Demagogue

It may be 2006, but Georgia's reactionary conservatives will have a gubernatorial candidate who would make Lester Maddox proud. His name is Ray McBerry.

It might seem flip to say that "states' rights" is McBerry's middle name except for the fact that the candidate himself has said as much. Just check out the top of the home page on his website.

Using the slogan "Georgia First," McBerry pledges to stand firm against "the interests of the downtown Atlanta establishment" (nice code language) as well as "the interests of the federal leviathan in Washington, D.C." But a major part of McBerry's platform is "giving [Georgians] an opportunity to express their choice of state flags in a “fair flag vote” referendum that includes the 1956 Georgia flag," which was adopted during the years when the South defied federal efforts aimed at achieving desegregation.

On his website, McBerry informs visitors that he "was raised in a Christian home by Christian parents" -- a bit redundant unless, of course, the house itself was actually baptized.

I don't know about you, but I think the waving 1956 Georgia flag and the rotating wooden cross are nice touches on McBerry's site. Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue probably wishes he'd thought of them first.