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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
City Dope Special Edition: Your guide to the
July 15 primary elections. Don't know who
to vote for? Do you really trust City Dope? If
so, read on...
U.S. Senate: There are five Democrats in the
primary that will determine who takes on
Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in
November. While there could easily be a pri
mary runoff for this one, there's no telling if
it isn't almost anybody's ballgame. While dark
horse Rand Knight is angling to make grass
roots headway among independent-minded
Democrats, the two frontrunners in this one
are DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones and for
mer state Representative Jim Martin. The idea
; here is for Democrats is to have somebody
I who can at the very least make a credible
race out of the campaign to unseat Bushie
boy Chambliss, and Martin—a Vietnam vet
who's also headed up the state Department
of Human Resources and is mighty solid on
the issues—is the man for that job. Besides,
Vernon Jones is the one who has admitted to
having voted for George Bush. Twice. What
more do you need to know?
U.S. Congress: The only contest this time
around is in the 10th District Republican
Primary, where two extremely conservative, to-
the-right-of-right-wing candidates are duking
it out. Incumbent Congressman Paul Broun
is running the same kind of street-level, low-
budget campaign that won him a close victory
in last year's special election. Opposing Broun
with a hard-hitting, big-budget campaign is
State Senator Barry Fleming, from Harlem,
down in the Augusta-Thomson end of the dis
trict. Fleming, a smart, personable, shrink-the-
government-except-for-the-military right-hand
man to Speaker of the Georgia House Glen
Richardson is flooding mailboxes with the
all-too-familiar slick smear brochures depict
ing Broun as soft on everything from sexual
predators to tornadoes. The two hardly differ
in their support of Republican shibboleths like
the flat tax, investing your Social Security
■*arnings in the stock market (!) and doing
a vay with every kind of gun control on every
khd of weapon. You're probably not voting
in the Republican Primary anyway, but if you
are, our choice is our own local wingnut Paul
Broun. [Pete McCommons]
State Senate: If you're voting in the
Republican primary and you live in the 46th
state Senate district (Oconee, eastern Walton,
and central and western Clarke counties), then
you've got a choice between one-term incum
bent Bill Cowsert and his challenger, Oconee
County school board member Tommy Malcom.
(The winner will face Athens Democrat Sherry
Jackson in November.) In this race, Cowsert
is the sensible choice by far. As a freshman
senator he's made progress in Atlanta by leaps
and bounds, snatching strong committee
assignments and dropping successful bills—all
of which shows he's an informed, intelligent
guy serving the district well. No partisan
ideologue either, Cowsert is well-versed in
environmental issues and is about as much as
liberal ol' Athens could hope for in a majority-
party senator nowadays.
Georgia Public Service Commission: To be
honest, the two Democrats running for Public
Service Commission (PSC) seem to have things
together a lot more than the Republicans do.
The Dems are Bob Indech and Jim Powell.
facing off in the primary to see who goes on
to November seeking the seat that's being
vacated by Angela Speir. Powell appears to be
the more organized, has plenty of career expe
rience in energy policy, and has a platform
emphasizing diverse fuel sources and energy
efficiency in addition to consumer advocacy.
Plus, he picked up the endorsement of Georgia
Conservation Voters.
On the Republican ballot, there are two
races for PSC; one is the primary for Speir's
seat, with ex PSC member Lauren "Bubba"
McDonald against newcomer Pam Davidson.
The other has a guy named Rick Collum chal
lenging incumbent Doug Everett. City Dope
has to beg off from helping you out with your
civic duty on these two; if you've got a prefer
ence, feel free to exercise tt on election day.
Clarke County Coroner: The Coroner, who is
basically a-civil official charged with holding
hearings in cases where the cause of death is
not clear, is one of those holdovers from olden
times that still requires election. The office
confers some prestige in police/ funeral home
circles but candidates are forced to sort of
run a popularity contest with the public. Both
the incumbent, Bobby Tribble and the chal
lenger funeral director Sonny Wilson would
make a good coroner, though Tribble Tias run
into some questions about whether he actu
ally lives in Clarke County. The cops have had
the job for a while; let's give it to the funeral
homes this time around. Can't go wrong with
Sonny Wilson. [Pete McCommons]
Clarke County Magistrate: Patricia Barron,
the incumbent, is clearly the establishment
choice for this job of presiding over bond
hearings and minor infractions. She has done
a good job, and it's hard to see any rationale
for replacing her with Michael Coleman,
who several years ago resigned as Magistrate
to run unsuccessfully for Judge of Superior
Court. Former Judge Coleman is a great guy
with a depth of classical learning and experi
ence, but our nod goes to Judge Barron. [Pete
McCommons]
Nuts and Bolts: Primary election day is
Tuesday, July 15. A vote in this primary
locks in your declared party affiliation for any
primary runoffs, but not for the November
general election. There's a new polling place
for Precinct 3A: the Clarke Central High Scnool
gym instead of the H.T. Edwards Building. (As
in February of this year, Precinct 1A votes at
the Winterville train depot, and Precinct 4A
votes at the Multimodal Center.)
Advance voting is Monday-Friday July 7-11
at the Board of Elections office downtown, but
not on Monday, July 14. A sample ballot and
plenty more info can be found at www.athens
clarkecounty.com/elections.
In Other News: Faithful Flagpole readers will
recall the recent Capitol Impact column which
made note that the Obama campaign is tak
ing Georgia seriously and putting resources
here. Turns out they've got a staffer in Athens
to coordinate work in Clarke and surround
ing counties. November turnout is definitely-
expected to be high, not least because the
Obama folks are in Georgia getting voters
registered.
Ben Emanuel & Pete McCommons
Send your city dope to ben@flagpole.com
4 FLAGPOLE.COM-JULY 9,2008
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