Published Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Coweta Democrats mirror state in Martin win
The Times-Herald
Along with the statewide results, Coweta Democrats overwhelmingly picked Jim Martin as their candidate for U.S. Senate in the primary runoff elections Tuesday.
Martin got 65.43 percent of the vote in Coweta, compared to 34.57 percent for Vernon Jones.
The winner of the state-wide race will face Georgia's senior senator, Republican Saxby Chambliss, in November.
In the July 15 primary, Jones took the most votes but didn't get enough to avoid a runoff.
The process went smoothly in Coweta, and elections officials were ready to call it a night before 9 p.m.
As a percentage of total registered voters, the turnout was minuscule, but compared to the primary, it was actually pretty good.
On July 15, there were 1,855 Democratic ballots cast. More than 77 percent of those voters came back for the runoff -- with a total of 1,432 ballots cast in Coweta.
Before Tuesday, Elections Superintendent Jane Scoggins said she thought "we'd have a lot of voters that didn't vote" in the primary. But it didn't turn out that way. Nearly all of the voters had voted in July.
Runoff elections can be expensive, but this one didn't cost as much as it could have, Scoggins said. She sent out the minimum number of poll workers and machines.
Some poll workers had a fairly boring day, but all of them saw some voters. The smallest turnout was nine voters at the Turkey Creek precinct. The largest was 94 at the Arts Center, which is the largest precinct by population.
The Georgians who knew Jones the best were the ones who handed him the biggest loss of his political career Tuesday, according to Associated Press.
Jones was handily defeated by former state lawmaker Jim Martin in the Democratic runoff for U.S. Senate. Martin will now challenge Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in November.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was that Martin trounced Jones in DeKalb County, the county of more than 700,000 where Jones served as chief executive for eight years.
Martin was leading Jones statewide by a margin of 59 percent to 41, according to incomplete returns compiled by The Associated Press. He did even better in DeKalb County -- winning 62 percent of the vote to Jones' 38 percent.
Jones, 47, needed a strong showing from his DeKalb County base if he was to continue his bid to become Georgia's first black U.S. senator. He didn't get it.
Jones has had a rocky tenure in the county.
He's been praised for his stewardship there but has been in the headlines for a series of personal foibles, such as allegedly shoving a Republican county commissioner. A grand jury investigated spending of his taxpayer-funded security detail. Jones was also hobbled in the party primary by a pair of votes for Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.
"I accept God's will," Jones told reporters Tuesday night. "This is Jim's night. We should congratulate him."
Martin, a former state legislator who was the hand-picked candidate of the Democratic party establishment, claimed victory Tuesday night before several hundred chanting supporters at a restaurant in Atlanta.
"In just a short time we put together a campaign that could withstand formidable opponents," Martin, 62, told a crowd of supporters. "It's about time to put an end to the failed policies in Washington. It is time that someone stands up for the working people."
Martin, 62, entered the race in April at the urging of party leaders in Washington and his campaign has been supported by an infusion of cash from Democratic political action committees.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued a statement moments after Martin declared victory calling him an "impressive candidate" who's served under governors from both parties.
"This is a winnable race," Schumer said.
Jones labeled Martin too liberal for Georgia, a charge that's likely to resurface against Chambliss.
Martin's first bid for statewide office fell short in 2006 when he lost a race for lieutenant governor to Republican Casey Cagle. The soft-spoken veteran politician led the state Department of Human Resources.
Jan Hackney, one of his campaign's volunteers, said she met Jim Martin during her unsuccessful bid for a state House seat and has supported him ever since.
"I know Jim and what kind of person he is," she said. "His integrity is incredible -- he is a class act."
Jones and Martin were the top vote getters in a five-man Democratic primary July 15.
Just 18 percent of registered voters made it to the polls in July's primary. It looked like far fewer of those voters were expected to return to the ballot box for the runoff.
With 93 percent of the precincts in turnout was hovering around 6 percent.
The last U.S. Senate Democratic primary runoff, in 2004, attracted a 6 percent turnout.
Martin will face an uphill climb against Chambliss, who has $4 million in his campaign war chest even after a massive media buy to blanket television airwaves statewide with his first re-election ad. The ad will debut after Tuesday's runoff.
Chambliss sent letters on Tuesday to both Jones and Martin saying he looks forward to debating whoever emerges as his opponent, but did not commit to a specific debate. He sent a similar letter to Libertarian Senate candidate Allen Buckley, who is also on the ballot in November.
"After today's vote, the people of Georgia have a right to know what distinguishes their United States senator from the other candidates," Chambliss wrote. "A crucial part of that process for Georgians will be public debates."
Also Tuesday night, two incumbent state legislators were defeated in runoffs. State Sen. Nancy Schaefer lost to Jim Butterworth in northeast Georgia. Former state Rep. Gail Buckner defeated state Sen. Gail Davenport in an Atlanta district.
Associated Press contributed to this report.