From the past, into the future

Usually, time capsules are loaded with interesting stuff, then buried for at least 25 years, or even longer at 50 or 100.

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Consider this a time capsule with an attention-deficit problem.

This paper is put together on Monday, printed on Tuesday and arrives in driveways and posted online on Wednesday.

Right in the middle of that process, the primary election started at 7 a.m. Tuesday and ended 12 hours later.

That means everything being read here today was written before the election results were in. So this is like a time capsule, buried before the election and dug up today.

Everything here, then, is pure guesswork. But just for the heck of it, let's dig it all up today and see what I buried Monday.

One especially amusing tidbit comes courtesy of a little exercise put together by Mike Sleeper. He is the campaign chairman for Scott Dean's county commission race, a school board member unopposed in a bid for re-election, and a man who obviously has way too much time on his busy little hands.

He sent via e-mail a nifty little quiz to other political junkies this past weekend. Recipients were asked to give their predictions for the winning percentage in five regional and local races.

These aren't predictions of the winner, mind you; they're just guesses of the percentage of votes the winner would receive.

By pulling this out of the time capsule today, we can attach the winners' names and see how close the predictions are to reality. I predict some surprises, but I guess we already know that since we've now opened the capsule.

A day after the request floated around, Sleeper had received 36 responses (just 35 in one of the races, for some reason). Here are the races, along with the average winning percentage as predicted by the participants:

Paul Broun vs. Barry Fleming: 61.6 percent. (In case an explanation is needed, that means the group predicts the winner would receive 61.6 percent of the vote, the loser 38.4 percent.)

Lee Anderson vs. Brett McGuire: 57.9 percent.

Ben Harbin vs. Lee Benedict: 73.1 percent.

Charles Allen vs. Deanne Hall: 56.8 percent.

Scott Dean vs. David Payne: 72.6 percent.

Individual predictions ranged from a high of 93 percent (Harbin vs. Benedict) to a low of 51 percent (Anderson vs. McGuire and Allen vs. Hall).

My own predictions?

Broun vs. Fleming: 54 percent.

Anderson vs. McGuire: 62 percent.

Harbin vs. Benedict: 65 percent.

Allen vs. Hall: 53 percent.

Dean vs. Payne: 72 percent.

Now that we're opening the time capsule this morning, let's see how we did - and see who won.

Under and out

One candidate whom I know didn't win Tuesday is Erik Underwood.

Remember him? He was one of the 10 candidates last year seeking the 10th District congressional seat, and came in ninth with just 394 votes in the entire district.

Underwood didn't get many votes, but he got noticed: By far the youngest candidate at 27, he also was one of three black candidates and the only black candidate in that non-partisan race self-identified as a Republican.

So it was somewhat of a surprise Monday when Secretary of State Karen Handel announced that Underwood was disqualified in his race this year for the state Senate District 36 seat. He doesn't live in the district, she said.

The real surprise, though, is that Underwood - who last year portrayed himself as the next-generation Republican successor to Norwood - was running as a Democrat.

Ah, well. I guess it wasn't his time either way.

Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail comments to barry.paschal at newstimesonline.com.