[ad_1]
The journey of Stacey Abrams into the unknown began in the passenger seat of a Chevrolet Tahoe bound for southern Georgia. It's a part of the state full of peanuts and forage corn the farms and voting blocs that, over the last two decades, have been more favorable to Republican candidates. By the time she had reached her first stop of the day, a dinner in the small town of Fitzgerald, nearly 200 miles from Atlanta, it had been almost two hours since she had seen the last yard sign bearing her name.
Abrams is conducting a virtual investigation with Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governorship, but strategists on both sides say that if she is going to make history as the first female black governor in the country, she must the rural parts of the state that tend to be whiter and more conservative. In short, she has to appeal to voters for whom a black Yale law graduate from the blue island of Atlanta represents a significant departure from her ideal candidate for the state office.
History continues below
What is the way that Abrams, 44, came to sit at a brilliant conference table at the Valdosta Chamber of Commerce posing as a businesswoman turned lawmaker and arguing that Medicaid's expansion and broadband access, providing quality child care services to working parents and an early childhood education, are not progressive talking points, but pragmatic policies and favorable to growth.
"The challenge in Georgia is that for every good thing we have, we have so many competing problems, competing needs that I think have unfortunately gone unanswered in the last 15 years," said Abrams. "And my mission is to keep moving forward on the good and make sure we start to get back to our goals. For example, being one of the best places in the country to do business is a good thing, but we are number 22 out of 25 when it comes to small business and big business. And it's not just an Atlanta problem, it's a state problem. "
The first question was delivered with a polite smile … and a point.
"All this looks great," said Jan Brice, chairman of the chamber and executive director of a local senior citizens' home who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and went to Washington for its inauguration. "But, I mean, are you talking about raising taxes?"
True to its technocratic tendencies, Abrams' response seemed to stem from a summary of a think tank white paper: "You do not need to raise taxes to do that," Abrams said. , hands before her stats on Georgia's robust budget. "Our problem is not the resources. Our question is about priorities and having sat on the Credentials Committee and the Ways and Means Committee of the Assembly of Georgia, I can tell you that we have the resources to meet the needs of the State of Georgia. We did not allocate correctly. "
Kemp, his opponent, and his allies portrayed her in television commercials as the second coming of Bernie Sanders, but Abrams touted his experience in the legislature by finding new sources of revenue that could be used to pay for his proposals. agree with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican.
There was a pause before Brice said "Good answer", causing laughter from the audience.
During his three-day swing and six stops in southern Georgia, Abrams never breathed the names of national figures who made his campaign a liberal cause. No Elizabeth Warren, not Kamala Harris, not Cory Booker. While the Democratic Party as a whole could see it march in the wake of the progressive uprising embodied by the Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria insurgency campaigns in New York and Ayanna Presley in Massachusetts, Abrams, like his counterpart Andrew Gillum in Florida, the socialist coat. She argues that the best card she can play to skeptical Republicans is to highlight her own roots in rural Mississippi and present her brand of progressivism as an American version of socialism, repugnant to Republicans and more like a sensible policy .
"I think part of the story that began to unfold is that there is something pragmatic in the expansion of Medicaid in Georgia," Abrams told me later. while we were sitting in his SUV campaign parked in Donalsonville, a small junction surrounded by peanut farms. "And my point is to demonstrate that no matter where you are on the political spectrum, governors across the country have recognized the need for the expansion of Medicaid. And the most famous Conservative Governor would probably be Mike Pence when he was Governor of Indiana. The most liberal would be Jerry Brown, who is the governor of California, and what I'm doing is trying to juxtapose them to demonstrate that Georgia's decision not to expand Medicaid is not based on pragmatism. It is based on the false ideology that prevents access to health care, especially in South Georgia. "
Until now, few surveys show that there is work to be done in this case, at least in this skeptical corner of the state ("This is part of the state that Republicans know they're going to win, so why sound it? Republican pollster Brent Buchanan joked.) In the last two elections for governorship, Deal won the entire central and eastern part of Georgia. He won all counties except Abrams, during his recent tour and three of those five counties with double-digit margins. In 2016, the whole region preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton, even though Trump had little to do with the state. To win the governorship, Abrams will have to dominate the democratically reliable parts of the state further north and then earn a respectable margin in these counties with a rural republican bias. But, like Democratic candidates before her, she has a lot of passion to overcome. A poll conducted in July by SurveyUSA found that Abrams was following Kemp at 55% to 34% of rural voters.
She does not need to convince them all, but she has to reduce the support that Kemp gets almost reflexively. "I guess she needs to earn somewhere between 38 and 42 percent in this part of the state," said Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman about Abrams.
If she succeeds with this strategy, rather than relying on urban voters to wear it, this will prove that a black woman from a liberal metropolis can win a Republican-like state with a bipartisan coalition. For this to happen, voters like Jan Brice will have to convert, which will be a major challenge.
"I have not really made up my mind because I love Brian Kemp," said Brice after the House round table, "but I was very impressed by what I've done. she said."
Abrams, however, even gets some reticence from more conservative Democrats in this part of the state. At a stop at Fitzgerald's dinner, Pence Kaminsky, a former local official, said Abrams' position regarding the destruction of the huge Confederate monument known as Stone Mountain was disconnected from the area. (Indeed, the fact of descending to one of the last stops of the tour team highlighted a prominent flag for a chapter for the Sons of Confederate Veterans.)
"It's just ridiculous," said Kaminsky, a self-proclaimed "yellow dog democrat" who was going to vote for Abrams. "It's something that lets people know that she's extremist."
***
Abrams is not the first democrat which was to conquer the more conservative voters of the state. It has become much more difficult over the past two decades.
The last two Democrats, Zell Miller and Roy Barnes, came from Atlanta and were exposed to politics from an early age. But since 2002, when the first Republican took control of the governor's mansion, the state interfered relentlessly in the Republican column, even as the population of Atlanta had grown. In 2010, every state office was under Republican control. Indeed, if the Republican position is so impregnable that the state has come to the conclusion that the last Democratic candidate, Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, has failed to achieve 8 points of percentage in the 2014 elections. The political pedigree now means little if he tied the wrong party.
Despite his own background, Carter says he is still convinced that Democrats can regain their influence over rural voters.
"My belief about rural Georgia is that people feel far removed from the traditional elements of the economy and that if you could convince people who feel insane to bring them back, you will get real votes," he said. . "If you can convince people who are insane that you are the right person to bring them back, then you are going to get real votes."
The question is whether the antecedents of Abrams – so different from Carter, Barnes and Miller – constitute an asset or a liability.
Abrams grew up poor in rural Mississippi. She went to Spelman College in Atlanta with a mix of merit and needs-based help, then she graduated with a law degree from Yale (she also has a master's degree in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin) . During her stay in Spelman, she became a virulent Atlanta activist in the midst of the Rodney King riots in 1992, earning her political ear for Atlanta and later for the state legislature. Prior to joining the state legislature, Abrams co-founded a financial services company and a separate beverage company for young children. Under the pseudonym Selena Montgomery, Abrams has written eight romantic thrillers. She also founded a group called New Georgia Project, a non-partisan organization aimed at registering thousands of minority voters throughout the state.
Few viable Democratic candidates for Georgia 's governorship have been as liberal as Abrams (during the tour, carelessly, she said that climate change was real and that she did not think that the weapons' s weapons were so bad. assault were to be ubiquitous). At the state's general assembly, where she served as the leader of the minority, she often puts forward examples of working with Republicans. One of his biggest examples is his work with Governor Deal on the reform of the HOPE Scholarship Program, which used public lottery money to pay tuition fees for needy students, but encountered funding problems . In 2011, Abrams was also largely responsible for blocking what the Republicans of Georgia had originally described as a major income tax cut. Abrams, a tax lawyer, analyzed the proposal and concluded that it would be a major tax increase. She brought her analysis back to her colleagues, working to persuade them to vote against it.
However, she continued to commend Governor Deal for her work on issues that are dear to her, including criminal justice reform.
"What Nathan Deal was willing to do – and I've been able to work with him for seven years – is actually to solve the problem of the disconnect between a state that wants to be the best state in the country, but the rules the most draconian criminal justice system in the country, "Abrams told me during our interview in his SUV. "I give him the greatest merit because he did a good job."
The broader strategy behind this is similar to that used by other Democrats vying for state seats in deep southern states. Avoid discussing issues such as obamacare, immigration and same-sex marriage, and do what Doug Jones said during his successful campaign in the Alabama Senate: focus on the issues of the "table of bread and butter.
***
Standing in a pair of brown Hunter rain boots At the edge of a river on a farm in Mitchell County, Georgia, Abrams listened closely to peanut farmer Glenn Cox and his daughter Casey Cox to explain the technical aspects of the irrigation system and moisture sensors. the farm.
Abrams mentioned that she "learned variable rate irrigation when I went to the Stripling Center about four years ago," a reference to the MC at the University of Georgia. Stripling Irrigation Research Park.
"She knows everything about it," jokes Casey Cox, 27.
"She lets me pretend I know what I'm talking about," Abrams mocked. The conversation then focused on what a governor could do for farmers in Georgia.
Abrams shouted to Cox the kind of questions that a politician asks a potential voter with whom she has little in common: "So, what does the governor need to know about it?" are there more places to grow? "
More attention to rural Georgia, explained Cox, explaining that the region needs help to improve Internet connectivity (an Abrams policy point). Cox then mentioned precision farming, a type of technology-based agriculture, which Abrams acknowledged she needed to learn more about.
"Tell me about ag accuracy," said Abrams.
After the visit, former Cox said Abrams' questions seemed to be enlightened. Cox said Abrams could change the minds of voters in the region "if they met her." But South Georgia, Cox acknowledged, generally favors Republican candidates.
"But you know how things work," he said. "They must meet her."
But their conversation has indicated that it's a lot more complicated than shaking hands and accepting some compelling answers about the expansion of broadband financing or more rural education. The simple calculation is that it is a reliable Republican region and that voters need a compelling reason to change their minds.
Abrams, speaking at a hair salon near Albany, Georgia, later in the day began his remarks by acknowledging his location.
"I am here because I know that Albany is the center of opportunity in southwestern Georgia. I know that when Albany is doing well, southwestern Georgia is doing well, but if we do not lift southwestern Georgia, Georgia is not going to do its best, "said Abrams. Albany's unemployment rate has been above the rest of the state for more than five years. "I want to be clear, I'm not going to be the governor of Atlanta, I'm running to be the governor of all of Georgia."
This stop was a bit more familiar to Abrams: a crowd of men and women in the mixed race. The participants cheered Abrams and asked him questions about whether his campaign was prepared for Republican hijinks to prevent supporters from voting for it. Even among her supporters during the event, there was some uncertainty as to whether she could actually win the area.
Bruce Capps, owner of a retired insurance company in the public who called Abrams "formidable", nevertheless stepped back when asked if Abrams could beat Kemp in the south. west of Georgia.
"It will be difficult," said Capps, saying that the numbers for Abrams are there, but the question is the motivation "to ensure that these voters are registered and sent to the polls."
***
A day later, Abrams was back in Atlanta deliver a speech at the Democratic Convention of Georgia. Abrams was not the only candidate promising to conquer voters across the state, but providing faster broadband services to calm conservative farmers hundreds of miles away was a much less pressing concern than doing electoral history. And although bipartisanship is perfect when you sit in the conference room of the Valdosta Chamber of Commerce, no one in the congress hall wanted to celebrate the achievements of a Republican governor.
"We are fortunate enough to elect the first African American governor of the country," Hank Johnson said in his speech shortly before Abrams took the stage.
The crowd roared. They already knew everything they needed to know about her.
Source link
