Georgia Democratic District Attorney Campaign - Point And Counter-Point

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The video exchange above is one of the most effective positive and then negative campaign ads that I have ever seen. The Georgia primary vote is set for July 20th. Two Democrats are battling each other for the Democratic nomination in the fall elections.

Democrat Ken Hodges appears to be popular in middle Georgia, even among the Black American community. He uses his commercial to promote his fine points.

Next up is the challenger to Mr Hodges, Rob Teilhet (D-GA) who seeks to remind those who have a long member about the police shooting of Kenny Walker. He was shot in the head in a situation that is ominously like that which transpired with Oscar Grant in Oakland. The police claimed they accidentally shot him as he laid on the ground, hands bound behind his back.

Unlike Oscar Grant, former deputy sheriff David Glisson was not indicted in the death of Kenny Walker.

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Hodges was the special prosecutor who presented the Kenneth Walker case in November 2004 to a Muscogee County grand jury, which did not indict former deputy sheriff David Glisson for his role in Walker's death. Glisson shot Walker during a traffic stop related to a drug investigation. Walker was unarmed at the time of the shooting and no drugs were found in the vehicle.

Glisson is white and Walker was black, and the case caused a racial division in the community.

In the ad, Emily Walker, as the video of the SUV being pulled over plays, says: "You are seeing the last minute of my son's life," Walker says. "He was in a car that was pulled over by mistake. He was lying on the ground unarmed when a police officer shot him twice, in the head. But the officer got off, because the prosecutor, Ken Hodges, forgot to swear him in, tried to hide the video, and then refused to reopen the case. I could never get an answer why."

Then, Walker says: "Mr. Hodges should not be our next attorney general."

Hodges "failed in a fundamental way," Teilhet said in his reason for using the Walker shooting.

"The fundamental job of the attorney general is to seek justice and that was not done in the Walker case," Teilhet said Thursday. "This case was so badly botched that 10,000 people came to Columbus to protest and the Georgia General Assembly had to change the law to make sure it never happens again."

The General Assembly passed a law this year that requires prosecutor's to swear in witnesses testifying in front of a grand jury. Hodges has a run a campaign touting his experience as a prosector and Teilhet's lack of experience.