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Wed. Aug 09, 2006

Voters Deck Officer McKinney

Since months ago when I was Delivered Via Postcard, I’ve been able to watch the developments in the Georgia 4th District Congressional race with something approaching amusement rather than frustration … now that I’m in Georgia District 5.

But I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t take some pleasure in tonight’s runoff results, in which Cynthia McKinney was resoundingly thumped and dumped. Again (in fact, by about the same 58-42 percentage as in 2002). Because, well, Cynthia and I go way back. And I wanted to take a look at the trends over the past six years, before she emits her usual cloud of charges and blame for her loss tonight (oops, too late already…).

Of course, McKinney has a long history of blaming others for her failures. In fact, I’d say she’s the walking talking definition of “sore loser.” After her defeat in the 2002 primary, first her daddy blamed the “J-E-W-S,” then she threatened to have her supporters boycott Democrats in the November election, paused to blame everyone from Klansmen to Indians, and then threatened a lawsuit to overturn the primary results.

This time?

At 8:14 a.m., the first complaint appeared: “Less than an hour into voting, McKinney’s name is not on ballot, opponent’s is,” read an item on her blog.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office kept an eye on the elections, with 15 roving monitors on the ground in the 4th District, said spokeswoman Kara Sinkule.

Sinkule noted that the complaints were only coming from the McKinney campaign. “We are not having voters saying we are having equipment malfunctions,” Sinkule said.

When McKinney beat out five opponents in the Democratic primary in 2004 to re-claim her congressional seat, she did not question the voting machines’ accuracy or the results. On Tuesday, she was anything but silent on the issue.

AJC Blog: McKinney alleges voting irregularities

She made the same claims after the July 18th primary when she didn’t crack 50%. It also appears the system did go down for an hour or so tonight, and she’ll be screaming bloody murder over that. The fact is that over the past six years DeKalb County has almost always been the last in the state to report its final totals. In the years in which McKinney wins, you don’t hear a peep about it. We will this time, though.

And we’ll surely be hearing how Republicans bought this election as well. Even though only 3 out of well over 1,000 donations to Johnson after July 18 were identified as Republicans, less than 1% of his donation total. Meanwhile the top 3 zip codes in McKinney’s donation list were in New York, LA, and Las Vegas.

No matter. Just as was true in the 2002 loss when she was slinging every kind of excuse up against the wall to see what would stick, the evidence seems clear to those outside her distortion bubble.

She’d been playing it quite smart for quite a while. A low profile button-lipped campaign got her re-elected in 2004. When she returned to office, she maintained that low profile. She didn’t get any attention for anything positive … or negative. She was the Stealth Representative. And it was working.

Until last March when she slugged a cop.

Kinda blew her low key cover, eh? However, I’d argue she still could have walked away with minimal damage if she’d handled it like a normal human being. But no, she got her back up, put on her old McKinney BadAss act, and proceeded to deliberately escalate the incident with appearances on CNN, the Today Show, etc. All this from a representative who normally won’t give the press the time of day.

Until her peers in the Congressional Black Caucus met with her one night and told her she had to back down and de-escalate, as she was at risk of a felony indictment and conviction that would force her out of her office. That finally shut her up.

Of course, the grand jury never saw fit to bring down an indictment. Which caused McKinney to gloat in the debates that she’d done nothing wrong. And that’s an interesting moral and ethical code for a public servant, isn’t it? Anything is OK as long as it does not result in an indictment.

I think McKinney honestly thought that with no indictment, “her people” would vote for her just as they had in the past. I just have come to think she’s severely misjudged her district. I don’t think it is what it once might have been. More on that in a second.

But primarily, I think when she threw off her Stealth Wrap and revealed the Same Old Cynthia, it hurt her. And I think she eventually realized it, as she returned to stealth mode for her primary campaign. Debates? Oh, they were scheduled, but McKinney was a no show. Talk to the media during an election campaign? No thanks, not Cynthia.

Then she failed to take 50% in the primary, which I believe was a true shock to her. She had to completely change gears. Debates? I think she did about five in two weeks. She was suddenly forced to do all the things she’d failed to do in the regular primary campaign.

And all the time, Hank Johnson provided the perfect contrast to McKinney. Especially in their debates. Where her delivery is wild eyed and emphatic, he is measured and deliberate. Her “last push” TV commercials were a low budget laughingstock, run on a handful of Comcast cable channels locally, while Hank Johnson had a smooth commercial with top notch production values, run on the four main local broadcast stations.

And since he’d been elected as DeKalb County Commissioner representing the very same areas that had been previous McKinney “strongholds,” he neutralized her strength right off the bat. Then almost all of the local law enforcement officials came out in strong support of Johnson. In a toe to toe battle, she couldn’t hang. Not even close.

In fact, I think the numbers from the past four elections tell an interesting story, not only about McKinney’s decaying support, but about our “democratic process.”

In the 2000 Democratic primary, McKinney ran unopposed. She got 100% of the 40,629 votes cast in the primary. District 4 is, and has always been, a Democratic stronghold (72% voted for Kerry in 2004). If you win the Democratic primary, the general election is pretty much yours. And in the general election in 2000, McKinney beat Warren, the Republican, 60.7% (139,579) to 39.3% (90,277).

Then all hell broke loose. McKinney made multiple comments in the aftermath of 9/11 that many people found highly inflammatory. And it cost her. She got her hat handed to her in the 2002 primary, losing to Denise Majette by 58.3% (68,612) to 41.7% (49,058). In the 2002 general election, Majette beat Van Auken, the Republican candidate by 77% (118,045) to 23% (35,202).

But in 2004, God allegedly told Denise Majette to leave her office as my representative and run for the Senate (though later, God Sent Her Home). Into the void came the Return of McKinney. In the 2004 primary, the “ABC” vote (Anybody But Cynthia) was unfortunately split between five contending candidates, none of whom got much more than 20% of the vote, and McKinney squeaked it out with 50.8% (48,512 of the 95,589 votes cast). She then won the 2004 general election against Catherine Davis by 63.8% (157,461) to 36.2% (89,509).

Which brings us to this year’s primary. Turnout was horrific. In the July 18th Democratic primary, McKinney got 47.1% (29,216), Johnson got 44.4% (27,529), and Coyne got 8.5% (5,253). Needless to say, Ms. Stealth Incumbent was shocked to come up short and be forced into a runoff.

And tonight, the numbers just got uglier. These aren’t quite the final numbers, but with 98% of precincts reporting, it’s 58.8% (41,178) for Johnson, and 41.2% (28,832) for McKinney.

In 2000, McKinney got over 40,000 votes running unopposed. In 2002, 49,058 was enough votes for her to lose, yet in 2004, 48,512 was enough to win. At one time, McKinney had 157,461 people vote for her in the general election. Yet this year, only 29,216 voted for her in the primary, and roughly the same number turned out to vote for her again in the runoff.

Her “core constituency” used to be more than 40,000, nearly 50,000 at times, and at times, that was enough to win. But Cynthia is not exactly the type who wins over converts, quite the opposite, and now those “core” numbers appear to have dropped below 30,000. And that can be beat.

As I said, I think she’s misjudged her district. I don’t think she sees how it has changed over the past 7 to 10 years. If you look at the District 4 Census Data, you find it is indeed a very diverse place. 53.5% “Black or African American,” 35.8% “White,” 8.5% “Hispanic/Latino,” and 4.3% “Asian.”

But that does not necessarily translate to the “poor and oppressed” about which Cynthia so often speaks The median household income in District 4 is 20% higher than the national average, and 38.8% are employed in the “Management and Professional” category (also well above the national average). District 4 has a lot of quite successful middle and upper middle class “minorities” (who are actually “majorities” in this district) who see acts like slugging a cop as unbecoming. Not what they’d want their kids doing. Not what they want in their kids’ role models.

But here’s what really gets me. District 4 Census Data shows a population of 629,690 in 2000. That’s more than the entire state of North Dakota (633,837), or Vermont (619,107), or Wyoming (501,242).

And tonight, the US Representative for nearly two thirds of a million people was in effect chosen by a little over 41,000 of them.

That’s about 6%. And that’s about how representative democracy works, in practice.