Politics is a dirty business in Elbert County. Candidate and issue sign vandalisms are just the beginning. If history is any guide we’ll see an assortment of libels and slanders, we’ll see anonymous flyers delivered by the U.S. Mail containing false and misleading information about candidates and issues, we’ll see letters to the editor in local papers full of phony puffery, we’ll see lots of mudball (sticky ad hominem) attacks, and of course we’ll see many opinion pieces masquerading as hard news. And those are just the public indicators that statesmanship is dead. Privately, candidates will endure a variety of explicit and implied threats from characters who live in the shadows of Elbert County power centers – the ruling elite – who should not be confused with public officials.
The truth lurks somewhere between the lines of this mishmash, unspoken in public, reserved for private disposition. In Elbert County, reasonable people figure out the truth by filling in the blanks.