Although she said some remarkably stupid things, Cynthia McKinney is obviously intelligent. She earned a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California in 1978 and is currently working to complete her dissertation in international relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. In 1984, she worked as a Diplomatic Fellow at Spellman College in Atlanta. She also taught political science at Clark Atlanta University and later at Agnes Scott College, a women’s college in Decatur, Georgia.
She was in a position of considerable prestige and power. She could have stayed in Congress forever, if she had refrained from saying too many outlandish things. What possessed her to throw away her career?
My guess is hubris. She had too much power and too much security for too long. She even had a street named after her. I suspect she fell into a mental state where she felt she could do or say anything. That proved her undoing.
OTOH maybe she’s just a garden-variety leftist, anti-American, pro-Arab anti-Semite.
Being an outspoken member of the House has its benefits. You get press attention, your name can become nationwide, and people find themselves having to respond to you. However, it also can be negative, because being outspoken and controversial is going to piss people off, and your district might just get embarrassed and think you went to the House for your own benefit instead of the districts.
Both McKinney and Barr fell victim to this. They became embarrassments to their districts, not so much because of their voting records, but because they said and did some really stupid things that got well known.
I read the Atlanta newspaper daily and have been watching the freak show that is C. McKinney. Last week she accused her opponent (Majette) of racial profiling. Miss Majette, who is also black, was apparently sending blacks to black neighborhoods and whites to white neighborhoods in an effort to scare up votes. According to McKinney, that constituted racial profiling!
McKinney, like Bill Maher, has learned to downside to the First Amendment: you have the right to voice your opinions, just be prepared to suffer consequences for what you say because everybody else has the same right to voice theirs.
Um…or maybe none of you pay much attention and it was actually the more than 35% of the district’s Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary. Which means we don’t actually know who the Democrats really wanted to represent their party in the upcoming election.
While I realize this is the Pit, and I’m certainly not a fan of McKinney, I’m going to have to ask for a cite. Specifically the anti-American, anti-Semitic part.
Imagine McKenney complaining about the Majette campaign! It was the McKenney campaign that
– used recordings of endorsements that were really from prior elections
– falsely implied that crossover voting was illegal
– took large amonts of money from out of state
– took money from accused terrorist organizations
And, get a load of that commitment to not help the Republicans! BFD. There no chance that a Republican could win in this Democratic district. Even so, McKinney went out of her way to not say that she would support Majette.
From her POV the Majette campaign was offensive for one simple reason: It worked.
DMC, her accusation that Bush knew about the attack in advance is divisive and anti-American.
Her father made an anti-semitic statement. She didn’t disavow it or criticize him for saying it. She took money from anti-Israel organizations and even from accused terrorist organizations. These do not prove that she’s anti-semitic, but do raise the possibility. As I said, I think hubris is the more likely explanation.
She was a Congresswoman out of Georgia who just recently lost her Democratic primary in a particularly nasty campaign. She had been a critic of Israel’s policies in the middle east and the treatment of the Palestinians. As a result, many pro-Israel groups flooded her opponent’s (Majette) campaign coffers with money. They did the same thing to Hilliard by the way. This prompted them both, plus some others, to say that Jewish groups were out to get them defeated, which actually, was pretty much true. For her part, McKinney accepted money from many pro-Palestinian groups, some who have been accused of aiding terrorists. Nothing proven, of course, but some people feel that she should give the money back even if there is the slightest hint or accusation.
The biggest thing, of course, was that an estimated 35% of the district’s Republicans voted in the Democratic primary to unseat her, which, IMHO, is utter bullshit.
We don’t have registered Republicans in Georgia, and we don’t have registered Democrats. We just have voters. And any voter can vote in either party’s primary (though not in both).
It’s a good system in my view, as it puts extremist politicians like McKinney and Bob Barr at risk. Piss of the other party too much, and watch their voters cross over to knock you out of the primary. Seems like a pretty good remedy for wing nut politicians. It also gives at least some voice to Republican voters in majority Democratic districts, and vice-versa.
In other words, a politician can’t afford to ignore any voters in his/her district, regardless of the voters’ party affiliation. Isn’t that a good thing?
I don’t know, Spoke. Isn’t it possible that a candidate would have been elected by ALL the voters, but silmultaneously, a radical segment of the opposing party is able to shut that person out?
Suppose there were 7 people in GA. 4 moderates of class A, 2 wingers of class A, and 1 member of class B.
The A1 vs A2 primary would always be decided, or at least tied, by the moderates of class A.
The B1 vs B2 primary could be decided by class B, or the wingers of class A, who choose to vote, selecting inferior candidate B2.
If you stipulate that superior candidate B1 can beat A1 with the crossover moderates, but B2 cannot, the 2 people in the winger category count much more than the other 5.
I do see your point, and I’m not sure whether the above applies IRL or not, but the possibility for a poor election system certainly exists.
Ace0Spades, I thnik you raise a valid point with your hypothetical situation, but I think it changes when viewed in the real world. For instance, in your situation, it is pretty darn easy to organize 3 or 4 people to influence an election so that you get the people you want running against each other. When taking into account multiple thousands of people with no connection or commonality, that becomes much tougher. I tend to believe in that situation, massive crossover action is more spurred by a poor candidate’s own actions rather than a bunch of people deciding they want somebody else out of the blue.
The other mitigating factor that led to a big crossover comes from the other races on the ballot. There simply weren’t any that compelling that would have kept Republicans from crossing over. No races existed that made the 4th district Republican leaning voters feel the need to have to vote on the Republican side. The Republican Governor’s primary had 3 people running but no candidate to overly fear or desire. Republican Senatorial primaries were essentially boring races. The Republican 4th district Congressional primary is pretty much irrelevant because that person will not be going to Congress in November.
I think this was more a unique convergance of a really bad candidate that consistently moved further away from representing the interests of her district and an election cycle that made it easy for the opposition and minority party to at least have some say in a race they normally would not be voting in.
And for what it’s worth, AceOSpades, in all my years as a Georgia voter, I’ve never known your hypothetical to play out in real life.
As for the OP, I think McKinney lost because she somehow got it into her head that she was elected to the position of Chief Dissenter in Matters of US Foreign Policy. She should have paid more attention to the needs and wishes (and for that matter, opinions on matters of foreign policy) of the voters in her district.
Mullinator, I’d be cautious, that’s all. It may be tougher to arrange the situation, yes, but it still strikes me as possible, especially with a polarizing candidate.
Your mitigating factor sounds a lot like a Spoiler situation, where circumstances allow members of one party free votes to screw over another party.
One solution would be to have a general primary instead of a party one. If the top two vote-getters win the primary, regardless of party affiliation, the candidates overall votes would be crucial, not just if A1 beat A2, and B2 beat B1. Spoiler votes would then carry a moderate penalty and I sincerely doubt you’d see this election behavior.
But don’t let me ramble on, I did a lot of research into statistical gaming of elections after Florida, so I could post chapter and verse about weighted-vote ranking, etc. I’m sure you’re all fascinated, I know.
Spoke, I agree with you and about McKinney, I thought she was a bit self-involved and more critically, politically tone-deaf. Call it hubris, if you wish.
What’d you think of the Tapped commentary I posted in the other thread? An accurate assessment?
