Ossoff, Carpetbaggers and Vacuum Cleaners

After the civil war in America, several new political terms were introduced into our lexicon, one of which was the word carpetbagger. A carpetbagger was a northerner who moved to the South during Reconstruction (1863–1877 or 1865-1870 depending who you read) mainly to seek political office in an area where they did not live. To be accurate, during Reconstruction most of the Republican governors in the South were from the North.  This past week in Georgia, where I live and in a district, I don’t, a carpetbagger managed to place himself in a run-off for the Georgia sixth congressional district and his name is Jon Ossoff. I will expound on this and in the process, introduce a new term of political etiquette, the “vacuum cleaner.”

Ossoff like carpetbaggers back then were only concerned with self-interest that could be attained via exploitation. Exploitation in the sense that he is trying to profit by making use of and benefiting from resources from other cats outside of the 6th district to use the same district to enrich himself – nothing more or nothing less. Ask anyone in the 6th about him and you will quickly find out they don’t know him or ever see him. He has raised millions of dollars from folk that ain’t even in Georgia just to try and get the Republican seat in the special election vacated by Dr. Tom Price.

There are several reasons I consider Ossoff a carpetbagger throwback yet I will stick to two: that he doesn’t live in the district he is running to represent and that he cannot even vote for himself in said district.  I could add that I personally think Ragin Edwards, an actual East Cobb county and 6th district resident would have been the best choice for the Democratic party to support, but I should have known better based on the racist history of the Democratic party, that they would support a white man over a black woman who also happens to be a graduate of Georgia Tech. Then there is the fact that very little of his financial support comes from Georgians or folk that live in the 6th district. One source reported that he has raised tens of thousands from many of the Hollywood liberal and progressive elite, which proffers the question, what are they buying? Ossoff’s campaign, per Politico had raised more than $8 million by the election date with more than 95 percent coming from out of state. The Atlanta Journal Constitution noted: “If 95 percent of Ossoff’s $8.3 million was from out of state, that means 5 percent was from Georgians.And 5 percent of $8.3 million is $415,000.”

I find it hard to consider that folk like Debra Messing, Rosie O’Donnell, Kyra Sedgwick, Chelsea Handler and actresses Jane Fonda know anything about the needs of Georgians to even comment or tell folk who to vote for. Not to mention that they most likely send their kids to private schools and have private security and therefore are unqualified to remark on such public issues on behalf of citizens involved in selecting their new representative. But who cares if out of state cats fund a Sixth District’s Georgia candidate for the U.S. Congress who also doesn’t live in the district they are running to represent and can’t vote for himself in said district? True, Ossoff did get most the votes in the primary for the 6th district, but in terms of basic math, it was less than Republicans and independents combined.

But such logic is lost on the new political class of what I call “vacuum cleaners.”  I describe vacuum cleaners as a byproduct of this new social media age.  They are hyper-partisan and typically are liberal progressive types that believe they are tolerant but are not.  The suck up every and all bits of information that supports their political view and on places like twitter, RT their views which they get from other folk, all day long.  A good sign that they are a vacuum cleaner is if most the folk they RT are from DC, New York, or California.  You may see a Massachusetts, Chicago or Atlanta person RTd but not as much as an inside the beltway or NYC cat. Honestly, I think Democrats need to suck up this L because this past Tuesday they had their best chance in Georgia but the lost it.