GEORGIA: Has An LG Race Ever Meant So Much?

There are two high-profile races in today's GA primary, but only one of them may matter. The first, as any junkie worth his or her salt knows, is the GOP LG contest pitting ex-Christian Coalition exec dir Ralph Reed versus state Sen. Casey Cagle. Thanks to a certain disgraced lobbyist, this race has received much attention both in and out of the state. Beyond the obvious "rise-and-fall" narrative, a Reed loss would provide Dems (and the media) with the first loss or departure that can be directly tied to a scandal that so many had such high hopes for.

For GA Dems, their best day of the cycle may be today. If Cagle wins -- and the public polling indicates he has the momentum to do so -- the general election likely becomes just another conventional battle between underfunded Dems and well-financed Republicans in an increasingly Republican Southern state. But if Reed's home school-fueled turnout operation can somehow eke out a victory, this fall may be as much about Jack Abramoff as it is Gov. Sonny Perdue (R). And the Dem ticket may have a real shot.

A relative unknown beyond his North GA district, Cagle lagged in the polls until he launched a frontal ad attack on Reed's ties to Abramoff. He now has a marginal lead, but perhaps more importantly Reed's negatives with GOP voters are just south of 50% -- not where one wants to be a in a race with as many undecided voters as this one apparently does.

As with most any GA election these days, the GOP LG contest will be decided in Metro Atlanta. Keep a close eye on those fast-growing exurbs that ring the capital and that Reed so masterfully mobilized to get Perdue and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) elected in '02 and Pres Bush re-elected in '04. Filled with conservative-leaning, middle-class voters (often with few ties to GA or GA politics), places like Paulding (37.8% growth since '00), Cherokee (29.8%), Forsyth (42.7%) and Gwinnett Co (23.4%) are on their way to supplanting Newt's Marietta and Cobb Co as the "must-have" locales in GA GOP politics. You'll probably know the winner of the campaign by taking a look at who prevailed in these such places.

There are probably more than a few Dems who aren't upset that the Ralph Reed has overshadowed their GOV primary. In exactly the sort of long-unfolding political train wreck that GA Dems had hoped to avoid, LG Mark Taylor (D) and Sec/State Cathy Cox (D) have spent over $6M combined to air very negative and personal ads. Taylor has twisted Taylor's nickname, "The Big Guy," around so as to paint the hefty South GA pol as a "Big Guy" who takes care of his "Big Friends" (and his family) at the expense of the "Little Guy." Or something like that. Taylor has blasted Cox, also a South GA native, for using state funds to do PSAs that boost her name recognition and accused her of opposing GA's lottery -- the lottery that funds the state's highly-regarded, and politically sacred, HOPE scholarship fund. [JONATHAN MARTIN]

In recent days, the two have scrapped over racially-tinged issues with Cox seeking to tie Taylor to "the flaggers" (those who want the Confederate battle flag to be a part of the state flag) and resurrecting insensitive comments Taylor made as a state Sen. regarding white guilt and redistricting. Taylor, for his part, has sought to link Cox to the controversial voter ID law that is despised in the black community. Such efforts are easy to understand considering that as much as 50% of the Dems primary turnout could come from African-American voters. To this end, Cox suffered a major setback when popular Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin decided to sit out the primary instead of using her political capital early to help elect GA's first female governor. Cox has had to settle for ads featuring Atlanta's City Council president (also a black woman), while Taylor has run two separate spot starring his most prominent black supporter -- the revered ex-Atlanta Mayor/UN Amb Andrew Young. African-Americans are expected to comprise around 50% of Dem primary voters. Just as with the GOPers, the Taylor-Cox battle will be won or lost in Metro Atlanta. Look to suburban and affluent DeKalb (56% black) and Fulton (43% black), which takes in Atlanta proper, to find the winner. Taylor led by 12 in the most recent public poll.

The heavy spending by both Cox and Taylor has left each with not insignificant negatives and bank accounts that pale in comparison to Perdue and the GA GOP. At the end of the 2ndQ, Taylor had $1.12M CoH and Cox $560K. But both have been up on the air statewide (and Atlanta isn't cheap) continuously since 6/31. Perdue, by contrast, banked around $9M at the end of the Q and has enjoyed a series of TV ads paid for by his state party, a state party which (thanks in part to a March visit by Bush) still managed to have $7.4M CoH. The GA Dems go into the general with $557K left. But how much free media would a looming Abramoff cloud count for over the next 112 days?