Motley Moose – Archive

This is the second part of two posts describing a fascinating election in Georgia: the 1980 Senate election, in which Republican Mack Mattingly beat scandal-ridden Democrat Herman Talmadge. This was the first time that a Republican Senator was elected in Georgia for more than a century. Even more interestingly, the areas that the Democratic candidate won tend to vote strongly Republican today, and vice versa.

The Black Vote in 1980

The previous post ended by bringing up the role of the black vote:

In 1980 Republican candidate Mack Mattingly won areas with substantial black populations, most notably the heavily-black city of Atlanta itself. Surely Democratic Senator Herman Talmadge’s dedicated support to segregation wouldn’t have appealed to the black vote.

So did Republicans win the black vote in this 1980 election?

More below.

This diary was first published in February, 2010. This was the first ‘walking the dog’ diary I wrote. It’s topical again so I decided to repost it.

Walking the dog is, in some ways, very similar to being a mailman. Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet… Well, maybe not quite the same. Rain and sleet will keep me indoors. Snow, on the other hand, is not a problem for someone born and bred in the north country. It’s not a problem for my buddy Al, either.

Al has some Husky in him. It shows in his brilliant blue eyes and his thick undercoat. He’ll romp in the snow for hours without showing the slightest discomfort. At least, he used to when he was younger. Nowadays, he’s more like me. A slow, rambling walk is good enough. Even when we have 8″ of fresh snow like we had this day.