SWGA Politics

Walking With Austin Scott: The Day After

Yesterday, I walked 10 miles with State Rep Austin Scott for his ‘Walk of Georgia‘ campaign event. Apparently, I am the ONLY person so far to walk an entire day’s journey with him, and thus my challenge to all Georgia media and political bloggers.

The day started out with me running late – I didn’t leave my house in Leesburg until about 6:10a, and I was to meet Rep Scott in Bainbridge at 7:30a. Fortunately, I made it in time and changed shoes once I got there into my old, trusted hiking boots.

Walking through Bainbridge on the sidewalks was easy, but then we began to get on the outskirts of town where the sidewalk ended. At that point, we had about a foot and a half along the edge of the road, or we had to walk in the grass. Somewhere early on during the sidewalk phase (probably about a quarter mile in or so, if I remember correctly), a stray dog decided to follow along with us, and he stayed with us for a couple of miles before deciding to start crossing traffic and we had to shoo him off.

As far as the logistics of the Walk in general, basically what Scott does is he walks, then has his staff and others leap-frog along the path, stopping every couple of miles in case he needs water or a change of socks or what have you.

At roughly what turned out to be the 2 mile mark or so, I was already questioning how far we had come – to myself. At roughly 4 miles in, I was already completely drenched in sweat and asking myself what I had managed to get into now when Scott told me we had come 4 miles. Sometime around this point, a couple – the Pullens? – stopped along the side of the road and offered Scott a bottle of water. At 6 miles, I was REALLY feeling it, but I kept pressing on. Sometime around this point, we encountered another dog that had decided we were worthy of investigating, since we were walking along the side of the highway opposite his property. Fortunately, his owners came driving down the road about a quarter mile later, saw him investigating us, and took him home. At nearly 8 miles, I could already feel blisters forming on my feet, and I told Scott I would hit the 10 mile mark, but that would be about the maximum I could handle, as I was already beginning to approach what felt like my max endurance point. It was at this point that Scott’s brother in law met up with us and walked the last couple of miles. Right at the 9 mile mark, we hit the city limits of Climax and crossed the highway onto Broad Street in Climax. Here, Scott’s wife Vivien, his son Wells, and his brother in law’s wife all joined us for the last .9 miles or so. A few minutes later, we came across an old country General Store, where we dropped in to talk to several people that were there. I told Jay Brimberry, grandson of Albany attorney Jerry Brimberry and Scott’s Director of Volunteers, that if I sat down, I wouldn’t be getting up for a while, and I meant it. So we continued on roughly another half mile and hit the 10 mile mark at the intersection of Broad Street and Sykes Mill Rd in Climax, where we ended our walk. We did, in fact, go back to that little general store for lunch, and they had some very nice chicken strips and sweet tea, but I was too hot and tired to eat very much at that point. After that, Jay and Vivien took me back to my car, 9.5 miles away in Bainbridge. What had taken Scott and I roughly 3 hours to walk took us all of about 10 minutes to drive. Definitely gives you a new perspective on the pre-automobile era.

Scott and I talked quite a bit on the walk, but it was all off the record. Maybe one of my good friends is right and Scott is just a great politician. I’m still leaving that as a possibility, no doubt. I also have quite a few issues that honestly, Scott and I have to agree to disagree on. He sees trauma care, for one, as a valid government issue, and he has no problems raising taxes to pay for it – via an additional ’surcharge’ on car tags, which even he admitted the first time I interviewed him was a tax increase, but one he felt was justified. And honestly, that’s one of the things I like about Scott. He’s a straight-shooter who’ll tell you exactly what he’s thinking, even if he’s pretty sure you’re going to disagree with him. If I’m going to disagree with someone, that’s a quality I look for in them to determine whether I can at least work with them. Scott also tries to be fairly innovative in coming up with solutions, which is something else I like.

That said, as I’ve already told Scott personally, John Monds is the candidate I will be voting for next November, even if Scott survives the GOP Primary. Scott may be the best the GOP has to offer, but Monds is the best candidate to be Georgia’s next Governor.