Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   Why Kingston Lost in Georgia Senate Runoff Date:   7/23/2014 8:25:46 AM

First my disclaimer.  I reluctantly voted for Kingston in the primary for one reason only, my fear that not being a career politician he will be prone to the kind of gaffes that can sink novice candidates of either party.  Here's hoping he proves me wrong because the lady he is running against has only thing going for her and that is her last name.  She is a typical, run of the mill left wing nut that is trying to ride her daddy's coattails into the Senate......and she may well succeed.  If Perdue runs a gaffe-free campaign he stands a good chance of winning but if he has a Todd Aiken moment it will be an uphill battle.  And you can be sure the liberal media machine in Atlanta will be working overtime to get him to say something stupid and then it will be magnified many times over the gaffes of Nunn.  Tim to get out the checkbook although the good news is he has plenty of money to fight back.

So what I think sunk Kingston was two things.  First, Perdue's pitch that Kingston was a career politician that would barter away conservative principles once in office resonated with a lot of voters.  Kingston was backed 100% by the Republcan establishment and that hurt him.  Second, and the thing that bothered me most was the abject lies his campaign told about Perdue and the nastiness of the literature he sent out.  I know that this tactic usually works in elections, particularly state-wide ones where most of the voters don't really know either candidate very well.  But given the mood of the electorate right now that nastiness just didn't sit well.  I will stipulate that some of Perdue's campaign tactics were likewise fallacious but he combined that with a positive message of sending an outsider to DC instead of a career politician.

To Kingston's credit he has said he will back Perdue 100% in the general election and that will help tremendously in the more rural areas of Georgia where he is better known.  We already know the Atlanta metro will go for Nunn......heck, they would vote for Robert "Sheets" Byrd if he were on the ballot.  But if Perdue does well in the suburbs and the rest of Georgia he can win.  Will be interesting to watch but its time to get out the checkbook and get him started on the right foot.