Since this has turned into an educational thread, I’ll mention one other factoid which comes as a surprise to many Southerners, and to Georgians in particular:
A slim majority of the citizens of Georgia actually voted against secession.
It happened this way: Georgia held a convention to determine whether to secede. The citizens of each county voted on the issue of secession, and each county then sent delegates to the convention to represent the county’s voters on the issue. In some counties (mainly in the northern part of the state, where slaves were few), voters overwhelmingly voted against secession. However, a majority of counties (statewide) voted in favor of secession, and sent secessionist delegates to the convention. In many of the counties that voted to secede, the margin was razor-thin.
The result was that a majority of delegates to the convention were in favor of secession, but a majority of Georgians voted against it (similar to the way Bush won the Presidency while Gore had more overall votes).
If there had been a straight-up statewide referendum, Georgia would never have left the Union (which would really have thrown a monkey wrench into the nascent Confederacy).
Looks like the voter turnout in Atlanta was better than I thought. The Atlanta paper reports today that turnout inside the Atlanta donut (which includes a number of predominantly black voting districts) was 52% (which is actually not bad, particularly given the bad weather).
On the other hand, turnout outside the Atlanta donut was 59%.
So while it looks like I was incorrect to say that black voters “stayed away from the polls in droves,” it does look like rural voters were more motivated, and turned out in higher numbers.
Thanks too, MEBuckner. Lincoln himself in his Second Inaugural Address was quite clear about saying he thought the war was about slavery, and no doubt that view was widespread.
Damn, we’ve been used to thinking of Mississippi and Alabama as the worst yahoo backwater states. Perhaps they’ve given way to the state that has given us Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, Sonny Perdue, and Saxby Chambliss. The fight continues.
During the campaign, “Boot Barnes” signs and bumper stickers were all over the place, at least here in south Georgia. That and “This is Sonny Country” signs. I wonder now, as ol’ Sonny begins his weasel out of a referendum on the state flag, I wonder if we’ll be seeing “Punt Perdue” signs and bumper stickers in the near future.
Personally, I think the state flag is a big non-issue. I could not care less what it looks like, tho I wish the design of the new flag were a little better. From a distance it looks like the blue plate breakfast special, a fried egg and a strip of bacon. I’ll try to find a link to it and post it for everyone to see,
Just a slight correction on this point. Mississippi thought it had adopted a flag in the 1890’s. When the question came up about the flags of South Carolina and Georgia, someone checked and the flag had not been made offical. So a couple of years ago, we voted on our state flag and the one that had been used since the 1890’s won.
[sup]I joined the SDMB about the time of the vote and I was truly initiated by many of the regulars in a thread, Kudos to Mississippi. I objected to the idea that if one voted for the old flag it could only be because of insensitivity, racism or ignorance. They generally disagreed with me.[/sup]
[sub]I am not mentioning any of this with any intent to rekindle that discussion.[/sub]
Of course, Perdue knew all of the legal hurdles going in. (Mike Bowers, one of his advisors, issued an opinion when he was Attorney General that a referendum on the flag would be unlawful without a constitutional amendment.) Of course, Perdue never mentioned any of this on the campaign trail.
I wonder if all those Confederate Republican voters will remember how they were hoodwinked when the next election cycle rolls around?
Well it definetly was a brilliant ploy by Perdue. He knows that the rural voters are going to vote Republican anyway, so getting them energized was what he needed to win.
It’ll guarentee that no Democrat will take the teachers’ union lightly anymore. That probably cost Barnes the election (seeing how the margin was so thin).
Keep in mind that the flag-based voters only think they elected Perdue. Look at it this way: x% were going to vote Barnes no matter what, y% were going to vote Rep. no matter what. That leaves a small z% of racist clods that were traditionally “Yellow dog Democrats” that were looking for an excuse to go conservative Rep. I would estimate z at less than 10%. 10% of the voters don’t get to choose the new flag in my book. All voters for all winners can always claim that it was “their vote” that made the difference. But getting >50% of the vote doesn’t mean that all of that 50+% felt the same way on all issues.
(Reading the OpEd page of the AJC makes it clear that most of the rural, north and south, Georgians who care about the flag issue are doing so for racist purposes.)
Jimmy Carter once said something about how just below the surface of all issues in Georgia politics is race.
Perdue won the race card. He will regret this big time. Perhaps other Reps. will learn his lesson.
Did anybody see THE SIMPSONS last week? Bart attended a meeting of his state legislature where he heard the great line:
“And many members of our fair state see the use of the Confederate Stars and Bars in our state flag as a sign of racism, particularly since we are a northern state…”
Hey now, wait just a minute here. You all are saying that the confederate flag is a symbol of slavery? Why that is tantamount to saying the swastika symobolizes…hey now, wait just a minute here…:smack:
