He was a rabid anti-communist from the 30′s and toured the country while still a Democrat, giving speeches he wrote himself about the virtues of limited government and economic freedom.

His own belief was that he did not change, the Democratic party changed. Even Roosevelt, in the height of the New Deal had nothing on the Democrats of today.

Also, I did look up the last time a sitting U.S. Congressman was elected Governor. It was Congressman Alexander Stephens who was elected to the U.S. House after having served as VP of the Confederacy. He resigned his House seat in 1882 when he was elected Governor. He died 4 months after taking office.

The last statewide office holder (besides Lt. Gov.) to be elected Governor was Eugene Talmadge who was Ag. Commissioner before running for Governor.

Except the 6 letter rule.

Also keep in mind that Barnes, the state house member, beat Lewis Massey, the statewide elected SoS. Part of that was due to Massey dropping out of the runoff. In theory, Massey should have had the fresher statewide organization since he won in a special election in 1996 while Barnes had last run statewide in 1990.

My point though is basically this…while there are some trends that repeat in Georgia’s electoral process, there are no hard and fast rules.

Further, do you define your namesake as a “sellout”? If I recall my history, Reagan was a liberal Democrat for many years who supported FDR and The New Deal and did not switch to being Republican until 1962.

If we called the Insurance Commissioner’s office “State Treasurer,” (in addition to insurance, the Georgia Ins. Commissioner holds the office here that is called State Treasurer in other states) it might be viewed differently.

The real point I’m making is that the Constitutional officers have faired poorly in the Governor’s race compared to those who have held other offices, most notably, state senators.