It’s About Electability

“I love my home state of Georgia so much,” began U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s announcement in early May that she wouldn’t run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Georgians, she writes, “may not be rich with the world’s riches, but they are overflowing with kindness, love, family values and a deep sense of joy, whether they’re sitting on the front porch or the tailgate of a pickup truck.”

That sounds exactly like the working and middle class, church-going and patriotic Southerners I grew up around – people who work hard to support their families and pay the bills but never get rich doing it.

But that porch-sitting era seems to have gone the way of the milkman and VCRs. When Greene was growing up in the 1980s, such scenes were normal. Georgia was far more rural and far less prosperous than it is today. She’s describing a demographic that’s an important part of the GOP base, but Republicans must attract many other demographics to gain a majority in Georgia – which may have its first majority-minority electorate next year.

That includes what she called the “ultrarich Kemp donors” who had attended the governor’s fundraising event “on luxurious Sea Island to anoint their preferred candidate to run against Jon Ossoff.”

It’s true the 1 percenters and .01 percenters were well represented at that retreat. But it’s equally true that those people are just as much Georgians as the humble tailgaters she references.

Such contradictions abound.

Greene bemoans the ultrarich, but she meets the definition herself. Nasdaq estimates her net worth above $22 million. That’s enough to afford some vacation time at Sea Island.

She claims, “elections today aren’t about choosing leaders who’ll serve the people, they’re about money.” If accurate, that’s great news for her because few politicians in the country raise more money than she does. Her 2022 campaign spent nearly $12 million on a race that was never in doubt. She’s the biggest fundraiser in Georgia’s House delegation by far.

“Soon enough, the booze will flow again at the country clubs and Mar-a-Lago, and the consultants will chase another cycle’s cash,” Greene writes. Oh, those terrible political consultants! They’re the worst – though anyone who works on her campaign payroll is de facto a political consultant. As a longtime political communicator, I can tell you that attacking us is good politics. I’d recommend it, because I know that Americans would rank our industry somewhere between predatory lenders and the peddlers of opioids.

But political consultants don’t tell American voters what to believe. They research what voters want to hear and then try to formulate a winning message. Consultants hold up a mirror. It’s candidates themselves who must light the torch and lead the people.

That’s why I’m dubious of her assertion that operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulled a bait-and-switch on her. She said they told her that “any Republican” can beat Ossoff but then released an allegedly skewed poll that showed her far behind Ossoff in a matchup. Those consultants have one goal: to win Senate seats and enlarge the GOP majority. If polling showed Greene beating Ossoff by a wider margin than any other Republican, the NRSC would camp out on her doorstep begging her to run. If they’re not doing that, it’s because of cold, hard numbers, not personal animus.

Greene says that she learned in her University of Georgia statistics class that polls can be skewed to render any desired result. I didn’t take that class at UGA because I was told it was hard. But I do know that political pollsters – another group of consultants – don’t stay in business long if they’re producing polls that tell clients only what they want to hear. That leads to losing in a profession where 50.1% gets you everything and 49.9% gets you nothing.

The elites are “trying to carefully select someone who can dress up in MAGA just enough to trick the grassroots into thinking they’re one of us,” Greene writes. No, Republicans – MAGA, the Establishment, donors, consultants – are looking to build a coalition that can get to 50% plus one in Georgia.

Greene fervently wants to advance the Trump agenda, which requires electing Republicans. The ultimate contradiction of the announcement is its insistence that the GOP nominate someone who passes some cultural or ideological test rather than emphasizing electability. A winner who can “dress up in MAGA just enough” will vote in accordance with Greene’s wishes far more than Ossoff. 

Brian Robinson is co-host of WABE’s Political Breakfast podcast.