From The Politics Desk

We have a lot to say about all this but the Sports Desk had us up past 3:30 a.m. last night watching the marathon, 18-inning, 7 1/2-hour Red Sox World Series loss (ahem) to the Los Angeles Dodgers last night, and they will require our full attention a little later for the Georgia Bulldogs must-win game against bitter archrival Florida and then Game 4 of the World Series, so we have neither the time, energy or inclination to discuss all this in great detail.

The issue of voter suppression here in Georgia is very real and nothing less than a tangible threat to American democracy, and we're glad to see it being covered so prominently in the national media.  We've made the front page of the NY Times already on multiple occasions and been featured on the front page of England's The Guardian.  We've been the subject of lead-in monologues on Stephen Colbert's, John Oliver's, Trevor Noah's, and Bill Maher's television shows, and of course have been extensively discussed on MSNBC, CNN, and Huffington Post. 

As I'm sure you know, the issue here is that Brian Kemp, Georgia's Secretary of State, who's in charge of running elections, and a current gubernatorial candidate, has decided to hold off processing literally tens of thousands of voter registrations due to perceived irregularities in his "exact match" policy (e.g., a missing hyphen) or signatures that in his untrained staff's eyes don't exactly match what's on file.  It probably won't surprise you to learn that Mr. Kemp is a white Republican and that some 70%  of the suppressed registrations are for black voters (Georgia is only 35% black). 

In essence, what we have is a candidate who is abusing the authority of his office to illegally manipulate the outcome of the election in which he's running.  He has refused calls to even temporarily recuse himself from his Secretary of State position during the election, as S.o.S.'s have in other state's elections.  What's more, he's a despicable candidate, a true "deplorable," who's run t.v. ads showing him pointing a shotgun at a teenager he says was thinking about dating his daughter, and another of him in a pickup truck in case he had to "round up illegals and deport them myself."

The good news is that Kemp is running against a very strong candidate, Stacy Abrams, who's gathered national attention herself and not just because of Kemp's antics or because she could be the first black woman Governor of any state (much less Georgia), but because she's running as a bona fide, unapologetic progressive and gathering support in this deep red state.  Most polls have her and Kemp neck and neck. 

I don't base my votes on celebrity endorsements, but I find it an encouraging sign of her national popularity that last night Will Ferrell was here in Atlanta door-to-door canvassing for Ms.Abrams.

There's several other exciting campaigns going on here in Georgia, including our nemesis, Karen Handel, who narrowly beat Democrat Jon Ossoff two years ago, running in a close race for Congress against another black woman progressive, Lucy McBath.  Times do change and elections matter, and although Georgia's been governed for a long time now by a male Republican oligarchy, winds of change are blowing hard to turn this red state blue.