Category: Tom Baxter

t’s extremely rare for a politician to take a shot at a candidate in a race farther down the ballot, much less call on one to resign. But this is a year of lateral moves and unconventional parries.

The analysis of how decorum has broken down in the U.S. Supreme Court nominating process usually begins with Robert Bork and moves through Clarence Thomas to the present, sorry state of events. A 1994 Alabama race run by Karl Rove deserves more attention, because the venom which has been injected into judicial politics starts at the state level.

How much you say doesn’t matter as much as what you say, but Brian Kemp’s reluctance to say much at all about healthcare so far, and Stacey Abrams volubility on the issue, reflect how the two candidates approach the issue.

Shortly after 9/11, the expression “new normal” came into vogue. It was supposed to describe the new regimen of measures everybody was going to have to get used to as the nation adjusted to the terrorist threat. But it has become a reminder of how unevenly the impact of that day’s attack has been distributed.

Democrats and civil rights groups headed off the closure of polling places in Randolph County last week, but that was only a small part of a much bigger battle over ballot access.

Last week Secretary of State Brian Kemp refused to step down to avoid any conflict of interest in the upcoming election, and a federal court mulled a suit demanding the state go back to paper ballots, now. It’s a far cry from 16 years ago, when we were talking about a future in which voting would be as easy as going to the mall.

The political class is already stocking up popcorn for the study in contrasts that is this year’s Georgia governor’s race. Unfortunately, the race is also likely to mark a milestone in the politics of dark money electioneering, which for the average voter means endless waves of scary black-and-white attack ads paid for by organizations with fuzzy names.

Goodness knows we have enough political entertainment here in Georgia, with one of our legislators biting a fake penis and yanking down his britches on TV, and dueling endorsements from the president and the governor. But something important has been happening in Birmingham.

It’s a open seat, the race is neck to neck and lots of money is being spent by both campaigns. By all rights, we should be expecting a healthy turnout next week in the runoff election to pick the Republican candidate for governor. A sharp drop in turnout could be a warning sign voters are tiring of the race to be “craziest.”

As the nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day, nearly a third of Americans say a second civil war is likely in the next five years. If they’re right, the next civil war won’t be anything like the last one.

From California to Georgia, there’s talk about states breaking apart from each other. The idea seems in keeping with these fractious times, but so far the idea of divorce doesn’t appeal to many voters.

We don’t know yet how much that secret recording of Casey Cagle admitting that he’d put politics over policy will affect the runoff campaign. But it reveals some interesting things about what’s worried the Republican front-runner, and what hasn’t.