Abolishing America (contd.): Will Georgia`s New GOP Governor Forget His Own Lesson?
Not the least of the lessons in
political reality that popped out of the ballot box
earlier this month was taught in Georgia, where an
old controversy over the
Confederate flag design in the state`s official flag
suddenly descended on a promising political career like
a headsman`s ax.
But even as anti-flag politicians
learned one lesson, those who taught it seemed on the
verge of forgetting it themselves.
Last year, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes,
a rising star in the Democratic Party, decided he`d
prove how progressive he was and propose that the state
flag drop its Confederate flag design. That sold well
with the state`s perpetual chip-on-the-shoulder crowd
among black voters and impressed the bigwigs
up north who really run the party. Despite a good
deal of popular resistance, the legislature went along
and changed the flag.
It`s always an amazement to certain
kinds of people that
white Southerners take their
culture and heritage just as seriously as a good
many other ethnic identities. It tells you a good deal
about the mentality of those who changed the flag that
they never even suspected it would cause them a problem.
But, as they say in the South,
"Forget, Hell!" On Nov. 6, angry white voters grabbed
Gov. Barnes by his ears and cut his political throat.
The New York Times called the election "one of
the most stunning upsets this year." Mr. Barnes, it
moaned, "had been considered one of the brightest
lights in the Democratic Party, a gifted speaker,
moderate, strong on education and a possible contender
for vice president or even president." Now his
career is defunct, thanks to his blunder on the flag
issue and the determination of the flag`s defenders to
pay him back. [“An
Old Battle Flag Helps Bring Down a Governor,” By
Jeffrey Gettleman NYT, Nov. 6]
The Times and other
commentators make no secret of the importance of the
flag issue in the state. "There was this huge
undercurrent of resentment and anger about the flag,"
Southern
political expert Merle Black of
Emory University told the Times. "The
Confederate flag is still a very powerful symbol. A lot
of white voters felt Barnes was not on their side when
he pushed to change it."
Well, who was on their side? The
Republican candidate for governor, Sonny Perdue, for
one, who campaigned on an explicit promise to hold a
statewide referendum on the flag issue, as they did in
Mississippi last year.
The Georgia white vote turned out
like the Confederate army and went for the GOP. In one
rural county where Gov. Barnes won 57 percent of the
white vote in 1998 he received only 45 percent this
year; in another, where he won 60 percent in 1998, he
took a mere 39 percent. "The flag was definitely part
of the equation," Georgia`s Sen. Zell Miller, also a
Democrat, told the Times. The equation just
didn`t balance for the governor.
Well, now, the Republicans should
have learned something, too — that when they support
and campaign on
issues that their natural voting base cares about,
they can win and win big.
Did they learn it? Maybe not.
Less than a week after winning the
governorship on the flag issue, Mr. Perdue started
trying to weasel out of his campaign promise. Having
committed himself to supporting a referendum on the flag
issue during the campaign, he tried to back out of that
commitment during his post-election "victory tour."
"My goal is to have this state
heal, to be reconciled from a standpoint of bitter
partisanship and the issues that would divide us,"
the
Stupid Party`s candidate
pronounced. The referendum idea "is something we
will look at with the leadership once the leadership
gets in place in the House and Senate and make a
decision on how we will resolve the issue."
No, the
referendum idea is what you promised to support to
gain the votes that put you in office. Now it`s time you
followed through on what you promised to do.
It remains to be seen whether Mr.
Perdue will be dumb enough to violate his own explicit
promise on the flag and actually block a referendum.
Common sense would tell you he won`t, that doing so
would destroy not only his own career but also hurt
other Republicans in the state and the nation.
But you have to remember that this
is the Stupid Party we`re dealing with, and one of the
main reasons it is that it almost always succeeds in
missing the point of its own success. Republicans
have already
done that with the immigration issue for the
last decade or so, and they`ve managed to avoid the
Confederate flag issue until this year.
If Mr. Perdue and his party flub
this one, they may find that their own careers are no
brighter than that of the twinkling Democratic star
whose light they just extinguished.
[A selection
of Sam Francis` columns, America
Extinguished: Mass Immigration And The Disintegration
Of American Culture, is now available from
Americans For Immigration Control.]
COPYRIGHT CREATORS
SYNDICATE, INC.
November 18, 2002


