Charlie Hayslett, Former AJC Political Reporter & Current Political Blogger

The North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble podcast covers democratic politics in North GA, the 9th Congressional District, and across the state of Georgia. The podcast is in Q&A/Interview format with various democratic politicos including county chairs, democratic operatives, politicians, and more. It is our mission to deliver crucial information to our listeners in a timely manner as we fight for community values and principles in the 3rd most Conservative district in the state. Our website is: https://www.fcdpga.com/podcasts

Our guests highlight democratic activities and actions to work toward a Blue Georgia. The 9th Congressional District spans 20 counties across the region and covers a good deal of northern GA including Blue Ridge, Morganton, Fannin, Union, Banks, Athens/Clarke, Dawson, Elbert, Forsyth, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Hart, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, and White counties. 

Our democratic party podcast also disseminates information and interviews powerful Democrats across the state of GA working to overthrow the suppression tactics of the GOP and ensure democracy and our values, grassroots efforts, and goals remain intact. 

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Transcript

Meral Clarke: 0:17

Hello and welcome back to the North Georgia Blue Podcast produced and distributed by the Fannin County Democratic Party. I'm your host Meral Clarke and we're getting into some good trouble today with our guest, Charlie Hayslett former AJC political reporter and current urban rural political blogger. Welcome to the show, Charlie. We're happy you're here.

Charlie Hayslett: 0:42

Appreciate the opportunity to be here. Glad to be with you.

Meral Clarke: 0:44

Wonderful. We're glad you're here. And let's let our listeners know a little bit about you. Charlie is an award winning journalist speechwriter and public relations counselor. After officially retiring at the end of 2017, he began devoting most of his time to researching and writing a nonfiction book that he describes as being about the costs and consequences of Georgia's widening urban rural divide. The book is tentatively titled Trouble in God's country and he maintains a blog by the same name at Trouble in God's country.com. The blog was originally intended as a parking place for working draft material, but over time, it has attracted a following and had an impact on the development of public policy to address the challenges confronting Georgia's rural communities. Hayslett's blog has been credited by the original co chairs of the Georgia House Rural Development Council with triggering the creation of that body in 2017. And Hayslett presented that group at its opening session in 2017, and again in 2021. His work has been published or cited in publications from coast to coast from the Washington Post to the Sacramento Bee, the AJ C's daily jolt column regularly references his research and has referred to his blog as quote an unrelenting avalanche of facts and figures and to him as quote one of the smartest thinkers around on the growing divide between Metro Atlanta and the rest of the state end quote. He began his working life as a newspaper journalist covering government and politics for the Atlanta Journal in Atlanta and Washington. He is a native of Columbus, Mississippi, and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications. In 2008, he was named to the inaugural class of the college's Grady fellowship and served for several years on the College's Board of Trustees. He is also a former member of the Board of Directors of Georgians for a healthy future. Well, you've been a busy guy, Charlie, you've done quite a bit over the years. So let's dive right in and talk about your blog and your upcoming book. What's going on with the urban rural divide? What is it? How does it affect us specifically, as it relates to our politics and elections?

Charlie Hayslett: 3:18

Sure. And let me take just a minute and talk about how I got started on this. And that was a little over a decade ago, I was pulled into a project related to the state's public health system. And very long story short, we settled on a messaging strategy that was aimed at demonstrating the relationship between community health and economic vitality at a local level, and county levels specifically, and I knew generally what to expect from the research. But we did a ton of research pull together a lot of data. And frankly, I was blown away by the extent of the divide. That was apparent even then, and I began talking to some people on you in the political world in the business world about it, and that I thought it was a bigger problem than the state appreciated and got a bunch of blank stares. As I was edging toward retirement, I thought there's a book in this. And I think it's a big deal. So I started as we used to say, in the newspaper business, gathering yarn, and pulling together threads of information. And I decided the only way or the best way to tell the story was with data. And when I started, I thought I can do this in about two years. I can pin six months on the data research and six months out traveling the state and six months writing and then six months cleaning it up, and I'll be done. And that was a decade ago. And the truth is, that's turned out to be a good thing because every time I think I'm getting close to being done, some new bucket of data will come over the transom and I'll feel obligated to fold it into what I'm doing. Every time I've done that it's demonstrated that the economic divide the public health divide, the educational achievement divide continues to get wider and wider. And it's almost as though I've had a front row seat in something approaching in real time to the way this chasm has been developing, and politics is very much part of it, the state obviously has divided politically, it's now regarded as something very close to a 5050 state. But the truth of the matter is, that's really not true, almost anywhere at a local level. The counties in the state have tilted dramatically, one way or the other, your neck of the woods is overwhelmingly Republican right now in the 80%, and up range. And that's going to be tough to turn around. But that fact the fact that the state's politics are so divided at a local level complicates dealing with the other issues that are on the table with the General Assembly and others. So that's probably a little more long winded than you were looking for. But that's kind of an intro to the book into the political piece of it.

Meral Clarke: 5:51

So how does this divide? And when you're talking about the divide, you're talking about a political divide? Correct between Republicans and Democrats? So that's basically what your book is about. So what do you mean by the local level for one thing versus the statewide level? And how does this divide affect our elections and politics in general?

Charlie Hayslett: 6:13

Well, going back to my days long ago, as a political writer with the old Atlanta Journal candidates used to campaign all over the state and the 19 think it was the 1980 Senate race, Norman Underwood was one of the candidates and he said he was going to campaign in every county in Georgia and I'm pretty sure he did. He set up organizations and bent all 159 counties and for good reason, you know, there were votes to be had for any reasonable candidate all over the state back then. Now, if you're a Democrat, you got to think twice about how much time you spend in Fannin County or Towns County or Union County and the same in specially Southeast Georgia. And if you're a Republican doesn't make much sense to spend a whole lot of time in some areas of Metro Atlanta toward the end of the Senate runoff campaign. The last stop Donald Trump made on behalf of Purdue and Leffler was in Dalton, Georgia. And the last stop that Mike Pence made was in Milner, Georgia, Milner Georgia's population is 600 people. There just aren't that many votes to be had for Republicans or Democrats. So that sort of tells you a little bit about how political candidates have to think about allocating their resources. Another factoid there when your neighbor up there, Zell Miller ran for governor in 1990. His home county of Towns County gave him right at 74% of the vote, which you would probably expect for a local guy who's done well in politics. When Brian Kemp ran two years ago, four years ago, it's been now nearly 83% of the town's county vote. That's how much areas have flipped. And that's true across that tear of North Georgia, which is one of the Republicans strongholds, it's I think it's their strongest hold in the state and an area that they're going to work very hard to defend. I was looking at some of your numbers last night. And in actually there's a little tiny bit of good news. But it's important good news between 2016 and the 2020 presidential elections, y'all managed to increase the Democratic vote up there a little more than the Republicans increased their vote. And the Democratic vote was obviously much, much smaller than the Republican vote. But obviously in that election last year and election in 2020, every vote literally counted, so Fannin County Democrats actually made a difference there with the relative handful of votes that you're able to put on the table. It was important,

Meral Clarke: 8:40

it is important, and we've been working very hard to make that divide smaller Democrats are increasing in our area. And that's across the ninth congressional district. So thank you for pointing that out. Because we have been working very hard. How do you think that this divide? And let's talk about the political discourse in rural areas versus urban areas as well? How do you sense this divide moving forward in our political landscape? And how do you think it will affect the midterm elections coming up on November 8,

Charlie Hayslett: 9:14

The truth of the matter is that thanks to COVID and some other constraints, I have not been able to spend as much time traveling around the state and out in the rural areas, talking to people as I would have liked to. And the question you've just raised is one that I don't know the answer to all digress just for a second and tell you a little personal story that I think is kind of telling. And it has to do with Facebook. And when Facebook first came to light or came into being and probably 14-15 years ago, now, I was a little slow getting on it. But I developed a bunch of friends on Facebook, some of whom I really knew and some of whom didn't like everybody else, I suspect and at some point, Facebook, put one of these things up and said click here and we'll tell you how many of your friends are Democrats and how many of your friends are Republicans. And so I thought well, that's Kind of interesting. And I've noticed that a few of my friends had done it and they were 6041 way or 5545 the other way. So I clicked on it, and mom came back and dead even 5050, which I've attributed both to my history as a journalist where I've covered everybody. And as in my public relations work, a lot of it was public affairs related and government related, you were having to deal with Democrats and Republicans. And that was reflected in what that Facebook question yielded. And what I used to do on Facebook would be to post questions about some public policy issue that had developed and come to light and invite debate and discussion. And the questions were always sort of neutrally framed. And it used to be that I got a lot of response from across the political spectrum. And it was, for the most part, pretty civil, and usually a fairly interesting back and forth. And over time, that changed. For one thing, a lot of my more conservative friends, or I guess I gotta say, former friends have drifted away, I don't know where they've gone, but they've gone away. And to the extent that they're still on Facebook, and still listed as friends, they don't participate anymore. And I think a lot of them have just gone away period. And when you got that basic difficulty we're engaging is concerned, you got to figure out how to get people back to the same table. And that's a tough thing to do in this environment, especially when you've got the kinds of extensive divides that we've got that produce extreme candidates, especially I think, on the Republican side, but also to some degree on the Democratic side. And somehow those folks we keep electing have got to find a way to talk to each other. And I don't know how that happened.

Meral Clarke: 11:39

But that was my next question is how do we make? Because it's worse now than I've ever seen? And what can we do to fix that? What needs to happen?

Charlie Hayslett: 11:49

That's really above my paygrade. I do not know the answer to that question. I think it's a good question to ask as many people as you can. It's a question I want to ask some people who are in politics. And we've seen some examples of folks working together and working across the aisles. But they don't typically publicize it too much now, Senator Warnock in his advertising past focus to some degree on the fact that he's worked across the aisle, with Republicans in the Senate to get some stuff done. And I applaud that, I think that's really the only way to do it. And the fact that he's been able to is really encouraging. He's not getting any credit for it among Republican leaders, especially in Georgia, and probably not where many Republican voters are concerned, although it's gonna be really interesting to see how he does with that suburban vote, especially suburban women. And I think he's gonna do okay with that. But I do not know the answer to that question. If I did, I'd be charged a lot more money for this interview and everything else I'm doing.

Meral Clarke: 12:49

You're doing this interview for free, right?

Charlie Hayslett: 12:53

At least one a cup of coffee out of

Meral Clarke: 12:55

at least buy you dinner. So why do you suppose that this has gotten so bad? I mean, it's to the point where Republicans and Democrats can't even sit down and have a conversation, especially if they feel passionate about the interviews, and I will tell you that I'm guilty of that myself, hyper partisanship, I'm a very strong Democrat. I've never voted Republican, I would be considered a left wing progressive by most Republicans. So why do you suppose this has happened? What brought this on? And what do you think the next steps are?

Charlie Hayslett: 13:31

Well, there's a good bit of history to why it's happened. I think that Newt Gingrich got all this started, he developed a whole vocabulary around demonizing Democrats, and it was all codified in a famous memo he wrote years ago, and that sort of became a must read material for aspiring Republican officeholders. And they sought to absolutely demonize and dehumanize Democrats. And add to that Fox News and what they have done. And then along comes Donald Trump, who takes it to the whole next level. When I worked as a journalist, it was when Republicans were just beginning to kind of get a foothold in Georgia. And without fully appreciating what was going on. I sort of covered the early rise of the Republican Party or Republican politicians in Georgia, and most of them were pretty reasonable people. I mean, Johnny Isakson was not a crazy rabid right winger. He was a very thoughtful, sober minded legislator and US Senator Bob Bell was somebody I knew very well and was a very decent guy. You might not have agreed with him, but you could have a civil usually constructive conversation with him. Now, I'm not sure you can. The subject matter is entirely different. It has become a huge cultural issue. And frankly, religion, I think has come to play a massive role, especially on the Republican side. As I've said before, I do not know The answer to your second question of how we get back to the table, but you just got to keep trying.

Meral Clarke: 15:05

Why do you suppose the GOP, especially in our state, why do you suppose they've embraced this far, far right wing of the party, which used to be just a crazy minority? Why do you suppose that's happened? Do you think that's mostly unmute, and everyone following his lead? Or what are your thoughts on that?

Charlie Hayslett: 15:26

Well, I don't think that Georgia is all that unique, where what are described as concerning the urban rural divide, and the political divide between urban areas and rural areas, is an national phenomenon, arguably a global phenomenon. And I'm sure it's something that keeps democratic consultants up at night, because it just becomes harder and harder to break into those communities. I would love to hear you talk about what it's like to live in an area where you're in such a distinct minority, and how you interact with folks who you know, are of a different political mind. And they know you're of a political different mind, I would imagine that you've had relationships like that, that deteriorate that I've run into that in several places around the state. And it used to be that you didn't really know what your neighbors politics necessarily were and figured out what much of your business and now everybody is wearing it on their sleeve. And we'll be on to whoever calls him on it. But there have just been a series of major evolutionary steps that have gotten us to where we are. And I do not know how you begin to turn that tide back, except just keep hitting it like y'all are every day and trying to round up more and more Democrats in areas that are so heavily Republican,

Meral Clarke: 16:46

It's not easy. And I could definitely tell you some hair raising stories. But we just have to keep on keepin on. So let's talk about the rural urban divide for just a moment. Most urban areas in metropolitan Atlanta, Cobb, Gwinnett, Fulton, etc, are vastly blue. Correct. And you've said the candidates don't spend a whole lot of time in rural areas because they think they're wasting their time, which is actually not true. And I would have an entire argument about how they're not wasting their time by spending time up here because there are more Democrats moving in daily. But go ahead.

Charlie Hayslett: 17:26

Well, I'm glad to be corrected on that. Are you saying that Democrats are in fact spending time I know, Stacey Abrams has been up there. She's the my view sort of the exception to the rule in politics. You've got finite resources, money, time, and you got to figure out how to allocate it to maximize your vote getting she's raised so much money that she's got more flexibility than most candidates, and she has reminisced her campaign around the one Georgia idea and good for her. I'm glad to see her doing that. But I wonder how much in resources time and money the folks down the ticket can afford to be allocating to Fannin County in you may be able to tell me but it's not a casual decision. It's interesting that there are more and more Democrats moving in up there. And I don't doubt that because North Georgia is different from everything south of the netline. But you got the mountains, you've got a nicer year round climate for the most part, and you're not that far from Atlanta, you know, I can see that you probably got a pretty substantial remote working group beginning to build up there, you've got to get the internet situation taken care of. But that strikes me as one of the components to the development of North Georgia. And another factor there has to do with educational levels. Forsyth County is heavily Republican still, Oconee County, where I live now is as well. But in both of those counties, you're seeing an increase in population. And it's an increase in highly educated population. And as more and more college graduates set up housekeeping in Forsyth County in Oconee. County and others, you've seen that Republican margin shrink, I'll be a little off on my numbers here. But I think Forsyth County went from being like 8020 in the last cycle to 6040 in this one or something like that. And Oconee County is similar. So is that county develops economically and that whole northern tier and you attract a more highly educated people, you're gonna begin to see that shift. That's gonna take a long time, probably given what the numbers are, but I can see that it might well work. The other issue that y'all got, as I've put it, you're having more burials and baptisms. That whole part of Georgia is having more deaths and births every year, year in and year out for about as long as the Department of Public Health has been keeping records and you've got to find a way to attract some younger people to that area. And that's a whole different conversation.

Meral Clarke: 19:55

I completely agree. And you know, we do tend to skew older we have Have a lot of retirees up here. And the good thing about that is that people come in from different places with different perspectives and different viewpoints. So that helps quite a bit. But you're right, the baby boomer generation is on full display up here. And in order to attract younger people, we have to provide more jobs and more viable ways to make a living. But everything changes, and you're right, it's achingly slow. It's not always easy. But we have seen our numbers on the Democratic side, inching up very slowly here in Fannin County. So I can't really speak to Gilmer or Towns or any of our neighboring counties, but it's happening and as I said, very slowly, and it's not easy, but the presence is here. So talk to us about the upcoming midterms on November eighth. How do you think this election will turn out for Republicans and Democrats running particularly for statewide office? And how critical Do you believe that this election is?

Charlie Hayslett: 21:05

We'll take the last question. First. I think it's very critical. I think the the threat to democracy is real. And depending on a lot of things, it's not out of the question that the notion or the importance of the popular vote will go up in smoke within a few years. I hope that's hyperbole, but it's not crazy. And that makes this election all the more critical. Now, it's an uphill slog, I think, especially for the candidates for state office for Stacey Abrams, and Charlie Bailey. And Jen Jordan, and some of the others Governor Kemp has been very effective, frankly, at using the powers of his incumbency to further his campaign, it would have been political malpractice to do otherwise. But when the history of his administration is written, it'll absolutely take note of the way he has spent all the federal money you've had, he was opposed to in the first place for spending the gas tax, I still think he ought to have to report that on some sort of a financial contribution report. And you've got to say that he's the favorite do think it's going to be extremely close. And Stacey Abrams is about as close to a political genius as I've ever observed. And she's put together a very powerful machine that may just be able to sneak up on Kemp, but it's gonna take a lot of things breaking her away, and a lot of suburban votes that ordinarily would go Republican who will need to be there stay home or switch to the Democratic side this time, because of things like the Dobbs decision, the reversal of Roe. So there's that I think Senator Warnock is in better shape. He's handled himself well, in the two years. He's been in office going on two years and has proven to be have been effective. Senator, I've had friends in Washington, going back to my days as a reporter there tell me that he has assembled what may be the best staff in the United States Senate, very effective, very competent, very responsive. And with any luck that will pay off plus, I'm sorry, I still can't wrap my brain around the notion that Herschel Walker ought to be in the United States Senate and I bleed red and black. But I don't get that. I'm just sorry, I do not get that

Meral Clarke: 23:17

He's certainly not qualified or competent to serve. Yeah,

Charlie Hayslett: 23:21

it's an amazing thing to watch, even before you get to all of his personal problems. So I think in this state, which went for President Biden by 11,800 votes are right there at it's obviously a 5050. State. It's a coin toss, that coin toss probably favors the Republicans a little bit, but it's not out of reach for anybody on the Democratic side, I don't think

Meral Clarke: 23:45

and we've got some fantastic statewide candidates, many of which we've interviewed on this show. So it's extremely exciting to see this extremely historic and diverse slate of candidates that we're putting up on the statewide level. I do believe that Democrats are chipping away at the Republican ownership of the General Assembly. And as you stated previously, it's going to take some time, but I do believe it's happening. And I also believe that the Embrace by the GOP, both on the state and national level of the far, far right wing of the party is going to backfire on Republicans eventually, perhaps not during this election cycle, although I hope so but you know, moving forward, most definitely.

Charlie Hayslett: 24:32

I'll tell you one thing that is worth watching if you're a data geek or a policy wonk, as I am either one but I think the website is Georgia boats.com. But it's a free site. They scraped the Secretary of State's website, I think every day for the number of absentee ballots that have been filed for and the number of early votes and the number of mail in votes by county and if you watch that and track it and can compare it to what happened four years ago, two years ago, you can get a sense for where the change is taking place. One piece that I wrote that got almost no readership was on the morning of January 5 2021, the day of the runoff election between Womack and Loeffler and Ossoff and Purdue. And I use that data to speculate about how far ahead with early votes the Democrats were what the Republicans would have to do to catch up and said in a piece I posted in about noon that day that if all the votes that were still out, mail in votes, made it in under the wire at seven o'clock, Ossoff stood to win by 55,000 votes, and I think he won by 60,000. So if you're looking for a way to build a crystal ball, that's a pretty good source to go to, and to monitor and you can use it where Fannin County in North Georgia is concerned as well is for whatever it's worth,

Meral Clarke: 25:55

we appreciate the heads up. So Charlie, I could talk to you all day. Politics is something I've always loved and been very interested in. But unfortunately, we're running short on time. So if someone wants to learn more about you, if they want to get in touch with you, if they want to read your blog, where would you send them?

Charlie Hayslett: 26:14

Just go to the website with the blog, www trouble in God's country.com Trouble in God's country runs all together email addresses there on the site, but it's C hayslett@gmail.com. And I try to respond to all the emails I get. I'll be honest, I get so many fundraising emails that I missed some personal stuff over time. I think I missed your first email because of just the flood of fundraising emails.

Meral Clarke: 26:40

Here it is election season. It is. We're all getting those. And finally, Charlie and I ask all my guests this question, and it tells me it's one of the hardest questions to answer. Tell us a fun fact about yourself something not necessarily related to your background or your work as a political reporter and observer of politics in our state and both on statewide national levels. Tell something interesting, just about Charlie. Oh, Lord, I'm not sure there is much I know you mentioned pre show you live on a horse farm which is pretty interesting. Do you ride?

Charlie Hayslett: 27:16

I do not. My youngest daughter grew up as a horse kid and she now has a horse farm here in Oconee. County offers riding lessons is built a good little clientele. We've got I think through like 10 horses here now. My wife and I live in here with them. I'm just hoping I don't end up in one of the horse stalls.

Meral Clarke: 27:36

I'm sure. That's funny. Well, thank you, Charlie, for joining us today and sharing more about your critical work about politics in our state and on the national level. I'm Meral Clarke and I'll be half of our team. I'd like to thank everyone for listening to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. Join us next time when we chat with Ashland Swan, North Georgia regional political director for the Stacey Abrams campaign to learn more about us and the work that we're doing, visit us online at Fannin County, Georgia democrats.com all spelled out share the North Georgia Blue Podcast with your friends and family. Be sure to subscribe and follow and if you enjoy our podcasts be a founding patron and friend of the show at North Georgia blue podcast.com/patron with three different giving levels to choose from offering cool swag recognition on the show and website and valuable gift cards to help us continue getting into more good trouble.