A year of upheaval rocked Georgia politics

ATLANTA - It wasn't supposed to be a Republican year in Georgia.

Democrats expected strong gains in the Legislature and Congress from the new election maps they admitted they drew for self interest. Experts favored Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes to win a second term.

But from the primaries in August to the general election in November, it was a year of upheaval - a year that broke the Democrats' 130-year lock on the governorship, brought down Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, knocked out Tom Murphy, the nation's longest-serving speaker of a state legislature, and called home two controversial members of Congress Republican Bob Barr and Democrat Cynthia McKinney.

In an aftershock from the Nov. 5 voting, Georgians awoke to find the state Senate in Republican hands for the first time since Reconstruction a result of four Democrats switching parties at the behest of Gov.-elect Sonny Perdue.

As the year ended, the House remained in Democratic hands but Republicans, aided by Perdue, were working to gain an unprecedented hand in choosing the next Speaker.

``You could say this was a once-in-a-lifetime change, but you'd really need several lifetimes to see these kind of changes,'' said Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor.

Georgia was the only state in the nation not to have elected a Republican governor during the 20th century. After polls showed Barnes leading in his bid for re-election, few saw any reason to believe the Democratic string of successes would not continue.

The 54-year-old lawyer and veteran legislator held an overwhelming money advantage that allowed him to air TV commercials early and often. But the many initiatives of his first term also had earned him many enemies.

Teachers felt he scapegoated them in pushing education reform. Heritage groups protested changing the state flag to all but eliminate the Confederate fighting banner.

Still others, Perdue included, attacked him for a dictatorial style of leadership. Perdue distributed a video mocking Barnes as a swaggering cartoon rat labeled ``King Roy.''

When the votes were counted, Barnes had been defeated by 105,000 votes and Georgia had elected as its 81st governor a man who promised a new day in Georgia, but also a man few people knew.

Perdue, a successful agri-businessman from Bonaire in middle Georgia, once had been the state Senate's second-highest Democrat but switched parties in 1998 and resigned in 2001 to begin his race for governor.

During the campaign, he promised to allow voters to decide whether they wished to keep the new Barnes flag, a step some fear would rekindle an incendiary debate and perhaps bring renewed threats of economic boycott.

Also denied a second term in the Republican surge was the state's senior senator. Cleland fell to Rep. Saxby Chambliss, who hammered Cleland over his refusal to back a homeland security bill that didn't include a worker's rights provision.

The race was very much on the mind of President Bush, who campaigned repeatedly for Chambliss in Georgia.

A third top Democrat fell when voters in a west Georgia legislative district turned the state's most powerful lawmaker out to pasture, ending a legislative career that began for 78-year-old Tom Murphy in 1961.

As Speaker, he had stamped his authoritarian style on the House for 28 years. His defeat touched off a long-delayed battle between two of his top lieutenants, Democratic Reps. Terry Coleman and Larry Walker, for the top job.

Coleman won the Democratic nomination to succeed Murphy but Walker, with the aid of House Republicans and Perdue, hopes to knit together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to challenge Coleman in January. If the challenge is successful, Republicans hope to be rewarded with a share of committee chairmanships and influence.

Congressional primaries in August sent two incumbents to defeat, including McKinney, an outspoken and often controversial lawmaker for a decade who accused President Bush of purposely ignoring warnings of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington so his friends could profit from a war on terrorism.

She lost to fellow Democrat Denise Majette, a state court judge.

Also scratched from the roster was fiery Republican Rep. Bob Barr, a strident maverick who led the House impeachment of President Clinton. He lost to another GOP incumbent, John Linder, in a redrawn district.

Dynasties in the making got rough handling from the voters during the year.

Three weeks after his daughter was defeated for Congress, veteran Democratic state Rep. Billy McKinney was booted out of his job by a young challenger.

In east Georgia, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Walker was voted out of the Legislature on the same night his son, Charles Walker Jr., lost a congressional bid.