Politics is not something I really want to blog about a lot. But in the ten years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen a primary season shape up like this one is about to. Friday was the deadline to qualify for campaigning in Georgia. We now have the official fields set in what will be some deep primary battles. Several things have combined this year that have resulted in a shuffling of the deck. Here’s the way I see it…
There are wide open vacancies at the top of the ticket, the governor’s race being the biggest one. As people threw in their hats for that race, they stepped down from the positions they formerly held. In years past they might have tried to campaign while in office, but this year that’s not the case.
On top of this, several candidates have retired, the most notable being Congressman John Linder. Those who are lower on the political food chain started salivating at the chance to move up. They resigned (because everyone else did) and ran for higher office. That’s leaving a lot of entry-level spots open in the statehouse and senate and even some county commission seats.
Most of Forsyth County is in House district 9, which is currently vacant because Nathan Deal resigned to run for governor. There are seven Republicans running in that special election. Forsyth will vote on May 11th and in a near-certain runoff on June 8. But those candidates will all run again in the primary. What’s the point, right? The regular primary election will be July 20 with the runoff being August 10. Voter fatigue? Never! I’ll be able to reverse engineer those touchscreen vote machines before this is all over. (just kidding!)
You’ve also got multiple candidate primaries in nearly all statewide races, a state senate race in Alpharetta, state house race in Forsyth and several county commission seats in north Fulton and Forsyth. Oh, and don’t forget about the seven Republicans running for Linder’s Congressional seat out in Gwinnett.
So get ready for the politicians at your spring festivals, junk political mail and robocalls. I don’t know who’s going to win. I don’t even know who I’m voting for. But I can say this with certainty… there will be some unemployed career politicians come the end of summer. Given the current political climate, tea party activism and the like, I think this is a terrific thing. Election 2010 is on like Donkey Kong!
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I can’t wait, the more the merrier (for those of us watching)!