Kyle Wingfield, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s designated conservative columnist since the retirement of Jim Wooten, put forth the contention a few days ago that the current primary race for governor has been a “themeless” election.
To quote him precisely: “This is still an election without a theme.”
To which I would respond: “Kyle, what planet are you inhabiting these days?”
Anyone with the slightest degree of awareness can see that there are two themes in this election that are dominating every other possible topic of discussion:
1. We don’t like immigrants.
2. We don’t like gays.
Those are themes that have been pounded into prospective primary voters day after day, in TV spots and direct mail pieces alike. If you haven’t noticed them, you are either in a coma or haven’t been paying attention.
The anti-immigrant theme emerged on the Republican side after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed that state’s “papers, please” law back in April.
By April 27, Nathan Deal was declaring he would sign an Arizona-style law himself as soon as he took office. Karen Handel said a day later that the Arizona law was certainly something that Georgia’s next governor should consider. Eric Johnson and John Oxendine followed soon after. The Jessica Colotl case at Kennesaw State just added fuel to the fire.
After several months of ignoring the immigration issue, the Democratic candidates last week said they would support, or at least consider, the enactment of an Arizona-style law as well.
Roy Barnes, the odds-on favorite to win the primary, said in a TV debate, “Would I sign a law that had some of those elements? I would. But I would want to make sure it was not a racially profiling bill.”
That change in position was obviously influenced by the results of a poll conducted for the AJC that showed 68 percent of Georgians would support passage of a state immigration law similar to the one enacted by Arizona.
There is still some daylight between the two parties on the gay issue, where Oxendine and Deal are leading the assault on Handel with accusations that she supports gay adoption, benefits for gay couples, and Log Cabin Republicans.
There is no question that Handel, while running for the Fulton County Commission some years back, tried to secure the support of gay voters and wrote a check to the aforesaid Log Cabin Republicans. Her campaign initially denied the clear documentary evidence of this, a variation on the old argument, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Handel is now granting lengthy interviews to people like Doug Richards of WXIA-TV in which she says, in effect, “don’t worry, I hate gays just as much as anyone else.”
Some of Handel’s musings from that interview:
And you know, as a Christian, marriage is between a man and a woman. I do not think that gay relationships are — they are not what God intended. And that’s just my viewpoint on it. Others might disagree with that. But I would also hope that if you look at what is happening in our state, we’ve got issues we need to be focused on in Georgia. We have a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. And it’s something that I supported wholeheartedly . . . I am against gay adoption. But remember — I mean, if there is legislation on that, certainly I will follow that and look at it. But in the end, ultimately courts are going to be the ones to have to make the decision on that and it’s always in the best interests of the child. Do I think that gay parents is in the best interest of the child? No.
Unlike the flip-flop on immigration and Arizona, we haven’t seen Barnes or the other Democratic candidates start bashing gays yet. That will be a development to track in the coming weeks of the campaign.
But to return to the original point made by my colleague, Kyle Wingfield: There are indeed themes in this year’s race for governor. Not the most positive themes, I’ll grant you, but they are impossible for any sentient human being to overlook.
