US Senate race in Georgia. Some reactions and reflections from a day in campaign mode.

One of the most fascinating aspects of politics is the multiple layers of communication and subtle insights that one takes in and assesses when one is a participant rather than merely a spectator that simply votes ever two to four years.

The base of support that has coalesced around Nunn appears to be of two sorts 1) those who don't seem to recognize, or care to recognize, the neoliberal economic leanings; 2) those who are following signals from the party that the Field was cleared for her to run.  Over the past day and a half via blog posts, phone calls, and emails to activists I'm been trying to undermine and widdle away at the Nunn supporters to see which direction they turn depending on the critique you provide of her candidacy.

The opposition to Nunn appears to have coalesced around Dr. Rad.  My efforts over the past 24 hours or so was to see if I could unlock some of the support from Nunn and shift them in to the opposition to Nunn camp with a draft Jason Cater effort to push him earlier than he appears to desire into a higher office.   The end result from one day of action both online and via phone appears to be 14 supporters of and the 50-60 some odd conversations I had offline throughout the past day remaining either in the Nunn  or Rad camp. The core of Carter's supporters that are in the Nunn camp appear to remain in the Nunn camp regardless because they prefer him to run for Governor (as do in fact the bulk of Dr. Rad supporters I've spoken with to today).

Basically there are the "Nunn is horrible", let her lose, Carter supporters, and the "Carter is better for Governors race" Dr Rad supporters.  One of my basic goals over the past 24 hours was accomplished via my ability to see and hear the responses of people to figure out which direction they turn with a new rank order selection to navigate.  The only goal to identify other activists willing to act to build up support to draft Carter appears weak to nil--all the activists are too busy as it is to take on such a task.

Intuitively a grassroots effort to recruit Carter has more "easy votes" to acquire via name recognition once the effort got off the ground.  The question is first, would Carter even run if one was able to pull in the 10,000 or so names one would need to draw some major attention to the petition, but secondly getting "off the ground" might require more effort than volunteers I'm able to locate.  Along those lines I gave a few people some recruitment requests which got mild to moderate commitments and vague time lines.  The response seems lukewarm to building the type of network of volunteers willing to work over the next  month or so needed to build up the signatures needed to draw Carter in the race.

In summation... well nothing really.  I was just kind of typing out some thoughts from today's efforts.  Democracy in action...yay!   : )