Blogs > Cliopatria > Full Circle with Zell

Aug 19, 2004

Full Circle with Zell




It's just in that the administration's favorite"Democrat," retiring senator Zell Miller, will keynote the GOP convention. The AJC's Jay Bookman captured the conventional wisdom last November when he attributed Miller's behavior in Washington to the personal pique of a thin-skinned former governor.

For all the press attention that Miller has received over the last couple of years--attention that he clearly has enjoyed--we haven't heard much about the senator's initial foray into national politics, in 1964, when, as a young state senator, he challenged veteran congressman Phil Landrum in the Democratic primary.

Landrum was an old-fashioned Southern Democrat--the kind of political figure who no longer exists. He was no liberal--he opposed civil rights legislation, and co-sponsored the anti-union Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. At the same time, he was willing to work with national party leaders, and, through his position on the Education and Labor Committee, he played a key role in passing LBJ's anti-poverty package in 1964.

That position--with a coded suggestion that Landrum's approach suggested a less than full-hearted opposition to civil rights--formed the basis of Miller's 1964 challenge, one of the few primary races in 1964 that LBJ closely followed. (The President was unpopular in Georgia--he would lose the state in the fall--but he helped Landrum behind the scenes.) Race-baiting didn't work as well as Miller had expected in the northwestern Georgia district--one of the few to remain loyal to the national ticket in November--and Landrum survived what was his most difficult primary challenge.

Miller has occupied virtually every ideological position under the sun since losing to Landrum. He staged a political comeback in 1974, winning election as Georgia's lieutenant governor; in 1980, he ran as a young turk in an unsuccessful primary challenge to ethically challenged senator Herman Talmdage; in 1990, he followed Bill Clinton as the best example of the populist Democrats of the"New South; his ardent support of establishing a lottery to fund higher education costs represents his best-known legacy as governor.

That Miller has wound up as a Republican would have been unsurprising to LBJ, or to Phil Landrum, or to anyone who followed his 1964 campaign. He has just taken a rather unusual path to his public career's conclusion.



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Ralph E. Luker - 8/19/2004

Oh, my list is going to be a very long one. Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe and I are currently drawing it up.


Jonathan Dresner - 8/19/2004

I don't care what party he ends up in, as long as he's out of mine. You can exclude anyone you want (though if it were me, I'd start in Tennessee, then take a long look at the Illinois Senate race) as long as I don't have to take them, either.

Did you have someone else in mind when you referenced 'refuse' or are we still talking about Zell 'Chameleon' Miller?


Ralph E. Luker - 8/19/2004

I'd go for that, but only if you put me in charge of the exclusionary clause for the Republicans. I'm really tired of Democrats dumping their refuse into my Party!


Jonathan Dresner - 8/19/2004

We really need an exclusionary clause....


Ralph E. Luker - 8/19/2004

Zell Miller still counts himself a Democrat and expects to do so after November.