Lions and Eagles

Dear Friends, I very much enjoyed the Beer Summit on Racial Understanding last week, and I was honored to be able to attend and meet so many wonderful people. I am sorry to say that I will not be able to make tonight’s Second Summit, though my thoughts and prayers will be with you all. I have had a question on my mind to ask. It is a difficult question, and I hope you will give me your thoughts. This comes from a place of having people around me on different sides, in different camps, who regard each other as enemies, even though I believe they could be friends. You see, it looks to me like that there may be actually two things that people may refer to when they say Black Lives Matter. There is a movement, and there is a particular organization that acts in the name of that movement. I am 100% on board with the movement. With the organization, that group that owns BlackLivesMatter.com, I have much agreement, but I don’t want different ideas that we may have to hurt the places where we...

It's been a crazy year, but as always, I still do my own research before voting, and I wouldn't want to let an election go by without sharing my thoughts for anyone interested!  I do have to start with a disclaimer, though I am an officer of a local political party affiliate, these thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone. I encourage everyone to do their own research and make their own decisions before voting. An informed vote is a powerful vote.

Before I send in my request for a mail-in Ballot for the May 19th primary, I wanted to make a quick breakdown of the ballots, according to which races actually have more than one candidate to look at. I pulled the Qualifying Candidates lists for the election from the Georgia Secretary of State's website. Later on, I'll get into researching the candidates. But, if you have a particular race you know you want to be able to vote in, or if you want to maximize the number of actual options you can look at, this information may be useful. Some of these races will definitely have Independent and/or third party candidates in November, but for May, here are your choices:

Every election, I try to do some sort of voting research, and write up my opinions on the coming races. This time around, we have a simple election with just municipal races, and I did something new. I met individually with each of the candidates for my town council, and sat down for a conversation. It was an interesting experience, definitely enlightening, and I hope that I gave each of them some new food for political thought even as I learned about them.

Last night I went to a Q&A session with a couple of members of the school board for parents and members of the community. (I'm both.) Very nice event. Very glad I went out, and it was very encouraging to see the good turnout in the room. Steve Brown did a fine job of moderating, offering up questions gathered from parents via Facebook, and live audience had a number of questions as well. I have a few reactions to their questions.

Now that I've been through my research, here's the "bottom line" on where I'm voting for each race: Part 1: US Senate:  Mary Kay Bacallo US Representative:  Mike Crane Part 2: Public Service Commissioner:  Kellie Pollard Austin District Attorney:  Rudjard Hayes Sheriff: Barry Babb Coroner: W. Bee Huddleston Part 3: County Commissioner: Eric Maxwell for District 1 Allen McCarty for District 5 Board of Education Brian Anderson Part 4: Republican Party Question "Yes" for empowering parents Part 5: Judge, for Superior Court Mack Crawford (Was leaning Sanderson, but getting more information that is swinging my vote)  Scott Ballard Judge, for Magistrate Court Christy A. Dunkelberger

Last post in my voter guide for this election! I'll follow up with the "summary", now that I've been through the whole ballot. For Judge, Superior Court of the Griffin Judicial Circuit Mack Crawford (Incumbent) https://www.facebook.com/Judge-Mack-Crawford-480952888779042/?fref=ts Appointed by Perdue in 2010. Previously director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council. Catherine Sanderson http://www.electcatherinesanderson.com/default.html Challenging Crawford on the basis that family law cases, divorces, and other proceedings have not been handled expediently. Update: I was leaning towards Sanderson, but I have learned a few things this morning. First, her campaign has apparently included some smear and false claims. I'm still researching this, but I have no patience for dirty campaigning. Second, looking over her Facebook page, she seems to strongly lean towards progressive, left-leaning causes. I want my judges to be Co...

Let's take a moment to look at the Party Questions. This time, I'm not going to look at just the one Party Question on the Republican ballot, but also the five on the Democrat ballot.

I know I'm running late, early voting is almost over and the actual voting day is this coming Tuesday, so I'm hurrying up! County Commission and Board of Education!

Moving on to Public Service Commissioner, District Attorney, Sheriff ,and Coroner

It's about that time of year when I look at the ballots in my area, and with the power of the internet, find out what's really going on with elections both local and national, and figure out for whom I want to vote. This time around, it happens that the only elections going on are -very- local, and the only seats I have to vote for are the Mayor of Tyrone and one seat on the Town Council. But local matters a lot. So, here goes.

Last time I did one of these voting guides, I had some friends say, "Thanks, but we need one page we can just print off and take to the ballot box!" Well, here you go! Here's the quick list (along with links to get back to my reasoning, just in case you want to check my work).

Part three of this November's voting guide, now we tackle the ballot questions! Two Constitutional Amendments, one Tax! Unless I decide to wade into the Presidential race at some point later on, this will be the last of it. Please read on....

Now for the next race on my November ballot: Fayette County Board of Education:

Hey, we're almost down to a month before Election Day! The voting guide I did for the primary was such a huge help, especially for the local races, I'm going to do it again! I'm going to skip over the Presidential election for now. We can come back to that later, if we have time. I want to focus for a bit on those easily-missed races, the state and local offices and the ballot questions. Those offices are much closer to home than the Presidency, and all too often we just don't give them the attention they deserve. Let's start with the Georgia Public Service Commission. We have two seats up on the ballot for this race. For the primary, I voted for one incumbent, and against another. I'm going to do so again this time around. Here's why:

Quick update to my voting guide, I'm changing my vote for U.S. Representative. Details below.

Last part of my voting guide. In this one, I tackle the issues questions. As a bonus, I've looked at both the Republican and Democratic party ballots. Then there are a couple of really important Special Election Referendum items that are going to be on both ballots.

The county and local races can get very contentious. Just a standard disclaimer here, I don't know any of the candidates personally, and I don't have any connection to any campaigns. All that I have to say is based on wading through news accounts, campaign web sites, and other easily available information. I'm judging the candidates based on what they have to say about themselves, and what others have to say about them.