The Day Georgia Became A Two-Party State

A friend of mine said the other day: "I've got a political history question for you." Shoot, I said. "The majority of Georgia's conservatives used to be Democrats," he started. "Do you think there was any one point at which the majority of Georgia conservatives became Republicans?" As a matter of fact, I do. It was in 1992 when Democrat Wyche Fowler was running for the U.S. Senate against Republican Paul Coverdell. Wyche fowler was not a traditional conservative Southern Democrat. He went to Washington as a liberal; he voted liberal; he hung out in Washington with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Wyche Fowler took a strong stand as a liberal, and Paul Coverdell had strong credentials as a conservative. This was a dilemma for Georgia Democrats: can we support a liberal just because he is a Democrat? At that moment one of Georgia's most powerful old-line Democrats, Tom Murphy, tried to rally all Democrats to support Wyche Fowler, just because he was a Democrat and despite the fact he was a super-liberal.

But in runoff election the majority of Georgia's conservative voters said: "Wait a minute. I'm a conservative. I'm not willing to turn our government over to liberals just because they are Democrats." And the majority elected Paul Coverdell, a conservative and a Republican, to the Senate. Looking back, it was probably the watershed moment when Georgia truly became a two-party state...when conservative voters agreed to vote Republican, because the Democrats had rallied as liberals.