Oh to be young again! There is little wrong, and much to look forward to, in your late thirties. You are full of ambition and energy, and you usually are surrounded by a young family with promises of lots of happy times to come.
The only time being 38 or 39 is a burden is when you are running for a job like governor. Then it becomes a slight negative. First, you appear young to many voters, and some just can’t accept such a young person governing a state that in recent years has produced substantially older leaders. More importantly is that at such a young age, it is more difficult to get those young staffers and advisors to follow your lead as the candidate and boss.
As I head into what I expect to be the last Georgia race for governor that I will actively cover, poll or analyze, I realize how quickly those youthful years fly by. I find myself often telling stories of the early 1990s, somehow stuck in my thirty-something days.
And that’s where the Carter campaign is stuck at the moment. In recent polls by InsiderAdvantage and SurveyUSA, Carter is stuck at around 39 percent of the vote. In the InsiderAdvantage poll, Governor Deal is at 43 percent, while in the SurveyUSA poll he’s at 48 percent. The average of all recent polls suggests that Deal is likely somewhere in the middle; something like 46 percent. But Carter is basically stuck trying to break into those often turbulent 40s.
Ultimately he will get to “40-something” particularly as those African-American respondents to the polls who currently say they are voting for Deal or are undecided end up with Carter (historically a fact) and if black turnout is any higher than the perhaps low 26 percent afforded it in the SurveyUSA poll. But if things don’t change, Carter will be in the lower-to-barely mid-40s, and that will mean a straight-up win for Nathan Deal.
While most recent polls show the Libertarian candidate doing a bit better than expected right now, the final numbers for him will likely be at or below the 4 percent shown by the recent SurveyUSA poll. But that much could throw the race into a runoff if Carter were to show some real movement among white independent voters. But as of now the polls are showing that he is not.
The Carter campaign lacks a theme and shows little willingness to be the aggressor against Deal on any issue that has any real teeth to it. While Carter and his team are likeable and seem to be savvy enough, with just a few months to go they have not even landed a glove on Deal. Taking down an incumbent governor is hard work and no candidate just lucks into it.
The good news for Carter is that he still has a window of opportunity to get his campaign into gear. But the bad news is that in recent weeks his polling numbers have done nothing but march sideways, closer to those late 30s — a great age for a father, but a not-so-great number for a candidate.
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Zell Miller has always privately questioned the value of endorsements, but it came as no surprise that he was willing to give one to Michelle Nunn. Perhaps the missing link in this move is one Gordon Giffin, who is heavily involved in Nunn’s race, and years earlier was equally involved in Miller’s runs for governor. If anyone doesn’t think the former ambassador and power lawyer didn’t run interference on this one, then they don’t know how the game is played in Georgia.
No one doubts Miller’s sincerity. After all, he is likely part of a massive Georgia political establishment that has never met David Perdue, Nunn’s GOP opponent. And Miller “split” his ticket, endorsing Nathan Deal over Jason Carter. In that instance, there is likely no “Jimmy Carter grudge” in Miller’s decision. Miller is a man of the mountains and has known Deal for years, including when they were both Democrats. Anyone who knows Zell Miller knows that those are ties that truly bind.
Zell Miller has faced criticism and a bit of ribbing over the years for his seemingly contradictory political moves, earning him the title of “Zig Zag Zell.” But regardless of how one feels about his choices, it is refreshing to see leaders who are independent enough to stand up and fight for candidates, rather than blindly sticking with one party. Incumbent party leaders often take those who “got them there” for granted. So a zig and a zag here and there is likely what Georgia needs. And no one can teach us that lesson better than Miller.
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As for the Nunn campaign, which is currently gasping for air, national Republicans are returning to a trick right out of the 1990 campaign of Zell Miller, Sam Nunn and Pierre Howard. In that year Johnny Isakson was the GOP nominee for governor. His numbers were slightly higher than those of Jason Carter this time around. But at one point later in their contest Isakson appeared to be mounting a true challenge to opponent Zell Miller, despite the fact that no GOP candidate for governor (excluding the unusual Bo Callaway race of 1966) had made it anywhere close to winning since Reconstruction.
To put the final nail in Isakson’s effort, Miller and Howard joined then-popular U.S. Senator Sam Nunn in creating the “Nunn, Miller, Howard” ticket, complete with signs, buttons, and the like. Given that Isakson was saddled with a candidate for lieutenant governor whose age and inexperience would make Jason Carter look like an elder statesman – this was yours truly – Isakson had no bona fide ticket to cling to.
So, what goes around in politics, comes around. Ads are currently running touting the GOP team of Sen. Johnny Isakson, now an immensely popular United States senator, and GOP candidate David Perdue. The impact of the ads will likely consolidate the GOP base and continue to improve Perdue’s vote among independents, who are starting to look like they are drifting back to the GOP side of the ballot. Isakson is Georgia’s strongest GOP medicine, and the Republicans are administering a big dose of it early.
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A final note on the gubernatorial and Senate races. They both remain competitive, if barely. Team Carter is facing, with the new SurveyUSA poll, something that has rarely been witnessed since last January’s snow debacle: Nathan Deal above the 45 percent mark and climbing.
Yes, if the race were held today, Carter could force Deal into a runoff. But momentum is moving away from that scenario. The Carter campaign is running a traditional Democratic effort that is starting to appear more about setting Carter up for 2018 than winning in 2014.
Yes, the unemployment numbers suggest a potential countermove against Deal, but no ads with any pep or zing or sustained buy have materialized.
The next few weeks will tell the tale. In fact, both camps seem to be acting as if Labor Day is still the traditional start for serious campaign ads, something that I thought ended in the early 1980s!
As for Nunn, she is taking it on the chops right now. We will know if she is viable if she starts to emphasize the one secret weapon that a female Democrat has in this state. While many Republicans and independent women are conservative, their views on “reproductive rights,” “abortion,” and other social issues are far more moderate. Nunn will either start to play that “card” or will likely be buried under a ton of “Michelle Nunn-Barack Obama” ads. Clearly the national GOP and its allies have no belief that the fur doesn’t fly until after the Labor Day cookout ends.
One last note about voter turnout. The current situation in Missouri could conceivably drag out for some time. It could have the potential to ignite higher black voter turnout, but that would require operatives using the issue now to identify their voters, and then reenergizing them in November. That would take a major effort, and at present seems slightly out of the grasp of a Georgia Democratic Party, whose biggest move in the last few years has been to distribute whistles at a rather meager gathering of their faithful in Dublin.
Current national odds have Deal favored over Carter and Perdue a heavy favorite over Nunn (75% chance of winning, according to one national guru). But events like those in Missouri, just like fluke snowstorms, can change the political landscape. Time will tell.
