Here in liberal, progressive Athens we’ve got five Democrats running in contested elections: President Obama, Stephen Oppenheimer for Public Service Commissioner, Jody Cooley in Congressional District 9 (includes the northeastern part of Athens-Clarke out around Winterville), Tim Riley in State Senate District 47 (most of the county outside the bypass except for the Atlanta Highway area) and Spencer Frye in State House District 118, completely within Athens-Clarke).

So, everybody can vote for President Obama. (Could a strong Athens-Clarke vote tip the balance in the state? What a hoot that would be!) Everybody can vote for Stephen Oppenheimer, a very long shot at injecting some principle into the owned-by-lobbyists Public Service Commission. And, depending on where we live, we can vote for Jody Cooley, a thoughtful, moderate Democrat we would be proud to have representing us in Washington; Tim Riley, who, frankly has little chance, or Spencer Frye, a capable candidate who will use his people skills to represent Athens credibly as a Democrat in the Republican-dominated House.

Everybody knows the recent history of politics here since the Republican legislature devised the strategy of carving Athens-Clarke into pieces attached to the surrounding rural area, submerging our Democratic vote in the surrounding sea of conservative Republicans. What they did, also, was disintegrate Athens’ community of interests dispersing our votes among people interested in their own communities, with Athens only on their periphery at best. Athens (and the University of Georgia) was wholly contained within one State Senate District, and that senator, regardless of party, represented Athens and the university. Today, Athens and the university are represented by two senators whose election depends, not on Athens, but on rural and small-town voters concentrated on their own issues.

The legislature also, you recall, redrew our own Athens-Clarke County Commission lines, unilaterally scrapping the structure provided for in our charter, in the effort to make it possible for more Republicans to be elected here (even though our elections are non-partisan). Go figure.

This election cycle has reminded us, though, that no matter how the lines are drawn, Athens-Clarke County still has a majority of liberal, progressive voters. And no matter where the lines are drawn, we will be voting in somebody’s district. As it turned out, we elected Regina Quick in House District 117 by voting in the Republican primary. She was the more palatable of two conservative Republicans, but enough of us made that choice and voted for her to offset the rural areas of the district.

We will have to make choices like that in the future, but we also need to get our own act together and look at the opportunities open to us. The Republicans, in trying (and failing) to create a safe District 117, crammed a lot of Athens voters into District 119, where Republican Chuck Williams ran without opposition this time. The legislature may well address that problem, but until they do, we need to find and run a good candidate who will include Athens’ interests as well as Oconee’s.

After all, it is Athens’ interests (including the university’s) that have been diluted. We need to reach out beyond Athens and find common interests with moderate voters in the surrounding counties. We need to reach out into the 10th District and see if a chunk of Athens votes might encourage some acceptable Republican, if not a Democrat, to take on the outrageous Paul Broun.

In other words, we have no control over how the Republicans draw the lines to disenfranchise us, but we do have control over how we operate behind those lines. We showed emphatically in electing Regina Quick that we can make our vote count. We elected two progressives to the commission in spite of the legislature’s forced redrawing of our districts. We are all still here, and we vote. We need to exercise our “exile and cunning” to focus our votes and make them count, running candidates where we have a chance, and voting for others, even Republicans, who acknowledge our interests.

We’ll soon know whether we’re thrown back under Republican control nationally and, if so, what implications that will have for our community, our university, our public schools. All we can do in this election is vote Democratic, because we do know that Obama, Cooley, Oppenheimer, Riley and Frye do support the ideas and ideals that make liberal, progressive Athens a shining city on a hill and a target for those driven by other ideas.