Stirrin' the Peanut Politics Pot.

Hey kids,

It's Saturday and I didn't have to work steel today so I took the day and spent it politic'n here at the old keyboard. In my travels, I wandered onto a blog called Peanut Politics that had a color map up of Georgia's state house districts. I'm a sucker for maps and as a result just had to post. The guys and gals down there are true blue democrats, but don't hold that against 'em. They usually feel the way Libertarians do on the victimless crime issue and quite of few that I know here in Decatur are as sick of the war on drugs as we are. Not sick enough to call for decriminalization, but almost.

So head on down and join the fun! Click on the title of this post and you'll be transported at the speed of light to Peanut Politics.



Greetings All,

I wandered in here quite by accident but when I saw the district map of Georgia I was compelled to see what was up.

I worked closely with the Allen Buckley campaign in the 2008 cycle and as a result, became a member of the Libertarian Party of Georgia and stopped being a voter and became a Libertarian activist. In the 2008 cycle there were 82 republicans running for state house and state senate that had no opponents and there were 62 democrats that ran with no opponents. Out of 180 elected positions in Georgia in 2008, 141 ran unopposed.

Georgia has been cut up into safe republican districts and safe democrat districts and this division has been maintained by our fair state's draconian 1943 Jim Crow ballot access laws for the last 66 years. The reason you seldom, make that never, see Libertarians running in these crucial local races is that they just cannot surmount the petitioning barrier. Most of our candidates that have tried have seen their volunteers drop by the wayside in the hot June sun, their hard won petition signatures disqualified by the Notary Public rule and other administrative hurdles and as a result they folded their tents and moved on.

I think that if you expect to see a major change in the 2010 cycle from what was experienced in 2008, you are bound to be disappointed. The numbers of unopposed races in Georgia has been fairly constant over the last 4 election cycles if the info over at Sec State Handel's office is accurate. It's almost as if the leadership of the state democrat party got together with the leadership of the state republican party and agreed not to poach on each others territory.

The only races you will see some change in are the Special Elections. Special Elections will have a Libertarian candidate because the petition requirement is dropped. The only requirements to qualify for the ballot in special elections are that the candidate is over the age of 25, has resided in the district for 1 year and can pony up the $400 qualifying fee. Thats it, no party affiliation, no petitioning. Sort of what it should be like all the time.

Libertarian Taylor Bryant is contesting the District 22 special election against three democrat candidates. It is curious that no republicans saw fit to run in this race, but since District 22 has sent a democrat Senator to the capitol for the last 20+ years, it is not surprising. Our candidate is operating on a shoe string as is usual for Libertarians, and we are encouraged by his performance in the forums held in Augusta to date. We believe that he will do well enough to force a run off for this seat, if he doesn't win it outright.

The special election for State Senate District 42 will start sometime after Senator David Adelman is confirmed as Ambassador to Singapore. LP Georgia also has a candidate waiting in the wings for that race and we believe that we will do well in this heavily democrat district.