McDonald PSC Win Shows Way Forward For GOP
This week’s Courier Herald column:
The first week of January was a long year in Georgia politics. The most expensive Senate elections in history flipped two seats and control of the entire Senate. A protest over the result of November’s elections became an occupation of the Nation’s capitol building.
Along the way many of Georgia’s elected officials and elections staff became part of intra-party skirmishes that are part loyalty tests to President Trump, part blame-game, and entirely unseemly. As is the nature of politics, much of it was completely shocking while totally expected in the aftermath of such abject failures.
Somewhat lost in the list of events, Republican Bubba McDonald was re-elected as a Georgia Public Service Commissioner. Given that November’s election awarded the state’s sixteen electoral votes to Joe Biden in addition to the aforementioned flip of the US Senate, winning a seat on the PSC seems like a small consolation prize for Georgia’s Republicans.
Not only should the victory be acknowledged, but Republicans who are already knee deep into circular firing squad mode should look at McDonald’s win as a touchstone when trying to figure out what went so horribly and epically wrong for them. It would be a far more productive exercise than pretending November and January elections didn’t happen or that the results are a one-time aberration.
McDonald’s win complicates the narrative that the elections were a referendum on President Trump. He was the first state wide elected official in the country to endorse Trump before he was the Republican nominee in 2016 and remained squarely in the pro-Trump camp through the duration.
Any election is a contest to get a majority of the votes cast. Each individual voter makes his or her own decision based on individual reasoning, so broad brush explanations as to why someone won while others lost will always be based on best guesses.
In a contest where the results are roughly 1% of the voters who chose to vote for Democrats for the US Senate but a Republican for the Public Service Commission, we’ll chose to go with an explanation based on the following premise. McDonald’s record didn’t offend a small subset of Georgia’s voters that wanted a change at the national level but like the trends here at home.
McDonald wasn’t just early to support President Trump. He was also among the first to publicly embrace the widespread commercial use of solar power as part of Georgia’s long term electric generation capacity.
At a time when too many Republican opinion makers would mark Earth Day by suggesting you turn on all your lights or drive your SUV around the block to “own the libs”, McDonald began laying the ground work to incorporate additional renewable carbon-free energy into our electric grid. It was dismissed by many when he added 525 megawatts of solar generating capacity to Georgia Power’s Renewable Action Plan back in 2013. He was getting awards from The Solar Foundation for his work in 2014.
In 2021, the “millennials” that were derided as kids a decade ago by GOP activists are mainstream workers and voters. They care about the environment. And they’ve been paying attention.
During much of the last decade, too many Republican leaders’ message to millennials was “you’ll vote for us when you start paying taxes.” Today, many of those millennials reside in the north Atlanta suburbs. They have jobs in the high tech and finance that pay them well into the six figures – and the tax liabilities commensurate with their occupations. They’re not voting for Republicans.
Republican leaders, still preoccupied with an aging voter base, have continued marketing Cadillacs to a generation that wants Teslas. The result has been an almost obsession with throwing red meat at the dwindling base the party already has rather than marketing to the customers of tomorrow that have loudly and clearly become the voters of today.
But not Bubba. Bubba got about 2% more of the vote than did 2 Senators who spent far more money and got far more air time, but sold the same messages to a shrinking number of voters. Republicans leaders need to spend some quality time reflecting on why.
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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As an elder Millenial that resides in Brookhaven, makes well into the six figures, and voted for Warnock, Ossoff, and McDonald; your take hits pretty close to home.
Energy and the Environment aren’t political issues. We all breathe the same air, drink the same water, explore the same beaches and lakes, and pay the same to power our homes and cars. There isn’t Republican air. There isn’t Democratic power generation. You can carve up a lot of life into politics, but these two issues shouldn’t fit the bill. The sooner both sides agree to commute Energy and the Environment from the political arena the better we all are for it.
I voted for Bubba because he’s been ahead of the game in solar, as you mentioned. Georgia is well positioned for our future growth because of his leadership on renewables and nuclear.
Admittedly I was more in-tuned to this race than the average voter because I work for Southern Company, but as someone that votes Democratic, I was happy to give this Republican another term because I know he’s working to make a better Georgia for my kids and the air they breathe.
Jack, you are right in that energy policy is mostly non-partisan. But Bubba deserves some credit. His political “sense” is as keen as it comes. He has helped negotiate major policy changes in the state including bringing solar power into existence in Georgia—but in a way that has made sense. We have no blue state type mandate called an RPS, or Renewable Portfolio Standard. We have no subsidy that has broken the back of other rate-payers. Instead, he helped create a market-driven approach to renewable energy that is the envy of the country. Add to that his stalwart support for nuclear energy, cheap natural gas and a splash of biomass—and you can see why he is popular with most people. And did I mention that our rates are 14 percent below the national average.
McDonald did not play up his association with Trump like Loeffler and Perdue did. So I’m not sure how that is really relevant. I got flyers from McDonald where he stuck to issues like solar and did not mention Trump. And I live in a red county.
As far as the way forward I would say first thing would be to give up on the big lies and scare tactics. All I heard from Loeffler and Perdue was that the world was going to end if Ossoff and Warnock got elected and stop socialism. They sounded like 1960’s segregationists. People are not obsessed with taxes as long as they feel they are getting value for their tax dollar.
I voted for McDonald too, and a big reason was his support for solar.
PSC shouldn’t be a partisan office. McDonald won dem votes because he wasn’t rabid about his Trump support, he’s got a solid record of competence, and he knows it’s not 1955 anymore.
Thanks Charlie, this gives me encouragement that there are elected officials that deal in reality over lies, hypocrisy and ethical challenges. The obsession with party loyalty over facts and truth is a big turnoff to any “R” or “D” to me.
Good on you Charlie for this editorial.
The big problem are the Republicans restricting voters. No fraud means they are working to restrict absentee ballots based on a fear of this happening every election. It’s gonna bite them in the butt in the long run.
Hopefully the Trump syndrome will fade and the Republicans can see the light. Maybe the “micro’ approach to politics will happen.
I got a mailer back in December from the Loeffler/Perdue campaign that said the Democrats’ Greeen New Deal were gonna take our hamburgers away since the Democrats are all vegan. I kid you not.
I fear Republicans see the easily duped, conned and scammed Trump supporters as an easy mark to bilk for campaign contributions by just perpetuating a few lies.
Nice work, Charlie.
While I could say much about your overall article, I’ll limit my comments here to Commissioner McDonald.
Commissioner McDonald’s position on energy in Georgia is largely non-political, and I think that helped him. He’s quite pragmatic in his perspective of energy in Georgia, seeing it not merely as just another market commodity, but as the animator of the state’s economy. I’m an engineering professor and my work is entirely within the area of US energy policy and national security, so I’m well-acquainted with the politics of energy. However, Commissioner McDonald didn’t entrench himself on the far political left on environment/climate or on the far political right on fossil fuels. As such, I would characterize his position as non-political realism rather than the political middle, which is not how President Trump would be characterized. Again, I think this type of energy realism helped him as it conveys a serious approach to an issue that is becoming increasingly dominated in some states by populist opinions rather than judicious deliberation, as it is in Georgia.
Lastly, as Charlie points out regarding those who care about the environment, from my experience with up-and-coming generations, I can attest to the fact that these issues are important to them. Whether we accept climate change as a real issue or not, rest assured it is a political reality that isn’t going away–and young folks will vote with that in mind. To that end, if Republicans don’t accept the responsibility to get out in front and lead on this issue in a pragmatic way (and they absolutely can do that), they will be ceding that leadership to factions in Georgia that may be driven by populist opinions rather than pragmatic realism. We need only look to California for an example.
In my opinion, Commissioner McDonald is going back into office because he distanced himself from the highly polarized energy politics of DC, and he did so on principle.
david gattie
Dr. Gattie, great points. But don’t forget about all of that good will Bubba has done.
Bubba served for 20 years in the Georgia Legislature, and before that as a county commissioner. Then sixteen years on the statewide Public Service Commission. Those decades of public service created tens of thousands of opportunities to build good will for small businesses, manufacturers, cities, counties and everyday citizens—of all political stripes. When you engage personally for someone to help them with a problem, they don’t forget it. And as someone who serves with Bubba, I can tell you that he hasn’t stopped helping people with issues. Multiply that over 36 years of being in office, and it is not hard to understand how he outperformed everyone on the ballot.
Or does it say more about PSC District 4?
From a glance, it appears that every county in PSC District 4, except for Taliaferro, Warren, and Richmond, voted for Republican candidates in the Senate runoff. What margin did Loeffler and Perdue win by in PSC District 4? And how does that margin compare to McDonald’s win?
Districts are irrelevant when it comes to voting since PSC Commissioners run in all 159 states. Good analysis though.
Charlie is spot-on here in my opinion.
Plus, McDonald is 82 years old. Most people that age are either dead, in an assisted-living home or making plans to be. Not Bubba. He was circumventing the Peach State in his “wrapped” Kia Telluride emblazoned with the phrase “Advancing Georgia’s Solar” on the side, as Charlie referenced. His energy level for his age is nothing less than astounding. The man flies his own airplane, captains a house boat, trots on his horse, and drives any number of vehicles including four-wheelers, motorcycles, a VW Bug and even an old Model A Ford. That energy allows him to go everywhere and meet everyone—and he is a guy you don’t forget.