Peach Pundit reports that another Dem is in the race for the 10th Congressional District slot. His name is Erik Underwood. Underwood ran as a write-in candidate against Able Mable Thomas in 2006. He's African-American and states he "is conservative by nature, is Pro Life and has strong Christian values". I'm not sure what ticket he's running on - Republican, Democrat, or Independent.
I remember posting something on this guy during the 2006 November General election and commenting how a campaign for the Georgia General Assembly can't be won with a myspace website - ha, I found Erick Underwood's myspace page. This time around he's dropped the myspace page and picked up Helen Blocker Adams as a campaign manager - she's pretty good and very well known in the Augusta region.
So let's count the Dems running for this seat:
- Erick Underwood (w/ Helen Blocker Adams)
- James Marlow (w/ Charlie Bailey/Emil Runge/Jeff DiSantis)
- Terry Holley (w/ David McLaughin)
- Evita Paschall
- Denise Freeman
- Jeff Reynolds
That's 2 women, 3 men, 3 Whites, 2 Blacks, 1 Pastor, and 1 that live outside of the district.
Yup, it's going to be a shootout at the O.K. Dem Corral. There's a big meeting with the 10th District County Parties tomorrow. A little bird mentioned that our #1 roving cameraman, Benson, may be there with video camera in tow.
BfD will run a special 10th Congressional candidates' question and answer series next week and post each candidate's responses. Got questions? We'll add them to the list.
26 Responses to “Shootout for the 10th Congressional Seat”
I would not consider Underwood running as a "Democrat" just yet. He ran as an Independent for the State Senator and Blocker-Adams recently ran as an Independent as well (possibly because she wouldn't make it out of the Democratic primary). She burned some bridges when she didn't endorse the Augusta Democratic sstablishment's choice for Mayor.
Maybe Blocker Adams and Underwood are a part of that third wave candidate's movement - independent Black candidates.
If you actually look at the website and read the information on there you'll see he links to numerous black Republican sites, has worked for Senator Voinovich in Ohio, etc..
He's not running as a Democrat.
oh a little Dylan Glenn kind of fella - hmmm I wonder how that's gonna work out for him.
Maybe he could join Fox News afterwards. I see Glenn on there all the time now.
Winning this seat would give Georgians a Democratic majority within our US House delegation.
We must unify behind one candidate if we are to have any hope of winning this seat.
Terry ran against Norwood last year and received 57k votes. He already has a voter base.
You can learn more about Terry at http://www.terryholley.us
This is a great opportunity for Georgia Democrats. We need to get behind someone who understands the needs of the 10th District. Someone who has invested their time and resources in their home community.
As a party activist I strongly adhere to the policy of creating a 'farm team' of candidates from the grassroots. Candidates who have worked for years as party committee members knocking on doors, making phone calls and supporting Democrats for office. Terry is one of these guys. He is a product of the true grassroots movement.
Terry needs support from across the state, not just his district. This win will have huge implications for Democrats here in Georgia.
BTW, I heard John Coyne is thinking about running too, yet another person who does not live in the District along with Marlowe and Underwood.
We could pat ourselves on the back for having a Democratic majority in the state if we won this seat, but under previous leadership (Barnes) we drew the ugliest and most partisan Congressional map in the nation and went from 3 seats to 6, dropping the Republicans from 8 to 7.
That puts us at around 46% Democratic for our Congressional delegation, whereas the previous one was 27%. The party here played a big part in getting Marshall and Barrow to Congress and keeping them there.
There is not another state in the country that from 2000 -> 2006 had as large, percentage wise, of a Democratic net gain in their Congressional delegation as we did. You could argue that Georgia played one of the biggest parts in taking over Congress, although our work was done by 2004 (when Barrow got elected) and it just took the other states a few extra years to play catch up! At a net gain of 3 seats since 2000, very few states, even ones larger than Georgia, can match that.
In fact, at 46% Democratic, we have a higher percentage of Democrats than all of the Southern states except for Arkansas, North Carolina and Mississippi. Mississippi only has 4 Congressmen, a 2D/2R split, but prior to 2002 they had 5, 3D/2R so actually they lost ground while we gained ground. Arkansas also only has 4 Congressmen, 3D/1R but again they haven't gained any since 2000 either.
In fact, our Congressional delegation is a higher percentage Democratic than our state legislature, which is very rare for a Southern state. The party's focus should be on improving our fortunes in the state legislature and concentrating resources there, for no other reason than there are no spending limits in the state legislature while there are strict ones on Congressional seats.
Quite frankly, after the 2005 Republican Congressional redistricting here, we are fortunate to have 6 Congressmen and not 4 (or 3). I would also quibble with the logic that a candidate has a "base" in a special election based on votes they may have received in some previous election.
Let's not forget (to pick one example) that Cathy Cox was the highest statewide Democratic vote-getter in 2002, but she couldn't even get 1 out of 5 of those 2002 voters to vote for her in the 2006 Democratic primary, where she would have only needed 250,000 votes to win. Nothing against Terry Holley, but I doubt 57,000 people will even vote in the special election for this seat and most of them will not be the people that voted for him, and I doubt most of the people that voted for a Democratic for Congress in a district like that (or CD 1, 3, 6, 7, or 9) even knew anything about the candidate they were voting for, they were just voting for the (D).
Regarding the split in the delegation, we are doing well.
The statewide numbers from Perdue-Taylor, Cagle-Martin, Bush-Kerry, and Isakson-Majette (top 2 statewide races from the last 2 elections) average out to approximately 57-40.
.57 * 13 = 7.41
.40 * 13 = 5.20
.03 * 13 = 0.39 (showing that the Libertarians deserve no Congressional representation in Georgia).
That is, you would expect to see either 7 or 8 Republican House Representatives, either 6 or 5 Democrats, and 0 or 0 Libertarians.
The real numbers are 7-6-0. We're on the good side of that, although obviously it's been a close call.
On the General Assembly side, just looking at the House:
.57 * 180 = 102.6
.40 * 180 = 72.0
.03 * 180 = 5.4
IIRC (tougher to remember 180 than 13), the real numbers are 98-82-0 right now, which is still slightly better than what the raw statewide numbers would show. The Libertarians are still screwed, due to an unwillingness to collectively move to a district or 5 they could pack. I will entertain jokes about the odds of Libertarian collective action now.
Takeaways:
1) Things could still easily get worse.
2) Redistricting isn't quite as bad as it seems.
3) There's no silver bullet. To win more seats, at the General Assembly or in the House of Representatives, we're going to have to get people all over Georgia to switch their votes R-D, or at least convince all the Rs to stay home.
Actually, I believe we are at 74 now in the House. We were at 75 after all the party switching took its course pre-qualifying in 2006, then four Democrats in tough districts retired. We won 1 of those districts (Rick Crawford) but also picked up 2 other retirements (one I, one R) for a net loss of 1 seat in '06.
Chris -
What do you do,go to the DCCC campaign manual for woe is me politics or what? This isn't about what was done, this is about what can be done. You know we can lose either Barrow's or Marshall's seat in any election.
Obviously, 57k Democrats will not be voting in the special election. The point is that with that number of Democrats voting, there is a chance of getting Terry elected if we can get the voters to turn out. They have seen his name on the ballot before, which is the point of already having a base.
Re: 74: dkosapedia is useless. Still > 72.
I will either vote Holley again or the Libertarian. I wouldnt be too hard on Holley, Norwood was a beloved figure in this district, and Holley did better than Bob Ellis, who wasnt a terrible candidate.
BTW, Thanks for the post and thanks for linking to me.
FYI...The newly announnced candidate, Erik Underwood, was not included in the 10th Congressional Chairs meeting in Habersham County on Saturday, March 31st. Mr Underwood announced Friday, March30th at 10:00am at Sandhill sweets, according to peach pundit...here is the link http://www.peachpundit.com/...0th+congressional+district
An interesting note is that Terry Holley asked the group at Saturday's meeting how they were going to handle other announced candidates. They seemed surprised at his remark and evidently the coordinator for the meeting, George Birchby Chair for Habersham County, had not done his homework.
GaDawg,
who was the lucky winner?
There was no endorsement because the State Party nor County Chairs can give legally give an endorsement , according to State Bylaws. Also, I understand that there were several votes taken. Go figure.
sndeak, the problem with sqayinh Holley has a built in base is that his vote total is not a base for him, its essentially the bare minimum a democrat can pull in the district. that "base" would go to any Dem who runs in that seat IMO
The AJC is reporting that Marlow was endorsed by the 10th CD Chairs - http://tinyurl.com/3xrxf7 .
What the hell kind of Democratic unity is this when the Political Insiders, i.e MSM, get the scoop before the Democratic State Committee members. A big thanks goes out to the 10th Congressional chairs for giving your democratic community the heads up. way to go team!! or is team still spelled with one "I"?
That's how they wanted it to get out. Nothing has changed with the DPG. It's still all about the insiders.
As a Holley supporter, I am not happy about the way this went down but it goes way deeper than that. This was an end around. Marlowe is their darling because he has money.....
So now they've gone and pissed off their Congressional District Chair, who they'll have to work with for the next four years. What's odd is many of them just elected him to that position.
If any Chairs from the 10th are reading, what's the deal here? Since Holley announced he was running well before party elections, you knew this was on the horizon.
So much for building a 'farm system' of candidates through the county organizations. That is probably what irritates me the most about this.
We (party activists) have always strongly encouraged people to come up through the ranks..build your base..then run.
The fact that the DPG and electeds have rolled Terry in favor of the money candidate does not surprise me though.
The irony is that Terry secured quite a few votes from the 10th district for Jane. Ouch!
Well do try and remember who is running Marlow's campaign. I'm expecting a marvelous crash and burn before game day.
If anyone is interested in working for Terry, drop by his site http://www.terryholley.us and volunteer or let me know... sndeak AT hotmail.com
Terry is no longer the Chair for the 10th CD. He was asked to resign while the race is going on.
There should be some kind of bylaw which prevents this from happening in the 1st place - if a congressional or county officer runs for an elected position then they should automatically be removed from their post. They shoudn't automatically get their position back upon winning or losing either.
change the title of this thread from "shootout" to "pissing match". That's all I'm saying about that.
since this is technically a non-partisan race, the party could and should endorse one candidate in combo with the county chairs. Would make sense for the most people involved even if we're not all happy with the endorsee.
Terry never "resigned" as 10th CD Chair, he stepped down as acting chair for the duration of the race to avoid conflict. He maintains his title as CD Chair.
By the way there were only 10 County Chairs present last Saturday, not a majority as reported on the front page.