Much attention was paid to the announcement by Points of Light CEO Michelle Nunn that she will indeed seek the Democratic nomination for Georgia’s open Senate seat, being vacated by the outgoing Saxby Chambliss.
As the daughter of a Georgia political lion, and a first-time candidate with no political past to define her, save her father’s reputation for centrism, Democrats hail Nunn’s entry as a sure sign that the Peach State will become a battleground state in 2014.
And that’s really just about all they have going for them.
The digital ads following Nunn’s announcement, itself a foregone conclusion, amount to little more than calculated ballyhoo from Democrats desperate to tint a red state purple.
For starters, much of the initial hype surrounding a Nunn campaign stemmed from her famous father’s last name, who served in the Senate seat she now seeks for more than 20 years. Yet he hasn’t been on a ballot of any kind since 1990. A new generation of Georgians has since arrived on the scene, many bringing roots outside of the state, so how much that legacy will matter remains in doubt.
Furthermore, Sam Nunn’s post-office lurch to the left (he was rumored to be a potential VP for Obama in 2008) is likely to further impede his daughter’s efforts at peeling away McCain/Romney voters in a red state.
Those problems are beyond Michelle Nunn’s control, and are just the tip of the iceberg.
The last time a non-incumbent Democrat won statewide in Georgia was 1998, when Roy Barnes took 53 percent of the vote in his victory over Guy Milner. Republicans have held both Senate seats since 2002, a year that saw Saxby Chambliss first elected and Barnes vanquished by a little-known state Senator named Sonny Perdue.
Since then, the GOP has laid claim to every statewide office, captured both branches of the General Assembly, and expanded its control of the state’s congressional delegation.
Democrats, meanwhile, have floundered, their party organization worth less than some used cars, with little in the way of a bench or plan to pull itself out of the mire.
Blue Dog congressman John Barrow, a center-right Dem who boasts an ‘A’ rating from the NRA, was largely seen as their best shot at the Senate seat, but he chose to sit the contest out when it became clear that neither Nunn nor the party’s progressive wing would stand down and clear the field.
Against this backdrop of strife and bewilderment, Nunn is now running in a red state during a midterm year without President Obama at the top of the ballot.
Every statewide official is up for re-election, none of whom are considered endangered or even have announced Democratic challengers, and the probability of enough voters checking the box for Nunn, before voting straight Republican, is slim.
To be sure, Georgia is a changing state, but even the most pessimistic of GOP onlookers agree that the Peach State’s Democratic revival won’t begin in 2014.
That leaves Michelle Nunn grasping at straws, a candidate who’s going to need to catch lightning in a bottle. And there’s another thing she needs — a Republican primary that will heavily bruise the eventual nominee, just to make the final score a bit closer.
Brandon Howell is an account director at Hynes Communications and a contributor to the Peach State political blog Georgia Tipsheet.