Newspaper Article

Miller explains his politics Book calls Democrats out of touch

Eversley, Melanie

2003

Overview

\"Whenever I was governor, I cut taxes three times and nobody raised an eyebrow,\" [Zell Miller] said in an interview Thursday. \"I passed not just a 'three strikes and you're out' bill but a 'two strikes.' I appointed a chairman of the state Board of Education . . . who happened to be a Republican. I did those kinds of things back in Georgia and . . . everybody understood it and everybody thought that was OK. Miller also blames the party for contributing to last year's defeat of his fellow Georgia Democrat, Sen. Max Cleland. Cleland was leading in the polls several weeks before the election, but his acquiescence in his party's push for more labor rights for workers in the then-planned Homeland Security Department allowed Republicans to criticize him as being opposed to national security, Miller said. Hastings Wyman, publisher of the Southern Political Report newsletter, said Miller's opinions might be right for some, but off the mark for others. \"I certainly think its correct if you're in Georgia,\" Wyman said Thursday. \"It's less true if you're in Massachusetts, or perhaps California, or some other places. I think it's certainly true that both parties do better when they move toward the middle, and it's also true that the activists and true believers in both parties resist that kind of movement.\"

• Publisher: Atlanta Journal Constitution, LLC
• Subject: Books-titles / Miller, Zell / National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat / Nonfiction / Politics