State Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Marietta)
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) (MDJ Staff/Laura Moon)
Gingrey was asked whether he intended to run while speaking to members of the Cobb Legislative Delegation at the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in Atlanta.
“The answer is I’m thinking about it, but I’m undecided at this point, but I am thinking about it, and I guess you could use the phrase ‘checking the boxes’ and ‘kicking the tires’ and making sure that we’re not making that decision hastily,” Gingrey said. “The election is 16 to 18 months away, but obviously we are seriously thinking about it, but I can’t tell you exactly what my deadline is in regard to making a decision.”
The MDJ also confirmed that a group of metro Atlanta business people have approached Thompson, the dean of the Georgia Senate, asking him to run for senator on the Democratic ticket.
“I may be able to give them a bigger dose of the truth in the U.S. Senate than they can take,” Thompson said. “A little hard truth during this next campaign would be exactly the thing that the people of the state of Georgia need.”
Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University, said both Gingrey and Thompson are quality candidates.
“Republicans like Phil Gingrey an awful lot,” Swint said. “They respond to him on a personal level. He is consistent on conservative issues that Republican voters care about, and so I think any race Phil Gingrey got involved in, he’d be a strong candidate.”
Assuming Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and U.S. Rep. John Barrow (D-Augusta) don’t enter the race, it would be a wide open field on the Democratic side, Swint said.
“Which would give somebody like Steve with his background and his contacts as good a shot as anybody, I would think,” he said.
But Swint said he doesn’t believe a Democrat has a good chance to win the U.S. Senate seat.
“I think their best chance is if the Republicans were to nominate someone who is just really extreme, and it becomes unacceptable over the course of the campaign, a.k.a. Todd Akin, that sort of thing, which would open things up possibly, but absent that, it’s probably a long shot for Democrats,” he said.
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Hint to republicans: the Tea Party ain't your problem.
Please, please will someone run for U.S. Senator who is fair, honest, not indebted to big money/big business, has common sense and cares about all the GA citizens not just the rich and very conservative?
1)The rich paying 11% to 16% in Federal income taxes, while I pay in the 20 percentage range, because I don't make enough to have all the tax write offs.
2)Reduce Social Security payouts and raise the eligible age for Social Security.
3)Reduce Medicare
4)Determine how a woman should handle her body instead of the woman and her doctor.
5)Determine if a woman turns off her pregnant button during a rape.
6)Engage in more wars around the world.
7)Raise Defense spending.
8)Leave healthcare insurance up to the insurance companies & big corporations.
I realize that some solutions the President has proposed are not perfect, but they can be worked on. NO candidate for which I voted has ever been perfect. If a Republican had been in office the last 4 yrs, I would still be waiting for anything substantial to be done regarding the availability of health insurance for the self-employed & those with pre-existing conditions.
Very helpful post. Obviously you are pro-diversity, anti-white, anti-Baptist insulting and fail to understand what either of the gentlemen said or meant.
But, thanks for your valued input.I will weigh it on my penny scale.