These days it’s not unusual to hear politics described as a team game. I thought this article from The Daily Beast was interesting in that respect:
Even before [Rep. and GOP Senate nominee Mike Collins’ (R-GA)] summer scandals, the Cook Political Report moved the Georgia Senate race from “toss-up” to “Lean D.” Now, the discussion is less about who will win in November, but about what the margin of victory for [incumbent Senator Ossoff (D-GA)] will be.
One Georgia politico tells the Journal that the danger figure for down-ballot Republicans is six percentage points. If Collins loses by more, the official said Georgia Republicans will struggle in statewide elections for governor, attorney general, insurance commissioner, and more.
Recent polling is likely adding to Georgia Republicans’ angst. A voter survey conducted by conservative-leaning, Georgia-based pollster InsiderAdvantage found Ossoff leading 50 percent to 43 percent, with seven percent of voters undecided.
Encouraging voters to engage in one-Party voting can result in the above scenario when one of the Party headliners is substandard, and, judging from the scandal count and howling from right wing pundit Erick Erickson, Rep Collins is not acceptable to many Georgia voters. He may dance the anti-abortion jig and the anti-tax polka and the anti-regulation twerk, but his collection of associations with third- and fourth- raters is not only dooming his campaign, it appears, but is also dooming campaigns to which he only has distant connections.
I surmise Collins slipped into office through voter ignorance and the disappearance of Republican gatekeepers at both state and national levels, but the voter ignorance is being swept away, and now the dark side of the Republican voter strategy, formulated and implemented since Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and perhaps before, is coming to the fore in Georgia.
Losing Georgia will give President Trump another black eye – he has about twenty of them now, so don’t visualize it – but he’ll never resign, as that would admit being wrong. He’ll become politically impotent due to this loss. Perhaps more importantly, if less obvious, Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA), terming out with this election, will also be smeared with the mud of this elective loss. True, as I’ve noted before, he backed retired football coach Derek Dooley in the primary for the Senate seat, but, as Governor, he’s supposed to be leading the effort to retain Georgia, and part of that is keeping the Georgia GOP’s quality at an acceptable level.
It’s not.
Governor Kemp is certainly one of the brightest lights in the GOP these days, at least among the younger elected officials. By pinning a disaster on him, the Democrats are doing themselves a favor in case Kemp has Presidential ambitions.
We may not be seeing Governor Kemp running for higher office.
