Over the last couple years, on my blog at GaPundit, I’ve been deriving lessons for political professional and candidate, usually when one or the other ends up in the headlines for something they said.
But apparently, I need to go back to the beginning and start a list of Rules for Political Communications. Rule One for Political Communications is:
Never say anything remotely sympathetic or defensive about Nazis, the Klan, or Mussolini. Simple enough, right?
Georgia State Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) landed in the national headlines, after a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about his legislation that would prevent Confederate monuments from being removed from public property.
House Resolution 1179, which Benton, R-Jefferson, dropped in the House “hopper” Wednesday, assures that the “heroes of the Confederate States of America … shall never been altered, removed, concealed or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.”
Benton has been working on simlar issues for several years, dating back to at least 2013. Since then, the Confederate monuments that are ubiquious in small-town Georgia have become entangled with the question of the Confederate flag after the Charleston shooting and the carving on Stone Mountain.
Last week, Benton’s historical preservation efforts went off the rails, when he spoke to a reporter with the AJC,
Opponents of the carving cite the fact that the mountain was the site of the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 and the Klan held cross burnings at the mountain for decades.
Benton said there are two sides to that story as well. The Klan “was not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order,” he said.
“It made a lot of people straighten up,” he said. “I’m not saying what they did was right. It’s just the way things were.”
There is no doubt in my mind that State Rep. Tommy Benton is a good man with good intentions, but now he finds himself known best outside his home area as the Georgia State Representative who openly defended the Ku Klux Klan.
While we’re at it, Rule Two is that it’s best never to compare anyone to terrorists, Al Qaeda, or ISIS unless they actually are terrorists. Unfortunately, that went out the window too,
Benton said his bills are a direct response to Senate Bill 294, which would forbid the state from formally recognizing holidays in honor of the Confederacy or its leaders. Benton described the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Vincent Fort, as “a fanatic” and the bill’s intent as “cultural terrorism.”
“That’s no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments,” he said in an exclusive interview this week with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I feel very strongly about this. I think it has gone far enough. There is some idea out there that certain parts of history out there don’t matter anymore and that’s a bunch of bunk.”
Fort declined to respond directly to Benton’s characterization of his bill as terrorism.
“For him to degenerate into that kind of name calling is beneath a response from me,” Fort, D-Atlanta, said. “That kind of hyperbole does not allow for anything approaching a debate. It’s unfortunate that he would use that language.”
Since the comments became public, Benton’s bills have lost at least one co-sponsor, and he came under fire from the Democratic Party, including calls for the loss of his committee chairmanship.
I don’t know if this kerfuffle will result in Benton being challenged for reelection this year or losing his committee chairmanship, but it’s clear he lost the public relations fight.
The final Rule I offer today might have come in handy for Rep. Benton or for others who find themselves in similar situations: for candidates and elected officials, the political suicide prevention hotline is your consultant’s phone number. Call him or her before you jump.
