A Local, Atlanta Note

My apologies for interrupting your morning again, but I need to get something out that has been bothering me. I hesitate to write publicly because I have a lot of friends at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and think very highly of it as an organization, even as I still believe it editorially leans left.

But they need to be disappointed with themselves today.

When longtime politically reporter and columnist Jim Galloway retired, the AJC brought in Patricia Murphy, a former Democratic staffer who went on into the media — a path few on the right get permission to take. Galloway, everyone knew, had Democrat sympathies. Murphy worked for them. But she’s had some great stuff.

Two weeks ago, however, I think that wall between former Democratic congressional staff member and objective writer and reviewer of politics broke badly. She penned a piece titled “Why Isn’t Stacey Abrams Winning?” It contained this:

It’s hard to understand why this Stacey Abrams — relaxed, focused, and embraced by the crowd — isn’t doing better in the polls, having come so close to Kemp the first time around.

There really was not a lot of insight in the piece. For someone at the top of the AJC’s political editorial section, it seemed more shallow that it should be, like punches were being pulled.

But reading this piece today in the New York Times about Abrams actively makes me angry about Murphy’s piece because all this was known when Murphy asked the question “why isn’t Abrams winning?”

It turns out Abrams was making her own decisions, not outside strategists. Her campaign has become very insular. Black small businessmen were doing zoom calls with her while Brian Kemp was taking them to dinner. Black sororities and fraternities who’d do her ground game couldn’t get her to show up at events. She went on a book tour and bypassed Georgia.

All these things were known to a ton of politicos in Georgia on both sides of the aisle. Why did I have to read them in the New York Times instead of Georgia’s own major newspaper? Why did I only get a milquetoast column that danced around the issue and never, as the Times did, strongly point out Kemp had a ton to do with Abrams’ defeat.

It’s just disappointing.

Now, after the election, Murphy writes in the AJC, “In Stacey Abrams’ shadow, the Democratic bench got walloped.”

Sorting out what went wrong for the party will take time and something close to a forensic analysis. Was it the message or the messenger? The policies or the plans? Democrats’ failures or Republican success?

The New York Times already has on the record quotes from Democratic legislators and politicos in Georgia. This excerpt is in the Times.

Mr. Jackson, who is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a Black fraternity, said his group and several others invited her to their gatherings this spring. She did not attend them and her campaign cited her busy schedule, he said. Ten months later, after polls showed some slippage in her support from Black voters, Ms. Abrams hosted a town hall event with the organizations.

“Stacey must own some of this,” said Mr. Jackson, the vice chairman of the state legislative Black caucus. “If you’re running a statewide race, if you venture off and you nationalize it, then that’s problematic.”

What we get from the AJC is this:

Far from blaming Abrams for the down-ballot losses, Amico said Abrams should get the credit for making Georgia competitive in the first place.

“She built this infrastructure,” Amico said. “Nobody believed Georgia was winnable for Democrats, including Georgia Democrats.”

I shouldn’t have to read the New York Times to get a fair assessment of Abrams and the Democrats in Georgia. I shouldn’t have to read a report at the Times to get more inside politics than the Political Insider of the AJC. But apparently I must. Even Jim Galloway, for all his sympathies with the Democrats, could call bullshit on his own side.

Let’s not even get started on the Washington Free Beacon exposing the low income housing from Raphael Warnock’s church. Again, I should have read that locally, not in DC.

Friends at the AJC, you know I love y’all and the organization But you’ve got to do better or you’re going to alienate just over half the state.