Yesterday was primary day for state and local races here in Georgia. The big statewide issue was a vote on regional SPLOSTs to fund transportation improvements, which failed in spectacular fashion - 9 of the state's 12 regions rejected it. The metro Atlanta vote went 63% against, 37% in favor. The local press is painting the defeat of the SPLOST here in the metro area as a Tea Party victory...there was Tea Party opposition, but the huge margin of the overall defeat, combined with the fact that it failed in all 10 metro counties (some of which are fairly blue), suggests that opposition was much more widespread than just the Tea Party folks. Personally, I place most of the blame at the feet of the SPLOST supporters, who sunk millions of dollars into what was possibly the worst political ad campaign of all time....it was like watching a massive train wreck unfold in slow motion over a two-month period. At no point did the supporters make an effort to actually try and educate voters on exactly how a regional approach to improving transportation, including heavy support for transit, would improve the overall traffic situation here in the ATL. None of their literature contained contact information for more information, and the overall theme of their campaign was basically "vote for this and everything will be magically better - you're welcome!" And, when polling a week in advance of the vote showed that the measure was probably going to crash-and-burn, their response was a TV ad invoking the ghost of Ronald Reagan ("hey - look - the Gipper would've liked this!") and an exhausting barrage of robocalls (we received
23 at the house in the four days prior to the election - I would reconsider voting for my wife for anything after an assault like that).
Morons.