Publisher's Note: One of the most significant things you can do to promote Liberty is to support our mission. Please make your gift to the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you! —Mark Alexander, Publisher

May 25, 2017

A Portentous Election in the Peach State

By the time Georgia’s 6th District votes in the June 20 special congressional election, $40 million — perhaps more than $130 per ballot — will have been spent to pick one-435th of one-half of one of the three branches of one of America’s governments. This is an expensive funeral for Tip O’Neill’s incessantly quoted and increasingly inapplicable axiom that “All politics is local.”

By the time Georgia’s 6th District votes in the June 20 special congressional election, $40 million — perhaps more than $130 per ballot — will have been spent to pick one-435th of one-half of one of the three branches of one of America’s governments. This is an expensive funeral for Tip O'Neill’s incessantly quoted and increasingly inapplicable axiom that “All politics is local.”

If the slender shoulders of the Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, occasionally sag, this is not just from understandable fatigue — on a recent morning he had just deplaned from an 18-hour fundraising sprint to New York. They bear the weight of his party’s hopes of recapturing a portion of national power — control of the House of Representatives — almost 18 months from now.

Democrats’ shoulders should slump if they cannot win at this propitious moment and in this congenial place. Republicans are tethered to the serial pratfalls of a president who preens as Zarathustra but emulates Buster Keaton. Last November, while Hillary Clinton was losing Georgia by 5.1 points, she lost this district by just 1.5 points. (Sixty percent of Americans live in districts that Clinton or Donald Trump carried by at least 20 points.) Ten times this district made Newt Gingrich its gift to the nation, and seven times it elected Tom Price — twice unopposed — with an average of 76.1 percent. (His departure to be secretary of health and human services occasioned this election.)

It is, however, the sort of place Democrats must win — affluent, more than 70 percent white — if they are to achieve the net gain of 24 seats necessary to retake the House. Republicans represent 23 districts that Clinton won. Nationally, the generic congressional poll — asking: Would you prefer Congress controlled by Democrats or Republicans? — favors Democrats, 46.2 to 39.2 percent.

Ossoff began his campaign with a vinegary slogan — “Make Trump Furious” — but has become militantly vanilla, standing foursquare against government waste and for (herewith a smattering of anodyne rhetoric from his conversation) being “calm,” “dignified,” “level-headed,” and “not just another rock thrower,” and advancing “core values,” “fiscal responsibility” and “unity.” Apparently, Democrats’ learning curve is not quite flat: They have learned from Clinton’s debacle that the cohort of people who are undecided about Trump is vanishingly small, so talk about something else.

Ossoff, who someday will look his current age (30) and is proud that he owns only two suits, moved four miles from undergraduate life at Georgetown University to a congressional staff job. His Republican opponent, Karen Handel, 55, is what a pro-Ossoff ad stigmatizes her as, and what he might aspire to be, a “career politician.” She has lost more elections than she has won, but has been elected statewide as secretary of state.

The average voter turnout in the last six presidential elections (1996-2016) was 58.6 percent, and it was 39.1 percent in the last five midterm elections (1998-2014). But because dissatisfaction is a more powerful motivator than contentment, the party not holding the presidency usually sees improved turnout. Trump might resemble Barack Obama in one way: Many of his voters might not show up when his name is not on the ballot.

Last month, in the 18-candidate jungle primary, Ossoff received 48.1 percent, just 1.9 percent short of the 50 percent that would have given him the seat. He won more votes (92,390) than the Democratic candidate received in the 2014 general election (71,400). Handel endorsed the House bill to replace Obamacare, a bill that helped to make Obamacare more popular than Obama’s campaigning for it did. Neither candidate is dwelling on health care, probably because, as a certain savant has said, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

Handel finished second in the primary with 19.8 percent. Ossoff captured 64 percent of early and absentee voters — those who could not wait to express their dismay about things. What Clinton largely failed to do last year, her 2016 opponent has done this year — energize Democrats.

And Democrats, who are situational ethicists regarding money in politics, provided Ossoff enough to enable him to provide free Lyft rides for some primary voters. If he wins on June 20, Democrats probably will benefit in fundraising and candidate recruitment, giving them high hopes for big gains in 2018. The last time a party holding the White House and both houses of Congress did not lose seats in a midterm election, Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul each won two games for the Cardinals in the 1934 World Series.

© 2017, Washington Post Writers Group

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.