Barr Defeated in Georgia GOP Primary Election

Rep. Bob Barr, a fiery Republican best known as a prosecutor in President Clinton’s impeachment trial, lost his bid for reelection Tuesday as Georgia voters chose party nominees for the fall elections. Another vociferous lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney, also was defeated.

Barr, a hard-charging four-term conservative, was beaten by Rep. John Linder in one of the nation’s most closely watched House Republican primaries. With most precincts reporting, unofficial returns showed Linder piling up a surprisingly wide and insurmountable lead. Barr, who had been in a dead heat with Linder in some preelection surveys, conceded defeat a few hours after the polls closed.

In a gracious coda to what had become a nasty intraparty fight, Barr walked into his foe’s headquarters to congratulate Linder “for having run a very good race.” He promised a “united party” for the fall campaign.

McKinney, a five-term liberal frequently allied with Arab causes, faced a sharp challenge from a candidate backed by pro-Israel donors, Denise Majette, in a matchup of two African American women that became a proxy for the Mideast conflict.

Majette had 58% of the vote to 42% for McKinney with 99% of precincts reporting. “We united this district,” Majette said. “My opponent had divided it for 10 long years.”

McKinney offered only tepid support for Majette in the general election, saying she “will need our prayers to face the coming storm.” She also blamed her loss on “massive Republican crossover” voting, which is allowed under Georgia’s open primary system.

“It looks like the Republicans wanted to beat me more than the Democrats wanted to keep me,” said McKinney, who was seeking a sixth term.

The winners of these two primaries in suburban Atlanta are heavily favored in November.

The Georgia contests marked a pivot in this year’s battle for Congress. While voters in some states will nominate their candidates in September, primary season is winding down. With Labor Day less than two weeks away, the two major parties are now kicking into high gear in their drive to win control of the House and the Senate in November’s mid-term elections.

Georgia also offered one of the best examples this year of the political flux produced by the decennial reapportionment of the House. With the fast-growing state due to pick up two new House seats in the next Congress, the Democratic legislature and governor redrew district boundaries in an effort to help their party squeeze out Republicans. The GOP currently holds eight of 11 House seats. Democrats, in their best-case scenario, hope to take seven of the state’s 13 seats in the 108th Congress.

As a result of the redistricting, Barr and Linder chose to fight for the right to represent the solidly Republican 7th Congressional District in the northern suburbs of Atlanta.

Barr, 53, is one of the most prominent members of the Republican class of 1994, whose victories enabled the GOP to take over the House. He is an oft-quoted fixture on the House Judiciary Committee and was one of the first in Washington to call for Clinton’s impeachment in connection with the Whitewater and Monica S. Lewinsky scandals.

Barr has been an occasional critic of the Bush administration’s law enforcement policies, championing a libertarian viewpoint even as the government has moved to assume greater powers to fight terrorism. However, most of his voting record follows the party line.

Linder, 59, came to Congress two years before Barr and is known as a quiet lieutenant of the Republican leadership. He was a top strategist for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and is now a senior member of the House Rules Committee.

Both GOP candidates strongly opposed gun control and abortion rights and strongly favored cutting taxes. With so little to distinguish them on bread-and-butter Republican issues, the campaign focused mainly on style. Barr characterized himself as the more out-front leader, Linder as the more polished legislator.

In one pointed television commercial, Barr depicted himself as a bulldog and Linder as a dachshund. Linder fired back with an advertisement that likened Barr to McKinney, belittling both as ineffective critics.

Barr had the endorsement of the National Rifle Assn., and the group’s president, actor Charlton Heston, campaigned for him in the district.

But in one of the oddest moments on the trail, Barr was handling an antique pistol at a campaign event and the gun accidentally fired. No one was hurt, but Linder seized on the incident to note that he would never handle a gun unsafely.

In the 4th Congressional District, based largely in DeKalb County, to the east of Atlanta, McKinney, 47, faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from Majette, a 47-year-old former state court judge.

Both candidates depended on campaign cash from out of state. Much of McKinney’s came from Arab American or Muslim groups, much of Majette’s from Jewish and pro-Israel groups.

McKinney drew controversy twice after Sept. 11. Once, she suggested that President Bush may have failed to stop the terrorist attacks because his supporters stood to profit from the ensuing war. In another incident, she sought to steer toward black charities donations from a Saudi prince who had urged the United States to revise its pro-Israel policy.

McKinney made no apologies, saying that she simply supported peace in the Middle East and a thorough inquiry into what the Bush administration knew before Sept. 11.

She attacked Majette as a stand-in for Republicans beholden to the insurance industry. Majette countered that McKinney had little to show for her 10 years in Congress.

The McKinney-Majette contest was the second this year in which a black House Democrat faced a primary challenge linked to the Mideast conflict. In June, Rep. Earl F. Hilliard of Alabama was unseated by Artur Davis, who had courted pro-Israel constituencies.

In other Georgia voting, White House-backed Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated two opponents in the GOP primary and will face freshman Democratic Sen. Max Cleland in November. Cleland was unopposed. Former state Sen. Sonny Perdue won the three-way GOP race to challenge Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat.

Elsewhere Tuesday, Wyoming businessman Eli Bebout won the GOP primary to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Jim Geringer. He will face Democrat Dave Freudenthal, a former federal prosecutor.