As this deadline-flirting column gets tucked away, I can see I am going to be flat out of luck when it comes to having a definitive runoff field set for the honor of meeting Democrat Congressman John Barrow for the Georgia 12th district title in November.
Republican Lee Anderson is of course in, with an impressive lead, and at last glance not 500 votes separated Rick Allen from Wright McLeod for the honor of meeting Anderson in a runoff. If Lee Anderson emerges as the victor, and he somehow pulls out a victory against Barrow in November, I hope the guy who ends up playing him in skits on “Saturday Night Live” makes us laugh enough to forget our embarrassment.
Then again, since Anderson was happy to support T-SPLOST, with Columbia County voting solidly to reject it, as soon as the realization sinks in that we are tied to Richmond County in such a long lasting exercise in taxation, Anderson may find his local support drying up anyway.
Some have hinted at this; I will say it flat out: Anderson has been a decent local politician, but his lack of aggressiveness and hillbilly demeanor would put him at a severe disadvantage in Washington. As much as I want to see the 12th go to a Republican, it might be a flat out impossibility if Anderson ends up being the man to face Barrow.
In the Richmond County Sheriff’s primary I went out on a limb, the only one of the season I might add, and predicted on the air Tuesday at 5:59 p.m. that Robbie Silas would be lucky to see double digits at the end of the night. He did not crack 9 percent. Pretty sorry for such a loud campaign, but even sorrier when you realize it was the incumbent sheriff’s brother-in-law who likely cost his chosen successor, Scott Peebles, the votes it would have taken to put him over the top without a runoff.
The delusional Richard Roundtree finished second with 39 percent of the vote, compared to Peebles at 47 percent. I call him delusional, because he actually believed beforehand that he would win this primary without a runoff.
Peebles finished three points shy of outright victory without the vocal support of the man who groomed him to run for the last five years, Sheriff Ronnie Strength. Had Strength been a vocal supporter of Peebles, and particularly had he been able to convince his (also delusional) brother in law Silas sit out the race, Peebles would now be the Dem nominee, and very likely, Republican nominee Freddie Sanders would have never gotten into the race.
Thanks a pantload, all you Silas folks. Smooth move.
After his defeat, Silas told a Channel 12 reporter he was going to go home and rethink his campaign strategy. I kid you not.
Lt. Silas’s strategy was flawed only in the belief that he had a snowball’s chance in Hell to win.
And a special shout out to former Sheriff Charles Webster who proved once and for all that the political legacy of the Southside Mafia is as dead as the corpse of Don Corleone. And it stinks twice as bad.
My old friend Willie Saunders gave it a brave run, but he was beaten by his own financial problems more than by Judge Carlisle Overstreet. When the final judgment is passed on that Superior Court judge and all the minions who worked behind the scenes making life miserable for good men like Mike Eubanks and Duncan Wheale through the years, there will be more misery than a landslide loss can bring, that is for sure.
Overstreet won the election big; then again, Sue Burmeister and Charles Walker most always did the same, didn’t they? Stay tuned folks, the news on the old Fleming Cabal ain’t over by a longshot. I have seen the evidence, and I have heard the tapes, and boy are we going to have some fun!You Might Also Like:
About Like I Figured
Tagged with: Austin Rhodes, lee anderson, richard roundtree, Rick Allen, Robbie Silas, Ronnie Strength, scott peebles, Wright McLeod
Posted in Austin
Posted in Austin