"The Next State to Turn Blue?"

An article in Sunday's Wall Street Journal was discussed on the Huffington Post under the title, "The Next State to Turn Blue?"    And it was about Georgia.   How about that?

Citing Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter, respectively the daughter of former U. S. Senator Sam Nunn and the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, it called them "bright fresh faces" with familiar names.   Nunn is running for the U. S. Senate;  Carter for Governor of Georgia.

It's not just the fresh faces -- and the highly regarded qualifications of both -- that is cause for optimism.  In fact, despite every current state-wide office holder being Republican, there has been a progressive shift leftward in the state in recent years.   A big factor is demographic changes due to growing Hispanic and African-American populations.   The percentage of voters who were white dropped from 71% in 2004 to 61% in 2012.  

Even though the Obama campaign largely ignored Georgia in 2012, of the states Obama lost to Romney, only North Carolina had a narrower margin of victory for Romney. 

And then there are the candidates.   Chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party DuBose Porter said:  “Everybody said it could happen by 2018, but because of these two candidates and the excitement they bring, we’re going to do it in 2014.”

Michelle Nunn is the founder and head of the nation's largest organization devoted to volunteer service.  She emphasizes her executive experience as a consensus-builder, and she positions herself as a centrist.   In many ways she seems cut from similar cloth as Kentucky's Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is a formidable threat to Mitch McConnell's re-election.

Jason Carter is a summa cum laude law school graduate and a three term state senator.  A former Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa, Carter wrote a book about his experience, Power Lines.   He positions himself somewhat to the right of his grandfather, differing on the death penalty and the NRA.

So both Nunn and Carter are bright, attractive young people who would be good solid Democrats in Washington;  but they are taking a slightly more centrist stance which is probably necessary to get elected.    Nunn will be helped by the muddle of multiple candidates for the Republican nomination, hopefully dividing the sane vote and delivering her the most far-right opponent and therefore the most easily defeated.

Carter has a harder road, running against an incumbent.  But Gov. Deal has an ethics cloud hanging over him with an ongoing FBI investigation.   He's also vulnerable for refusing to expand Medicaid and to set up a state health insurance exchange.    That might become a political liability by mid-2014 when good news is coming from the millions of enrollees in Obamacare and from the states that did expand Medicaid.

Consider this talking point for Nunn and Carter:   Georgians, through their IRS income taxes, are helping to pay for those Medicaid services in other states that opted in -- and Georgia is not getting any of it in return.   What about that, Gov. Deal?

Ralph