Did cross-over voting make the difference in the Georgia primary? This
opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal says no. It also highlights the
overlooked fact that cross-over voting cut both ways
in Georgia, with many Democrats crossing over to vote against Mr. Barr, just
as Republicans did against Ms. McKinney.
http://OpinionJournal.com/diary/?id=110002162
JOHN FUND'S POLITICAL DIARY
Buh-Bye Bob, So Long Cynthia
No amount of shouting could've saved
Cynthia McKinney or Bob Barr.
Thursday, August 22, 2002 12:01 a.m.
EDT
Two firebrand members of Congress went
down in primary defeats this week in
Georgia--disproving that clichˇ that "all
publicity is good publicity." Rep. Cynthia
McKinney, a confrontation-prone liberal
Democrat, and Rep. Bob Barr, an
arch-conservative, both suffered lopsided
defeats to less flamboyant candidates.
Their reputations for high-profile attacks
on their adversaries spurred a large number
of voters to cross party lines and vote
against them--in Georgia party primaries
are open to voters affiliated with any
party.
Both Ms. McKinney's 16-point defeat and
Mr. Barr's 28-point loss were large enough
that they would have lost even if no
voters had crossed party lines. But
Republicans clearly sealed Ms. McKinney's
fate by voting for former judge Denise
Majette, and Democrats helped bury Mr.
Barr by voting for his more mild-mannered
colleague, Rep. John Linder. In 1992,
Democrats employed this tactic in an
attempt to defeat then-Rep. Newt Gingrich
when they turned out to vote for his
primary opponent. Mr. Gingrich survived
with only 51% of the vote and two years
later led the Republicans to take over the
House and Senate for the first time since
Eisenhower was president. But then Mr.
Gingrich went on to a tumultuous four years as
House Speaker.
Ms. McKinney's defeat will be a disappointment
for those who collect outrageous
statements by public officials. "I'm attracted
to fights," she proclaimed after her first
election in a 60% black district in 1992. She
proceeded to prove that by picking fights
with both Bill Clinton and Al Gore while they
were still in office. First she claimed that
White House guards working for Bill Clinton had
refused to show her respect. Then she
accused Al Gore during his bid for the
presidency in 2000 of having a low "Negro
tolerance level."
Under President Bush, she upped the volume of
her outrage. Last year, in an interview
with a California radio station, she accused the
Bush administration of knowing about the
Sept. 11 attacks in advance. "What did this
administration know, and when did it know it,
about the events of September 11th?," she asked.
"Who else knew, and why did they not
warn the innocent people of New York who were
needlessly murdered? What do they have to hide?"
Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia called her
comments "loony."
Ms. McKinney provided further proof of her lack
of judgement by accepting campaign
contributions from at least 18 donors who, in
the words of the Washington Post, were
"either officers of Muslim foundations under
investigation by the FBI, have voiced support
for Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist
organizations or have made inflammatory
statements about Jews." When Jewish donors began
contributing heavily to Denise
Majette, McKinney supporters whispered that Ms.
Majette was a black "Aunt Thomasina."
Then Ms. McKinney brought in the big guns: Louis
Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of
Islam, and Jesse Jackson. Both came to the
district to rally black voters.
Other black leaders were more cautious. Al
Sharpton made an appearance in Ms.
McKinney's campaign office this week but cannily
withheld a formal endorsement as it
became clear Ms. McKinney could lose. But you
can bet Mr. Sharpton would have been
on the stage with her Tuesday night if she had
won. Former Atlanta mayor and U.N.
ambassador Andrew Young was even more cautious.
Although he had endorsed Ms.
McKinney in an earlier race, he withheld his
endorsement this time. Nonetheless, she used
his old endorsement this year in her bid to win
her primary. He shot back with a prepared
statement pointing that the recorded endorsement
was for an previous campaign and
that he wasn't getting involved in this race.
That prompted State Rep. Billy McKinney, the
congresswoman's father, to sum up Mr.
Young's slight this way: "That ain't nothing.
Jews have bought everybody. Jews.
J-E-W-S." Mr. McKinney has a history of such
intemperate comments. In 1996, he came
to his daughter's defense and called her
opponent, Republican John Mitnick, a "racist
Jew"--the "evidence" was that Mr. Mitnick
criticized Ms. McKinney for sending her son to
an elite private school while opposing school
vouchers for other parents.
Black voters may have finally had enough of
these political antics. In addition to
supporting Ms. McKinney by much lower margins
this time, voters turned on her father,
who has been in the state legislature for 30
years. On the same night his daughter lost,
Mr. McKinney was forced into a runoff against a
politically unknown opponent in a
overwhelmingly black district.
Ms. Majette, a Yale Law School graduate, agrees
the results show a real political
sophistication by Atlanta voters. "They want
somebody who will do something, not just
talk," she says. "We united this district, my
opponent had divided it for 10 long years."
Still, the power of incumbency is such that Ms.
Majette had to raise $1.2 million to defeat
Ms. McKinney, who raised only $700,000. Almost
no challengers are able to raise more
than an incumbent the way Ms. Majette did.
The contest between Reps. Barr and Linder was a
little different. It wasn't marred by
racial politics and both candidates were
incumbents--pitted against one another by
Democrats controlling the state legislature who,
in redistricting, squeezed both districts
together. Rep. Barr is best known for having
advocated the impeachment of President
Clinton in 1997--before the world knew of Monica
Lewinsky. That, along with his role as
one of the House impeachment managers, earned
him the everlasting enmity of hardcore
Democratic voters. Mr. Barr's outspokenness even
led the Libertarian Party to spend
money on ads attacking him for his opposition to
medical marijuana.
Mr. Barr's lightning-rod style also made him a
less attractive candidate for blueblood
Republicans, who preferred Rep. Linder's
behind-the-scenes approach over Mr. Barr's
constant appearances on talk shows. In the end,
Mr. Barr lost because he had previously
represented less than one in five constituents
in the new district. Mr. Linder had
represented twice as many. The Democratic
gerrymander coupled by the desire of
Democrats to cross over and eliminate a thorn in
their side ended Mr. Barr's Congressional
career.
In retrospect, he would have been better to
remain in his old district and run for
re-election despite the Democratic tilt the
gerrymander had given it. The Democratic
primary in the old district was won Tuesday by
Roger Kahn, a businessman who lost to
Mr. Barr in 2000 and has made controversial
statements in favor of drug legalization.
Many observers believe Mr. Barr, who had forged
unusual political alliances with the ACLU
and other liberal groups on privacy issues,
could have won a rematch with Mr. Kahn and
then run for the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Mr. Barr and Ms. McKinney join a growing list of
publicity-seeking pols who have been
defeated at the polls or forced from office this
year. This has indeed been a bad political
year for cable TV news junkies. Rep. James
Traficant, the Ohio Democrat whose
outrageous clothes and even more outrageous
floor statements entertained C-SPAN
watchers for years, was convicted of fraud and
then expelled from Congress. Democratic
Rep. Lynn Rivers, a vocal feminist from
Michigan, was defeated in a primary by the
venerable Rep. John Dingell. Now Reps. Barr and
McKinney are moving off the national
political stage. With so few congressional seats
in play due to incumbent-protection
gerrymanders in many states, the few newcomers
elected this fall are unlikely to fill their
rabble-rousing shoes. That may make for a more
sober Congress, but also a less
entertaining and lively one.
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