Campaign  Georgia
A  Political  Journal

Heads They  Win,  Tails We Lose! 

When Sonny Perdue won the Governor’s race in November, 2002, everyone in  Georgia  expected  a referendum on the state flag.  And everyone except a few insider traders in the highest echelons of power expected the 1956 flag—repealed and replaced in 2001 by an arrogant Roy Barnes and docile legislature—would be on the ballot.

After all, Sonny Perdue voted  against  the Barnes  flag in 2001.  He promised to support a referendum on the flag early in the 2002 campaign.  There were rumors he personally  favored the 1956 flag.  Fans of the 1956 flag were active in Perdue’s campaign and tens of thousands of “Let Us Vote” posters and 1956 flags were visible everywhere in Georgia during 2002.   Everyone knew what flag “Let us Vote” meant.  To top it off, as Roy Barnes walked out the door into political hasbeendom election night, he told reporters “The flag got me.”

Perdue claims he kept his word.  There will a  referendum  of  sorts on the flag March 2,  as part of the  Presidential Preferential Primary.   But the referendum will deny the people of Georgia the choice they most wanted: you won’t be able to vote for the 1956 Georgia Flag.   It’s not on the ballot.

Why?  You hear a lot of reasons, and there’s some truth in all of them.  The arrogant elitists who run the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and hold Georgians and our history in distant contempt are certainly responsible.  Speaker Terry Coleman did cast the tie-breaking vote in the House in favor of Sonny Perdue’s plan.  There may have been a deal for some votes for the cigarette tax.  The Bush White House doesn’t want the republican party associated with Confederate heritage.  The Black Caucus, unlike legislative supporters of the 1956 flag, used all their leverage on the flag issue. 

But  ultimately  one person is responsible for limiting your choices in the March 2, flag referendum:  Sonny Perdue, Governor of Georgia.   Had Sonny Perdue wanted the referendum to include Georgia’s 1956  Flag, he could have gotten it through the legislature.  No question about that.   In fact,  it passed the Democratic controlled house.  But not the Republican controlled Senate.

It  appears Sonny Perdue at  some point embraced the NAACP’s goal of erasing the Confederate flag  from  official status and public property--completing what Roy Barnes started in 2001.

He must have come to this position early in the campaign.  After he promised a referendum on the flag  in his  2002 race for Governor,   But the Perdue campaign and Republican Party downplayed it as the campaign wore on.  The subject was almost avoided.  When people showed up with 1956 flags or confederate  t-shirts at  Perdue rallies,  they were routinely asked to remove them or leave.

The  most  telling sign occurred election night.  Georgia’s 1956  flag was waving in the audience as Sonny Perdue announced Roy Barnes had conceded the election, and stepped off the podium into Morris Diggs (FOX 5, Atlanta) and his microphone.

Diggs first mentioned the flags in the room, then asked Perdue about them.  As I recall, Perdue replied,   “These people are not me.  I’m not a part of them.  They’re here, but I did not invite them.” A  closeup revealed an expression of  actual dislike on Perdue’s face.  It was a profound, deliberate  distancing  of  Perdue from those who had elected him that day.   I mentioned it to someone who had been in the audience that night, waving his 1956 flag.  He said Republican senate leader  Eric Johnson (now  Senate President  Pro Tem), a former champion of the 1956 flag,  was on the podium and looked at him and his flag with open disapproval.  

Once elected, Perdue surrounded himself with Chamber of Commerce and political operatives who had helped Roy Barnes change the flag  in 200l.  Eric Tannenblatt, who became Perdue’s chief of staff, was one such appointee.  Ralph Reed,  then Chairman of the Republican Party, is a long-time foe of Southern Heritage.

Within weeks, Johnson and others, including House Republican  leader Lynn Westmoreland, were downplaying the return of the 1956 flag.  If memory serves correctly, both mentioned the “pre-56” flag—the old 1879 White Supremacy flag promoted by, among others,  Maynard Jackson, Tyrone Brooks, and  Zell  Miller.

Perdue had the flag referendum bill introduced, with the 1956 flag as a choice.  He refused to publicly support any flag,   But he frequently said “Georgians will make the right decision.”  George bush used that line in South Carolina in 2000, while his campaign leaders worked behind the scenes to take the Confederate flag off the Capitol.  “Georgians will make the right decision”  is code for  “I’m against the 1956 Georgia flag,” From the beginning, steps were taken to stack the deck against the 1956 flag in the referendum.

First, they scheduled it with the March 2, 2004, Presidential Preferential Primary.  That is a convenient date.  But the only contests will be among democrats (Bush is unopposed in the Republican Primary) and  most of the voters will be democrats, They are Georgia’s most liberal voters and considered most opposed to southern heritage.  With candidates like Al Sharpton the ballot, lots of criticism of Southern Heritage and the flag could be expected.  Republicans are more conservative.  Since Bush is without opposition,  mostly diehard republicans from greater Atlanta will vote.  They can be relied on to follow the Republican Party line on the flag.  The arrangement would have put the 1956 flag in a tough position.  But that wasn’t enough to insure its defeat.

Second,  they created a new state flag the general public doesn’t associate with the confederacy.   It was designed to confuse people  and split the southern heritage vote,   They claim it’s based on the “first” National Flag of the Confederacy, but  the obscure emblem is best known as the logo of the United Daughters of  the Confederacy.    The legislation nowhere contains  the word “Confederate”, and the new specifically states the13 stars—which represented the 13 Confederate states in the obscure provisional flag—represent  the thirteen original United States!

But they didn’t wait for the voters to choose a flag.  They enacted the Sonny Perdue trick flag into law immediately.   It’s  been the official flag since May, 2003, They hope after it’s been flying over schools, city halls,  fire houses, courthouses, banks, and state buildings  for a year,  people will vote for the Perdue in March.  It  was meant to stack the deck more firmly against a return of the 1956 flag.

As a final touch, Perdue planned a propaganda tour,  He hinted darkly there was something “bad underneath” about this issue.  These forums would clear it up.  In fact,  the three forums held  predictably turned out to be  opportunities  to bash southern heritage, replay all the big lies about the 1956 flag, get “prayerful”, and rehash the civil rights movement.

Taken together, these  strategies  were  the surest way to win an election besides stuffing ballot boxes.

But  even  all these roadblocks against the 1956 flag weren’t enough.  When Joseph Lowery said he would lead a boycott against any referendum with the 1956 flag on it, everyone got scared.   The black population is widely, if somewhat mistakenly, believed to adamantly oppose confederate flags.  Their votes were crucial:  if they boycotted a referendum with the 1956 flag as a choice, the 1956 flag would surely win!

So Perdue and the legislature took the final step in keeping the people from voting “the wrong way”.  They removed the 1956 flag from the ballot!  But they kept the referendum, and more or less insured the Perdue Flag will remain the official flag of Georgia.  Those who vote will have two choices.  They can vote for the Perdue Flag, or they can vote for the much maligned Roy Barnes Flag.  Heh!  Heh!  We know how that will go.   HEADS THEY WIN—TAILS WE LOSE!!!

The Perdue Flag and referendum are the most devious, dishonest  manipulation of a political issue which has ever occurred in Georgia, including the Yazoo Frauds.  Perdue’s duplicity on the state  flag  makes Roy Barnes look downright honest!  The Sonny Perdue flag,  like the Roy Barnes flag, embodies the  triumph of cowardice, intimidation, elitism,  big lies, and political opportunism over the truth, history, simple fairness, and  the wishes of most Georgians.  Big media and the Chamber of Commerce are up to their eyeballs  in the scam.  And an expensive, slick campaign bankrolled by corporate money may soon roll  out  to sell it to the public.

Honest, fair minded  voters who want to do the right thing should be outraged.    There’s only one way to protest the denial of the people’s right to freely choose Georgia’s state emblem.  People should refuse to vote.   VOTERS SHOULD BOYCOTT  THE  MARCH  2, FLAG REFERENDUM!

Reprinted from the Georgia Flag Referendum, Issue 2.

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