Category: General

  • Bill Shipp is still right

    Bill Shipp is still right

    I’ve written a couple of pieces over the years detailing the educational attainment gaps between the various parts of the state. The main hook I used for those pieces was an old Bill Shipp quote that without Metro Atlanta, the state of Georgia would be more poorly educated than Mississippi. As a native Mississippian, I…

  • Jimmy Carter’s forgotten legacy as a champion of rural causes

    In the flood of tributes following Jimmy Carter’s passing, one major aspect of his legacy was largely overlooked: his unwavering commitment to rural America. As the only president in modern history to hail from a small farming community, Carter brought a unique perspective to the White House that shaped his policies and priorities in ways…

  • Carter’s funeral and Trump’s inaugural: Bookends to a troubled half-century

    After nearly two years in hospice care at his home in Plains, Ga., Jimmy Carter passed away Sunday afternoon at the age of 100.  His family had said a few months ago that the nation’s 39th president was set on hanging on until he could cast his vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.  He…

  • Decades to grow, minutes to destroy

    I spent a good portion of last Saturday winding my way back and forth across at least a half-dozen southeast Georgia counties battered by Hurricane Helene. I’d be driving along, thinking, this isn’t all that bad. Then I’d top a hill or round a bend and it was like I was on another planet. Long…

  • Helene depressed Georgia’s early vote by about 100,000 votes; impacted both parties but probably hit GOP hardest

    Helene depressed Georgia’s early vote by about 100,000 votes; impacted both parties but probably hit GOP hardest

    An analysis of the impact of Hurricane Helene on early voting in Georgia.

  • Sorting through Georgia’s early voting numbers with political algebra and fuzzy math

    Sorting through Georgia’s early voting numbers with political algebra and fuzzy math

    A second look at Georgia’s early voting data.

  • Is Mother Nature voting in this year’s presidential election?

    Is Mother Nature voting in this year’s presidential election?

    Could the weather gods be messing with our politics?  Maybe even engaging in election interference? Probably not, but it’s hard to study a map of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene and not conclude that somebody is highly annoyed with Republicans. Even Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents northwest Georgia, noticed the political…

  • How Georgia’s 2024 Presidential Race May Have More to Do with Brian Kemp than Donald Trump

    [My friends at The Daily Yonder asked me to write a piece on the presidential race in Georgia. It follows below.] By Charles Hayslett, The Daily YonderSeptember 18, 2024 Several political eons ago – by which I mean July – it seemed likely Georgia would skate through the 2024 presidential race without again being the…

  • A crop of things sown

    Last week’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County put me in mind of Ralph McGill.  More specifically, it was The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial response to the shooting that put me in mind of McGill. McGill, of course, was the legendary Atlanta Constitution editor whose front page columns served more than a half-century ago…

  • Kicking off the Harris-Walz campaign in South Georgia

    Kicking off the Harris-Walz campaign in South Georgia

    Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and a good editorial cartoon is worth a couple of zillion. Commercial artist extraordinaire Trevor Irvin took a couple of suggestions I made in my last couple of TIGC posts and turned them into an editorial cartoon that would have made the late Jack Davis proud. Suggestion…

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