Self-Funder Gives Democrats Hope in Georgia

[NewJerseyDem]

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/49_94/news/4795-1.html (subscription required)

Against the backdrop of an expanding battleground of competitive races and the absence, so far, of the resources to help fund them, Democrats appear poised to coalesce behind a self-funding venture capitalist in the Georgia Senate race.

Cliff Oxford, a 41-year-old self-made millionaire, is on the verge of announcing he will seek the seat of retiring Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), according to knowledgeable Democratic sources.

Oxford has talked to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Jon Corzine (N.J.) and former President Jimmy Carter, both of whom have encouraged him to make the race.

“He’s about to get in,” said one Democratic source in Georgia.

[TheDonkey]

1. Good news!

Georgia is a tough buy, but it's good to have a choice.

[RamblingRose]

2. Gee, I wonder who Zell will endorse. I look forward to voting for a real

democrat!

[Toronto Ron]

3. Who is this guy?

Does anyone here know a thing about him?

[NewJerseyDem]

4. He's just a rich guy who wants to be in the Senate

Once he announces we will find out more about him, I assume.

[Doomsayer13]

5. the state of things right now

I think any Democrat is a good Democrat for this seat. We shouldn't give it up for dead yet.

[derekoja]

6. Lots of Democrats running in Georgia already...

There are some good, qualified candidates running in Georgia already, and I work for one of them. Give Gary Leshaw a look. We're not the deep pocketed phantom the DSCC keeps looking for, but we've been on the ground working hard for three months already. Check us out at our website, and check back--we have the boys from Blue State Digital building a new web presence for us, it'll be up by the end of this month.

[surfermaw]

10. dereoja I too was born in Ga live in N.C

Remember the campaign between Dewey and Roosevelt, there were only two families in our school that were republican, thought we would never see the day that Georgia went Republican. Another thought, never though we would have a President form the south either,but that pattern has been broken.Some day the south will be in the democrat column again, it took time to get the state to go republican and it is going to take hard work and time to get it back democrat, however Bush is probably done a lot of the hard work for us.

[JeffersonStarship]

7. Well

I think this seat is the Southern state that we are most likely to lose this cycle. I think that we can keep FL, SC, and NC, because we have good candidates running in all 3 states, but I'm just not sure we can hold on to GA. I'm optimistic, though.

[David__77]

8. I would prefer Majette.

Why won't they get her to run? She has demonstrated appeal to a broad cross-section.

[tedoll78]

9. Hate to say this..

because it sounds like profiling a bit..

but I'd like to try an experiment on a theory I built via Louisiana.

Let's try to run a white female.

In the South, the gender gap in our favor is nowhere near the national average. But it opens widely when we have a white female running for the office. Look at the elections of Senator Mary Landrieu and Governor Kathleen Blanco. That's how they won.. with women voting more positively than men.