Apparently having realized his sad little attempt at a geography lession was tragically misguided, Pete shifts course and says this is all really about how Roy Barnes is bashing small towns and talking down to the folks living in the rural parts of this state ...

They’d rather take issue with the geographic comparison between the two states than directly deal with King Roy’s outlandish and pandering comments about a majority of Georgia’s elected officials having no knowledge about where half the state lives.

I mean, he's right ...

"You have to remember that 57% of the population in the state is concentrated in and around Atlanta. I believe a large portion of the elected officials, state elected officials, probably have never heard of Americus, Dawson, Blakely or Ellaville."

Gosh, Barnes sure does sound like an urban elitist ... oh, wait ... you're supposed to click 'read more' on the web site? I wonder what we'll find when we do ...

"And they don’t realize that the problems do exist outside of their daily sphere living. Local elected officials look after local issues, and state elected officials look after the state, or are supposed to,” said Barnes.

“The problems that you have in Gwinnett County and Cobb County are not the same as what you have in Sumter County or Schley County. You can’t have a one size fits all solution to the problems,” Barnes said.

Which is part of the reason Barnes has been visiting areas all over the state. According to him, “I have made a point not to visit big cities during this trip. In fact, Americus is the biggest city I have visited."

So we've got two fascinating ways to view Pete's argument. The first is the easy one, which is that his argument is awfully dumb. That's too simple I suppose because the second one is that he's more concerned with defending the integrity of the state representatives rather than actually try to put local control into practice and listen to the concerns and needs of folks living in, say, Americus.

Wonder who sounds like an Atlanta elitist now?