The Georgia Governor's Race

 

DATELINE JULY 20, 2010:
"The Georgia Governor's Race"


We are having quite a run here in Georgia for the office of Governor of this grand old state. It makes me remember the first time I asked my Daddy how you could tell if a politician was telling the truth or not. He said "Son, they never tell the truth, they start to lie as soon as they open their mouth!"

Now that was then, and this is now, so I looked up the definition of politician in the Websters Dictionary, and one of the definitions was " a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow, usually short-sighted reasons."

The election for Governor we are having is quite entertaining. One candidate wants to solve the state's problems with a state run bingo game. Another wants to re-fit all of the state government buildings with low-flow toilets to provide employment. Another claims to be able to take on the federal government on health care and immigration issues, and so on, and so on. We took on the federal government in reconstruction days, and all we got out of it was the Klan!

It reminds me of one of the silliest gubernatorial elections, the one in 1966 between Maddox, Calloway, and Arnold. (Say doesn't gubernatorial remind you of Goobers, which is what most of them are?) Well in the 1966 election, there was a runoff between Lestor Maddox, a Democrat who had never held office, and a Republican, from my home of Harris County, and the son of a wealthy family, Bo Calloway. Both of these men were conservative and segregationists, and not popular with all of the public. So there was a write in vote for former Governor Ellis Arnold, which caused the election to be thrown into the General Assembly even though Calloway got a plurality of the votes, but no majority.

During the general election one candidate confessed to being a thief, but defended himself by saying, "Yes I stole money from the state, but only a little bit. You don't have any idea how much these other candidates might steal from you!" Well the outcome was never in doubt since the Democratic Legislature voted 182 to 66 for Maddox, who had never held office before, and had not even captured the most votes.

So who should you vote for? In some cases it doesn't seem to even matter. You might say that finding an honest politician, or even an honest political party, is about the same odds as a blind hog finding an acorn. Don't forget we voted for a man for President who promised change, and the only change we got, was which pocket our money went into. I say tar and feather them all, and ride them out of town on a rail!

You can always write my name in, Bascomb Biggers. I promise not to steal near as much from you as some of these other candidates!