The Political Vine

Editor's Note: Well, we thought we were going to be able to take a long break and get back to learning all of the things one can do with "E.V.O.O." and garlic cloves by watching The Food Channel. But, alas, we have a duty to keep you folks informed and amused about all that we think is important to your political life. So, forthwith, here we go...

Corrections and Rumor Updates...

Man, there are times when we just have to say, we goofed.

The matter concerns an article we did a couple of weeks ago where we identified Melvin Everson's GOP primary opponent, Phyllis Miller, as an "R-CON", which is a person who is a Republican for the mere convenience of being a Republican.

For that article, Everson e-mailed us Miller's record of contributions to a bunch of Democrats. What Everson failed to tell us was that Miller had a long history of giving to Republicans as well. Some contributions were as old as $200 to Republican DA Danny Porter in 1992, and $250 to Judge Warren Davis in 1996.

Now, we are pretty sure that it wasn't Everson's fault for this research. We can look at his disclosures and see who his consultant was (i.e., Landmark Communications, which has a track record of missing salient facts).

So, our apologies for taking Everson at his word and wrongly maligning Miller. We have spoken with her since she beat Everson by 54 votes, and she strikes us as an honest and intelligent woman who will be a great asset to the Republican caucus in the State House.

Gwinnett County Redux-Part Deux

A rumor we published last week can now be upgraded to a fact. Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Candidate Marcia Neaton (aka "Mark Rountree's 3rd worst loss after Melvin Everson and Joey Brush"), after the recount proved that she still came in third in a 3-way race, turned around and endorsed the man she absolutely loathed for the last four years, Wayne Hill in his August 10 runoff against Charlie Bannister.

Her reasoning? Some mish-mash about Hill being better able to manage the county's finances. When she was asked if there was a deal in the works to trade an endorsement if Hill helped her raise money to reduce her campaign debt, Neaton denied that and said that she would hold a fundraiser to raise the money.

Now, folks, we gotta tell you the straight dope about political campaigns: If you run and lose, contributors are not too inclined to pony-up funds to "help" you with that debt. So, if Neaton thinks her base of support will rush to help her pay back $50-$60,000 in campaign debt, she better start looking at investing in some streetwalking clothes because that's about the only way she's going to be able to raise funds. Unless, of course, Wayne Hill wins, and Wayne Hill works his financial supporters to give money to Neaton.

Ah, the drama of political life in Gwinnett County...

Court of Appeals Run-Off: Debra Bernes vs. Mike Sheffield

We previously covered a bit of this race in our exposure of Mike Sheffield's record of inconsistent statements and actions. We'd like to point out that it's not the fact that he could be a Democrat who is running for the seat, but more that he is, at minimum, two-faced about who he is and what he stands for.

Putting aside political observations, we'd like to approach this runoff in a more objective way. For that, we reference the State Bar of Georgia's Judicial Poll Results.

From the Georgia State Bar's Website: "Since 1970, the State Bar of Georgia has authorized a survey on contested appellate races. The Bar conducts these polls on an impartial basis as a public service to aid Georgia voters in making informed decisions. This year a total of 24,329 ballots were sent to eligible members of the Bar regarding candidates in contested races for the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia."

Now, as a PV sidebar, this poll is very interesting. To some degree, you could consider it a "straw poll," but ballots are not bought, so there is a high degree of control from "fixing" the poll's results.

Of the 24,329 ballots that were sent to the bar's members, 4,018 were returned, or 16.5% response rate...not too shabby of a response rate.

The survey asked participants to rate the six candidates according to this scale of judgement: well-qualified (WQ), qualified (Q), not qualified (NQ), and don't know enough about the candidate to judge (DK).

The survey provided actual numerical votes of how many people voted one way or the other. We've converted those to percentages of the total respondents for each candidate and ordered them from the highest qualified rankings to the lowest qualified:

1) Debra Bernes: 18% (WQ), 13% (Q), 3.4% (NQ), 65.6% (DK)
2) Lee Tarte Wallace: 17.7% (WQ), 12.4% (Q), 3.7% (NQ), 66.2% (DK)
3) Mike Sheffield: 7.5% (WQ), 10.2% (Q), 5.6% (NQ), 76.7% (DK)
4) Thomas Rawlings: 6.6% (WQ), 9.9% (Q), 4.3% (NQ), 79.2% (DK)
5) Howard Mead: 5.0% (WQ), 8.5% (Q), 6.0% (NQ), 80.5% (DK)
6) William Hawkins: 3.9% (WQ), 7.4% (Q), 3.4% (NQ), 85.3% (DK).

So, according to 4,000 lawyers across the state, Bernes and Wallace should be the two fighting it out for the top slot. These are the two who are actually the most qualified in terms of knowing the law and being able to apply the law.

Unfortunately, Wallace didn't make it in the run-off with the voters. Which brings up a point which we may address down the road in a PV piece: Who are we, the voters (the majority of whom barely know how to follow basic traffic laws, much less the entire O.C.G.A.), to judge who is best to sit on the Appeals Court?

The race for a judgeship, whether on the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals, or, any court for that matter, probably shouldn't be left up to people who might make judgments of such matters using irrational factors like "Oh, he's cute! I'll vote for him!" and then we wind-up with someone like Ted Bundy sitting on the bench.

But, in any case, it is clear from the state bar's survey that Debra Bernes, who garnered about 30% of the primary vote, should be the choice if one were to merely use objective factors like, say, being MORE QUALIFIED than Mike Sheffield.

But, let's not let objective factors muddy-up the works here...nahhh...can't let that happen. We're political activists! Go on emotion! To heck with facts!

Now, before we completely close-out of this story, we will point out that the guy in 5th place of qualified legal minds in the state bar's survey, Howard Mead, has filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the election.

According to his claim, because Laurens County issued 481 absentee ballots that had his name listed as "Thomas Mead," a typo from Diebold who was responsible for printing the absentee ballots, the entire court of appeals election should be thrown out. Mead lost to Sheffield for 2nd place by 365 votes.

Mead claims that there is a state law that will require the entire election be thrown-out because of this irregularity and the court of appeals race should be re-scheduled with all six candidates on the ballot on November 2.

If we could file an amicus brief, we would ask the court to consider the following approach: In order for Mead to have a valid case, he would have to argue that it was possible that, of the 481 mislabeled absentee ballots in Laurens County, 76% of them (i.e., 366) could have been reasonably cast for Mead.

We feel there are two subjects which need to be addressed by the court in determining an answer: 1) How many of the absentee ballots in Laurens County were cast for "Thomas Mead?" What percentage of the absentee ballots cast is this? What percentage of all absentee ballots cast in the state of Georgia were for "Howard Mead?"

Mead's name appeared correctly on all of the electronic voting machines,so, these questions only apply to the absentee ballots, and, we think simple statistics can be applied to determine if there was a "reasonable" possibility of Mead getting 366 votes from the 481 absentee ballots.

The 2nd subject which should be addressed is how much money was spent by the Mead campaign to market his candidacy in Laurens County? If no money was spent, and he spent all of his money in TV and radio in only the major media markets, then, reasonably, there is no likely way that he would have achieved 76% of the absentee ballot vote anyway. If no one knows you, how can they vote for you? The concept of "name ID" in elections is concerned with the last name of someone, not the first name. That's why everyone places their last name as the largest object on a campaign logo.

This is, of course, if we were asked for our opinion. Barring that, this has been just an interesting exercise in logic...something Mead should try to prepare for...