Jon Ossoff is a 30 year old left wing Democrat candidate for Georgia’s 6th district in the House of Representatives, to replace Republican Tom Price, who now is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
And, being a leftist, he has been embraced by Hollywood and other natural allies of his agenda. This has resulted in a massive campaign war-chest of about $8 million – very, very impressive for a single house seat.
The way the election works is that its first round is held this coming Tuesday, April 18th. If a candidate gets 50% or more of the vote, it’s all over – he/she is the new House member. If not, the two highest-vote candidates compete in a runoff election, to be held June 20th.
Ossoff, by virtue of being the only Democrat with more than asterisk-inducing support, is winning the first round by a ton. Polls show him in the 39% – 45% range, with no one else close.
How could a left wing Democrat be leading by this much in a Republican district like Georgia’s 6th? Is it that Donald Trump’s popularity has fallen off the end of the earth and voters there would prefer a candidate whose views would usually be anathematic to them over his party’s alternatives?
Well, probably not. The fact that 11 Republican candidates are splitting that side of the aisle’s vote is much more likely to be the reason.
In any event, if Ossoff falls short of 50% his lone Republican opponent will apparently be the decidedly conservative/right wing Karen Handel – about as polar an opposite to Ossoff as there could be. And, given this district’s usual political dynamic, she’ll probably win.
So the real contest, at least as things now stand, is to see whether Jon Ossoff can win outright on Tuesday.
Which leads us straight to jane “Hanoi Jane” fonda.
Even today, 50 years after her happy canoodling with North Vietnam, as their soldiers were killing ours, the hatred for fonda burns bright among conservatives – especially military families, which Georgia’s 6th has plenty of.
Why would this be relevant to Georgia’s special election?
Because it has just come out that, this week, fonda contributed $2,000 to Jon Ossoff.
This is supposed to help Ossoff. But will it?
The late Brooklyn Dodger executive, Branch Rickey, used to talk about the concept of “addition by subtraction”- i.e. the fact that getting rid of a troublesome ballplayer, even if he was productive on the field, would improve the team.
Is there any doubt that jane fonda’s contribution to Jon Ossoff, in this district, is going to have the reverse effect?
Ossoff gets $2,000 more – meaningless given the amount he already has to work with. But the fact that he is jane fonda’s candidate is going to enrage a great many families within that district, which not only can lower his vote total per se, but can increase turnout, because people will come out to vote against fonda, thus against Ossoff.
What an irony it would be if Karen Handel, whose social views are, no doubt, despised by Jon Ossoff, won a seat in congress as the direct result of jane fonda, who, if anything, despises her social views even more than Ossoff does?
Subtraction by addition. It really can happen.
We’ll talk after next week’s votes are in.
My first thought while reading this was , how many of the 11 are really Republicans???
What a great way for Democrats to fix an election.