The horse race

In my life I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many people from different backgrounds – from TV celebrities, U.S. ambassadors, CEOs, on down to ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell.

It’s part of what makes life great, knowing there are other cultures and other ways of thinking and living and that life goes way beyond the street on which I live.

After all, our families and our cultural backgrounds – paired with our experiences – inform who we become as adults.

Sam Cofer was one of those people.

Sam was salty, yet diplomatic. Straightforward, yet focused. Determined, yet cordial.

His white hair, thick eyeglasses and portly frame embodied the Southern man of his era. He served on the statewide board of directors for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and had a solid reputation as a scrapper.

While serving as a county commissioner in Glynn County, Georgia, Sam decried one day to a resident at a public meeting, “A difference of opinion is what makes a good horse race, son.”

Think about that for a moment. What Sam was trying to say is that we are not all supposed to think the same thing, believe the same things and live the same way. It was also his way of politely saying to the resident speaking at that particular county commission meeting that “we will agree to disagree.”

Now, some could take Sam’s words as the antithesis of unifying, yet it would be difficult to label him as divisive.

Division will always exist, but in an election year, division becomes more obvious, bordering on downright ugly and in your face.

Here’s a look at some of that division.

Clay County voters heading to the polls on Aug. 30 will be conflicted due to a law effecting what’s called the Closed Primary, a primary in which voters from just one political party can vote on any particular race. If a write-in candidate enters any open race, however, that race gets closed in the primary to voters from just that party, whereas, in a universal primary, all voters would have been allowed to vote.

In the State Attorney’s race and the school superintendent’s races, only Republicans will get to have a say because there are write-in candidates in each of those races. There is currently a lawsuit weaving through the courts asking a judge to determine whether the write-in – Fleming Island attorney Kenny Leigh – is a sham candidate and to open the primary to all voters. In the race for State Attorney, as it stands prior to the judge’s ruling, voters will choose between Republicans Angela Corey, Melissa Nelson and Wes White. No candidate has qualified to run for State Attorney as a Democrat.

However, in the race for Clay County Sheriff, there is no write-in candidate and all of the properly registered voters in Clay County will get to have a say in who will be the county’s top law enforcement executive. Wondered if that was strategically planned or what?

In the school superintendent race, voters get to choose between challenger Addison Davis of Oakleaf and current Superintendent Charlie Van Zant Jr. of Keystone Heights. The winner of the Aug. 30 primary will go on to face Non-Partisan candidate Rebekah Shively in the November election. While qualifying begins next week, Democrat Marion “Keith” Nichols has also announced his intentions to run for superintendent.

Only Republican voters will get to vote for Davis or Van Zant.

Months, if not years, after the 2012 election, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Clay County voters expressed concern bordering on anger that they did not get to vote for the office of school superintendent because they were not registered as Republicans that year. With almost four years having passed to do some voter education, many voters, however, still do not understand that they face being shut out once again.

Let me repeat.

Only voters registered as Republicans will get to vote on school superintendent.

As of Tuesday, as I sit here pecking out this message, there are 140,941 registered voters in Clay County. Of that total, 76,637 are registered as Republicans, 31,328 are registered as Democrats and 32,976 are registered as ‘Other.’ Compare the current numbers to April 28, when I began tracking the numbers on the Clay County Supervisor of Elections website, there were 76,291 registered Republicans, 31,448 registered Democrats and 32,936 registered as Others for a total of 140,675.

I’ve been told there has been a focused effort to have voters switch parties in order to participate in the Aug. 30 primary, however, some voters are going to do what voters do – think for themselves.

Van Zant was elected by a mere 1,590-vote difference in 2012. Voters have until Aug. 1 to make changes in their registration prior to the Aug. 30 primary.

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Which horse will you be riding come Aug. 30?