by Bill Nigut
Conventions leave lasting impressions
Georgia Democrats believe they have a good chance of winning their bid to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, further cementing Georgia’s role as a crucial swing state in national politics.
I’ve had the good fortune to attend 10 national political conventions in my lifetime, nine of them as a reporter for WSB-TV. But it was my first convention that stirred in me the passion to become a political journalist.
It was 1960 and I was 13 years old. Republicans had brought their convention to Chicago’s International Amphitheater, a dusty, hulking cement building sitting in the shadows of the Chicago stockyards, back then a major center for slaughtering cattle shipped from across the country.
John Smart, my partner in any number of adolescent adventures, suggested we take the “L” down to the Amphitheater to see all the excitement surrounding the convention. And so we did, arriving on a warm summer evening, the breezes wafting the stockyard’s fragrant barnyard odors over the reporters, delegates and onlookers assembled for the final night of the GOP gathering.
John and I somehow convinced a gregarious Texas delegate in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat to give us two of the fistful of passes he was thumbing through as he approached an entrance to the building. We were thrilled to be inside the convention hall, but it was what happened next that made us not just spectators but actual participants in the night’s most important business.
A young woman approached John and me and told us we could go actually go onto the floor of the convention if we followed her. We had unknowingly been recruited to be part of the crowd that would celebrate the nominee Richard Nixon’s entrance into the hall to give his acceptance speech!
And so there I was, on July 28, 1960, a young political novice, dancing with hundreds of conventiongoers, hoisting a Nixon for president placard high in the air. And there, just above me at the podium, stood the nominee himself – Richard Nixon, wife and two daughters at his side.
Nixon lost that election to John F. Kennedy. But it was there, on the floor of the International Amphitheater that I discovered a calling that would lead me to a decades-long career covering American politics.
Click below to see footage of the 1960 Republican Convention.
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CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO: Richard Nixon speaks at the 1960 Republican National Convention, an event attended by a then-13-year-old Bill Nigut.
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Georgia Democrats convene in Columbus; Republicans hold fish fry in Perry
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Rep. Sanford Bishop welcomed Democrats to the 2nd Congressional District, where he is facing a reelection fight in Georgia's only remotely competitive U.S. House district. (Stephen Fowler/GPB).
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A recap of weekend activities
Over the weekend, hundreds of Democrats descended upon Columbus for their state convention, as the party faithful rallied alongside politicians to see if this is the year they can turn Georgia blue, reports GPB's Stephen Fowler.
Among the speakers were U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Rep. Sanford Bishop, who has served Southwest Georgia for decades in the U.S. House. He’s a moderate Democrat with bipartisan appeal who has not come close to losing in many years, but recent redistricting made his seat slightly less favorable.
- "I have to try to balance the issues and the needs of the state at large against the needs of my particular district, Bishop said in an interview. "... My district is half rural and half urban, so I have to be sensitive to both of those constituencies. And so I have to pay much closer attention than many of my colleagues on the Democrat side and on the Republican side.”
Click here to listen to Williams' opening remarks.
Macon TV station WMAZ reported from the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry on Saturday, where the state's GOP leaders gathered to discuss the economy, inflation and social issues. The 8th annual fish fry brought Republican candidates and members from the community together, including incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, Burt Jones for lieutenant governor and Chris West for U.S. Congress.
Ahead of this year's midterm elections, Republicans have also invested millions of dollars in in outreach to nonwhite voters ahead of the vote, creating community centers in minority communities in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Click here to listen to The NPR Politics Podcast to learn more about the community centers.
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CLICK TO LISTEN
State Democrats and Republicans met at conferences in Columbus and Perry over the weekend. Gov. Brian Kemp, Herschel Walker and Burt Jones appeared together, but Stacey Abrams and Sen. Raphael Warnock did not.
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MORE POLITICAL NEWS
- Judge delays Kemp's testimony in Georgia election probe
A judge ruled Monday that Gov. Brian Kemp must testify before a special grand jury that's investigating possible illegal attempts by then-President Donald Trump and others to influence the 2020 election in the state — but not until after the November midterm election.
Lawyers for Kemp had argued that immunities related to his position as governor protect him from having to testify.
- Carter Center launches Georgia-focused election program
The Carter Center is launching the Georgia Democracy Resilience Network, a program aimed at getting people in Jimmy Carter’s home state to avoid conflict and gain confidence in elections.
The program’s co-lead, veteran Republican strategist Leo Smith, says it’s less about election monitoring and more about events and discussions with a wide range of Georgians.
“We’re talking about not the machinations of elections,” Smith said, “but we’re talking about the normative expectations of rhetoric and physical behaviors when we’re engaging in civic and political action.”
- Kemp, Abrams stake out health care and Medicaid expansion
Sharp disagreement over whether to expand Medicaid in Georgia — a state with one of the highest uninsured rates in the country — was one of the defining issues in the governor’s race in 2018.
Four years later, the long-simmering debate over whether the state should expand the public insurance program is still sizzling. But with record-high inflation and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to end the federal protection of abortion rights, other issues are competing for voters’ attentions.
Abrams has still placed Medicaid at the center of her 2022 bid, holding her first campaign stop outside the shuttered doors of Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center in rural Cuthbert two hours south of Atlanta — one of two Georgia hospitals to close during the pandemic.
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Political Rewind: Dems and GOP rally over the weekend; Student loans debate; Sandra Deal's memorial
This week on Political Rewind: For the first time, incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and Republican lieutenant governor nominee Burt Jones come together for a public event during the midterm cycle at the Perry fish fry. The Democrats hold their convention in Columbus. Abortion remains a key issue on Georgians' minds. Debate over student loans continues. Sandra Deal is remembered at her funeral service.
On the panel:
Edward Lindsey, @edlindsey14, former Atlanta state representative
Melita Easters, @GAWINList, founder and director, Georgia WIN List
Patricia Murphy, @MurphyAJC, political reporter and columnist, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tammy Greer, political science professor, Clark Atlanta University
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Upcoming shows
- Thursday: GPB's Donna Lowry and ProPublica's Nicole Carr
- Friday: Jim Galloway
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The GA Today Politics newsletter is written by Bill Nigut and Sarah Rose
and edited by Kristi York Wooten and Khari Sampson
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Thank you for sharing your time with us. Feel free to send us feedback at GAtoday@gpb.org.
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