Sunday, November 20, 2016

Georgia Democratic Representative Advises Oconee County Democrats To Be Cautious In Responding To Trump Victory

From Cobb County

Stacey Evans, Democratic Representative from Smyrna to the Georgia House, told Oconee County Democrats not to criticize the voters for the defeat of Hillary Clinton and election of Donald Trump on Nov. 8 in Georgia.

The Democrats didn’t get out enough of their voters to win the election in Georgia and across the country, she said.

Evans said the Democratic Party is on the right side of issues facing Georgia and that she believes the party will have success in the state in the near future not only because of the changing demographics but also because issues the party champions have broad popular support.

Evans was speaking to a group of 30–all but four of them women–at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville on Nov. 13, five days after Donald Trump swept to victory with the support of the majority of the voters in Oconee County and the state.

Evans told the group to start working harder at the local level to get Democrats elected to local and state offices.

Issue Focus

“I think the worst thing we can do at this juncture is blame the voters and pretend like we know better than them,” Evans said. “We are responsible for selling our message and making folks realize why we have something better to offer.”

Stacey Evans

Evans said Democrats in the presidential election didn’t sell a message, instead “We just talked about why Trump was so bad.”

Evans said Democrats have a lot to be proud of and should have been able to create a message for their candidate.

“Democrats are the party that offered health care for all,” she said. “I’m proud that our party is the one that continues to fight in Georgia to expand Medicaid to the 600,000 uninsured Georgians.”

“It is our party that is more friendly to business,” she said. “We don’t talk about it.”

Local Offices

Evans said she understands that it is hard for people in strong Republican counties such as Oconee to realize that it is possible to increase the number of Democratic votes, but she believes it can be done.

And she said Democrats have to realize that change will come about at the state and federal level only as a result of change at the local level.

Working on a local race helps candidates higher up, Evans said. If a local candidate can turn out voters, those same voters often will vote for Democrats for state and federal offices, she said.

All Oconee County office holders are Republicans, and no Democrat ran for local office this year or four years ago.

The Cobb County representative said she believes the Democratic Party will have a chance to make significant strides in the 2018 election cycle, when there will be a swing against the party in power, and that the Party has a chance to win the governorship.

Popular Vote

Evans said Democrats should not be focusing on the popular vote victory of Clinton and criticizing the victory by Trump in the Electoral College.

“We were never playing to win the popular vote. Trump wasn’t playing to win the popular vote,” Evans said. “We were all trying to win the Electoral College because that was the game.”

The latest count puts Clinton up by 1,677,041 votes nationally. That translates to 48.0 percent of the popular vote for Clinton vs. 46.7 percent for Trump.

Clinton got only 232 votes in the Electoral College to the projected 306 for Trump.

Personal Story

Evans grew up in Ringgold in northwest Georgia, the daughter of carpet mill workers.

She told the Oconee County gathering that she was able to attend college only because of the Hope Scholarship.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Georgia and then graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Evans was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2010 and has worked to restore HOPE funding for students in technical schools in the state.

Video

The crowd attending the meeting at the Oconee County Library included young mothers with children in tow.

Ann Stoneburner from the Oconee Democrats introduced Evans.

The complete video of the presentation, including Evans’ responses to questions following her formal makes, is below.

The video is stored on the Candidate Forums, Political Meetings, Political Events Channel of the Vimeo site for Oconee County Observations.

Evans is second representative of the Georgia House who has spoken to Oconee Democrats in recent months.

Stacey Abrams, minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, spoke to the group in September.

The Oconee County Republican Party has not been programming speakers this year.

OCO: Stacey Evans 11 13 2016 from Lee Becker on Vimeo.

7 comments:

Dark Horse said...

“Democrats are the party that offered health care for all,” she said."

Why is this something to highlight as a accomplishment? With 66% of America overweight and 50% of those folks being obese, why should other Americans have to pay so those people can have more affordable health insurance?
Maybe people should just quit stuffing their faces.
Trump people are the folks who get the job done while Hillary people want the job done for them, the latter being pretty hard to respect.

Anonymous said...

Pro-abortion, high taxes and bigger government are great issues to run on, keep it up!!
The current Democratic Party is all about socialism and redistribution of wealth.
If they would actually embrace the idea of individual freedom and liberty they might have a chance. However, they will keep with the Nancy Pelosi playbook and continue to divide Americans into groups and play one off the other.

Xardox said...

Democrats will be doing much soul-searching.
Some will move farther to the left, it that is possible.
Many will understand the Liberal Experiment of the kind recently attempted isn't going to fly.

The local Democrats are organized, active, loyal and very, very smart.
When they finally run someone who can speak to our issues from a reasonable liberal standpoint, the Whole New Ballgame is going into extra innings.

An Obama/Clinton Democrat isn't going to succeed here in Oconee.
A local person familiar with the issues of the tax-payers of this county with the spine to make some real changes at the Court House will make a splash.

Anonymous said...

Dark Horse,

The U.S. states with the highest rates of obesity are so called "Red States".
Republican leaning states have a much higher preponderance of obesity than Democrat leaning states:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

Conservative states West Virginia, Alabama, Mississipi and Louisiana have the highest rates of obesity.

Why should "affordable health insurance" be a priority?

Two reasons:
1) A catastrophic injury and or major illness can bankrupt a hard working family, whether Republican or Democrat, without sufficient health insurance.

2) Please talk to a hospital doctor and/or nurse. People without health insurance do not get regular checkups and preventative care. They flood emergency rooms, which in turn raises your health insurance rates. The more people with affordable health insurance who receive preventative care, the more likely rates stay static.

To Anon 8:24, "The current Democratic Party is all about socialism and redistribution of wealth"...???

If you want to talk abut the redistribution of wealth, put your focus on the billions in tax breaks to corporations, big banks and Wall Street.

It's easy to complain abut your neighbor down the street who you think doesn't work hard. The reality is corporations, big banks and Wall Street have lobbied a system into place which rewards them with billions in cumulative tax breaks.

Social Security fraud is extremely low percentage wide, as is welfare fraud. Yep, it happens, but its low hanging fruit compared to the constant tax dodges by the incorrectly named "job creators".

Anonymous said...

Nearly choked when she said the democrats were more friendly to business. What planet is she from? I own several businesses and employee 250+ people. Obamacare, new overtime regulations and several other regulations has made me give serious though to closing up shop, and living a life without the hassle. The election of Trump has pulled me back from the cliff. Not that I trust Trump, but the democrats are no way in h*#% more friendly to business.

Anonymous said...

In Oconee County, we now have one Republican candidate for commission mailing out a negative ad against another Republican commission candidate:

http://www.oconeecountyobservations.org/2016/11/attack-advertisement-mailed-to-oconee.html


The funny part is Wiedower's old boss was one of the developers pushing for fast growth as cited in the attack ad:

"One of the primary advocates of the fast growth–and of the master plan developments that were a key part of it–was Ken Beall of Beall, Gonnsen and Co., a land planning firm.
In October of 2003, the Board of Commissioners approved the rezone of 443 acres on U.S. 78 near the Apalachee River for Westland, which contained 430 residential lots in a master plan development.
In December of 2004, just before Horton joined the Commission, that body approved the rezone of 500 acres between Hog Mountain Road and Mars Hill Road for another MPD. That development, called Parkside, included 810 residential lots.
Beall, Gonnsen and Company represented both developers in the rezone requests before the Commission.
Wiedower worked for Beall, Gonnsen and Company from March of 1999 to July of 2005."

Anonymous said...

Georgia has a Republican Governor, State House & State Senate. What happens in Georgia is solely the results of Republican leadership.

When there's something they don't like, they blame the Democrat President, but the cold hard reality is they are responsible for the political good & bad in the state. Don't blame the federal government. They need to own it.

Same for the Oconee County Commission. Whether it's growth, planning, water & sewer, etc., everything god & bad in the county politically has been decided by Republicans. Don't blame the state or federal government. They need to own it too.


P.S. Melvin only has a very short time left in office. Be vigilant of him (and his rubber stamp Bubber) trying to rush through Calls Creek sewer and other important decisions that clearly need to be left to the incoming commission.