Austin’s Daily Commentary – Political Upsets And Lessons Learned In Augusta-Richmond County

Austin: It has been quite a week for lessons in Augusta-Richmond County. The big political upset, perhaps, of the last 20 years occurred this week as Richard Roundtree is going to be saying goodbye to the office of sheriff. I have been told repeatedly during his life that the only way that he was ever going to leave that office is if he retired on his own, or if he died in office, that he was going to be there as long as he wanted to be there. And, his supporters just were absolutely certain of that.

Well, guess again. And the big upset did happen this week, and I'm here to tell you it can happen anywhere, at any time. Never say never in politics. Never get too confident, never resign yourself to the inevitable. We learned that how many times, how many different ways over the years with different topics?

For instance, the name change for Augusta University. How many people walked away after that Georgia Regents University debacle? Just shaking their head, saying, well, we've lost that forever. No, we didn't. We came back and we won.

Richard Roundtree's tyrannical rule in the Richmond County Sheriff's Department, it's coming to an end because a lot of very small conversations happened over the course of a very long period of time. Gino Rock Brantley put together a team that was incredible. And I'll be doggone if he didn't whittle together a great, great coalition of very, very differing opinions and very, very differing people when it comes to politics, to get just enough votes to defeat a very strong incumbent sheriff. God bless him.

Never say never, ever. It's a great lesson in politics. It's a great lesson in life.  And that's the comment, I'm Austin Rhodes, 95.1 FM News Talk WGAC.