behind Augusta-area State Senator Jim Whitehead, and they have basically frozen Doc out by now. A month ago, when the incumbent Congressman Charlie Norwood died and the moving and shaking began, Doc was tied up with the eventual death of his mother-in-law. By the time he could again turn his attention to politics, the deal was done.

Whitehead seems to be a big old good old boy, and being big and old (64) makes it hard to run. Of course, they’ll raise enough money to sell him like soap, and he won’t have to do more than show up at your local Rotary with remarks prepared by his team. That’s just as well, because as the Banner-Herald’s Jim Thompson has cleverly shown on his new blog, Whitehead is liable to say anything on his own. (Jim resurrected an old Whiteheadism to the effect that the University of Georgia is run by a bunch of liberals and if it weren’t for the football team he wouldn’t care if the whole place was bombed out of existence, or words to that effect.)

The whole Republican field of announced candidates is running so far to the right that you could drive an RV full of Democrats down the middle of the road and pick up enough decent folk to at least get into a runoff. Newly-elected state Democratic Party Chair Jane Kidd is driving the effort to find an attractive Democratic candidate. I think Jane herself is plenty attractive; she could do a good job of grassroots party building if she would run. She grew up in Lavonia, where she served on the city council. Her daddy was Governor Vandiver, and she has lived in what is now the 10th District all her life, except when she was boarding in the Governor’s Mansion. But she says she can’t do it, and she says the Democrats have three or four possible candidates, including Terry Holley, the Augusta-area jeweler who ran a plucky campaign against Norwood last time; Denise Freeman, from Lincolnton, who has also run before; James Marlow, from Lincolnton and Atlanta; and Evita Paschall, an Augusta lawyer, has also announced her interest in running. Probably the strongest candidate, who is not in it at the present time, is Jeff Reynolds, a Chaplain at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, who used to be the Moderator of the 10th District Presbyterian Synod and is beloved by Democrats and Republicans alike. A Democrat and a Christian!

Close readers of this column will recall that my and Doc’s scrambled-egg political jawboning has taken place before the backdrop of the Cobbham brains trust in the corner (this week graced by former school board member Jackie Saindon celebrating her birthday with her husband, anthropology prof. Steve Kowalewski). The Cobbhamites, who have had their political differences with Doc in the past, have been cordial and encouraging and have even indicated their possible support for Doc, in the absence of an attractive Athens Democrat.

Tipped to the news that Doc’s not running, the neighborhood nabobs finally revealed the name of their own favorite-son candidate: Milton Leathers.

If Doc and Jane won’t run, why not Milton? Milton is the spirit of Athens even more than the statue at City Hall by that name: like Pericles (or at least Alcibiades), the quintessential Athenian, given, like Socrates, to rambling around Athens engaging its citizens in discourse. Milton, moreover, is the direct descendent of, among many illustrious Georgians, Howell Cobb, the Athenian who served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Election to Congress would be a homecoming for Milton and the continuation of his noble line in those hallowed halls. Milton, moreover, now lives in Jackson County, giving him a feel for the more rural parts of the district. We need an Athens candidate in this race, and you can’t get more Athens than Milton.

Of course, Doc could still get in it. The Republican leaders have put all their eggs into Whitehead’s basket, but who knows what that slam dunk will hatch before this omelet gets made?

Pete McCommons, Editor & Publisher

editor@flagpole.com