Full Circle with Zell
For all the press attention that Miller has received over the last couple of years--attention that he clearly has enjoyed--we haven't heard much about the senator's initial foray into national politics, in 1964, when, as a young state senator, he challenged veteran congressman Phil Landrum in the Democratic primary.
Landrum was an old-fashioned Southern Democrat--the kind of political figure who no longer exists. He was no liberal--he opposed civil rights legislation, and co-sponsored the anti-union Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. At the same time, he was willing to work with national party leaders, and, through his position on the Education and Labor Committee, he played a key role in passing LBJ's anti-poverty package in 1964.
That position--with a coded suggestion that Landrum's approach suggested a less than full-hearted opposition to civil rights--formed the basis of Miller's 1964 challenge, one of the few primary races in 1964 that LBJ closely followed. (The President was unpopular in Georgia--he would lose the state in the fall--but he helped Landrum behind the scenes.) Race-baiting didn't work as well as Miller had expected in the northwestern Georgia district--one of the few to remain loyal to the national ticket in November--and Landrum survived what was his most difficult primary challenge.
Miller has occupied virtually every ideological position under the sun since losing to Landrum. He staged a political comeback in 1974, winning election as Georgia's lieutenant governor; in 1980, he ran as a young turk in an unsuccessful primary challenge to ethically challenged senator Herman Talmdage; in 1990, he followed Bill Clinton as the best example of the populist Democrats of the"New South; his ardent support of establishing a lottery to fund higher education costs represents his best-known legacy as governor.
That Miller has wound up as a Republican would have been unsurprising to LBJ, or to Phil Landrum, or to anyone who followed his 1964 campaign. He has just taken a rather unusual path to his public career's conclusion.