The race to replace Barry Fleming for the District 125 House seat is proving once again that if the Republicans in Columbia County are given a loaded gun, they will shoot themselves in the foot everytime.
I have long opined that the lack of a real Democratic party in Columbia County means that the Republicans have no one to fight with ideologically and so the party members fight each other.
Some of the in-fighting among Republican party members have reached the status of legend; the attempt to almost literally chase C.J. Pearson out of the county of his birth, is quickly becoming one of those legends.
Make no mistake, I do not personally endorse candidates as that is a function of the editorial board; however, I have to laugh at how Pearson, acting as Brer Rabbit, successfully had himself tossed into the briar patch.
The District 125 race has resembled a bit of a cartoon with Pearson zipping by and going “me-beep” before speeding off past Wile E. Coyote, who is tethered to an anvil armed with explosives.
Again, I am not endorsing anyone, I am only pointing out what the public should be seeing and that is the big playground fight that is Columbia County politics.
After reviewing all the evidence, I believe that Pearson is on solid ground as being a resident of the state of Georgia.
Considering that the vote for District 125 had to be hastily arranged, the race started out as anyone’s to win, but some people obviously saw Pearson’s national celebrity as a massive threat.
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Instead of making sure that Pearson debated on the issues, Pearson’s opposition went for the jugular with the attempt to take him off the ballot. Instead of downplaying the attention Pearson gets from the national media, they bolstered his celebrity by having his name appear again in the national media.
Pearson never had to play any of his cards to claim victim status, his opponents did it for him.
Like Trump, Pearson can claim that he is such a threat to the establishment, that the establishment is now trying to quash his civil rights by any means necessary.
Now the attack ads, slickly produced ads produced by shadowy PACs, are reminding everyone that Pearson has never voted in District 125; of course, the ads do not disclose that for the only time Pearson was old enough to vote in the district, Fleming ran for reelection unopposed.
As if the ads weren’t enough, Pearson’s opponents are circulating a Tik-Tok video of Pearson getting involved in a school yard spat when he was 14 years-old in an attempt to show Pearson is immature.
Another backfire.
Trying to release the video ultimately shows the immaturity of Pearson’s detractors.
One would think that being such a large conservative enclave, Columbia County would be a powerhouse in state politics; however, the opposite is true. Columbia County has little state-wide influence.
It doesn’t help that both Robin Williams and Linda Schrenko, both of whom went to prison for financial corruption in office, are from Columbia County.
The scheming machinations to attempt to almost harass Pearson out of the race does not help the bumbling, infighting image of a basket of vipers biting at each other that outsiders see when looking at the county.
Personally, I do not know if Pearson would be a good fit as a representative for the county, he is untested. In fact, he is the biggest political wild card we have seen in these parts for quite some time.
For his next cartoon role, Pearson could turn out to be either Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd, Brainy Smurf or Gargamel, Winnie the Pooh or Eeyore; he could go full metal jacket like a Transformer or flame out like Yosemite Sam sitting on an ACME made bottle rocket stuck too deep in the soil.
Who knows?
However, it has been difficult for anyone to get a good read on how any of the candidates for seat 125 stand on the issues because people are too obsessed with a video of Pearson yelling “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” on the playground.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
