How Georgia’s Senate race pits the Old South against the New South

It’s a sentiment, ultimately, rooted in a universal engine of votes: fear.

And it’s one of the best methods of participation, said Brian Robinson, Republican consultant and former spokesperson for Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. “The fear of democratic control of each elected lever of power, the fear of this extremism, is real. And it is effective.”

With two Senate seats up for grabs in the Jan. 5 second round, Democrats see an opportunity to push through new, more ambitious policies that Republicans call “radical” and “socialist.” And Republicans are trying to motivate Georgian voters to “hold the line” by re-electing Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue, who faces off against Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Atlanta. But the political concerns raised by the Conservatives quickly merge with racial concerns.

“There is a third political rail in the South. And this is the race, ”said Roy Barnes, Georgia’s last Democratic governor. In 2001, he led the effort to remove the Confederate battle flag design from the state flag, which contributed in part to his failed reelection in 2002. He lost to Sonny Perdue, whose campaign promised to hold a referendum to change the flag again. helped him build support for rural white voters.

Now, Barnes said, Republicans use dog whistles at their own peril, especially when the racial makeup of the state changes. And with heightened sensitivity to race issues in Georgia and the rest of the country, he said, this message is “dangerous for the country and for the state.”

“I think personal attacks are thin, very thin, and that could very well backfire on us,” Barnes said. “I can’t imagine that anyone likes this.”

Some Republicans, too, are wary of the strategy, arguing that the state’s changing demographics present an opening for the GOP to extend its reach to communities of color.

“You have to be careful attacking an African-American candidate in the South because he will have negative reverberations with the independents in the suburbs,” said Heath Garrett, former campaign manager for former GOP Senator Johnny Isakson, of whom Loeffler occupies. now the seat. “I think some of the attacks help motivate the base. But they have to walk a very fine line. Because otherwise, they just motivate Democratic voters.

“We are at a time when propaganda dominates”

In 1970, when Andrew Young first ran for Congress, Republicans circulated brochures with a photo of Young unshaven and in overalls, with a caption that read, “If Andrew Young is elected, the Blacks Panthers are going to get your daughter, ”Young recalled. These tactics are still in play today, he said.

“We are in a time when propaganda dominates,” said Young, who after serving in Congress was mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations. “Most countries of the South still carry a burden of guilt and shame on racial issues.”

But the South is changing.