Life after losing
After a long and busy election season, newly elected officials are preparing for years in the public eye. But many of their challengers have already returned to obscurity. The Times continues its weekly series focusing on life for those who fell short at the ballot box- from ousted incumbents to long-shot candidates with eyes on the next election cycle.
Brandon Givens talks about his weeks as a state Senate candidate with a voice not unlike a narrator's in the previews to a '90s action movie.
"It was a whirlwind time," Givens says in a voice that vibrates with more than the usual baritone before he laughs and his voice returns to its normal tone. "It was quite difficult, but I think we did a great job with the few resources, with the bare minimal budget that we had."
A Libertarian candidate in Georgia, Givens never had much of a chance when he mounted a campaign for the state Senate. He knew that much.
At 32, Givens was the youngest of three candidates seeking to complete the unexpired term of state Sen. Lee Hawkins, who resigned from the General Assembly in late March to run for the 9th District U.S. House seat, which he lost to Tom Graves.
An Arkansas native who has lived in Georgia for less than a decade, Givens joined two Republicans in the May 11 special election to fill Hawkins' seat: Butch Miller, a longtime Gainesville resident and businessman known for his community involvement and local television ads, and Jimmy Norman, a Flowery Branch real estate agent aligned with the area's burgeoning tea party movement.
Some 20 years their junior, Givens stood alongside his graying Republican opponents as a college student and special education teacher wearing a suit with unruly black hair and braces on his teeth.
"It was almost a caricature," said Givens.
Miller, owner of Milton Martin Honda, won the race with more than 77 percent of the votes cast. He ran opposed in the July primary to claim a full term in the seat.
Still, Givens fared better than most who seek to draw votes outside the lines of the state's two main political parties.
It wasn't enough to throw his race into a runoff, but the 8.1 percent Givens got was more than any third-party candidate for statewide office this year, and the highest support level for a Libertarian legislator in Georgia since 2004. That year, Ken Parmalee took 9.5 percent of the vote in challenging Gail Buckner's re-election bid to state House District 76.
According to data from the Secretary of State's office, third-party candidates in Georgia have taken no more than 5 percent of the vote in constitutional and legislative elections over at least the last 10 years.
A few have taken as much as 7 percent. One, this year's Libertarian candidate for governor, John Monds, received more than 33 percent of the votes cast in 2008 when he ran as south Georgia's representative on the Public Service Commission.
During his gubernatorial campaign this year, Monds touted those results as the best of any third-party candidate in the state's history.
But the result proved to be an outlier as Monds moved onto a statewide ballot and received less than 5 percent of the vote in the governor's race.
And when Givens stepped up for the state Senate race this year, he knew Georgians - especially the overwhelmingly Republican electorate of Hall County - didn't have a lot of love for Libertarians. He learned that lesson in 2008 when he sought seat on the PSC. With 4.9 percent of the vote, Givens pushed the two candidates representing the state's major parties into a runoff. Givens said he was pleased with the result, but disappointed in voters.
"You realize a lot more about how people have these sort of stereotypes in their mind and they vote on stereotypes," said Givens. "And it was a little depressing, to be honest."
He put his name on the ballot again anyway, he said, to give voters another choice for Senate District 49, a Libertarian choice.
A fiscal conservative with liberal social values, Givens admittedly gleans his ideology from Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians.
However, he says takes up the cause of the Libertarian Party, because he feels voters need more options. Givens says he thinks the two-party system is a broken one that has to do more with maintaining power than successful governance.
"I fight the good fight," said Givens. "... That's the No. 1 reason my allegiance has fallen with the Libertarian Party, because I think I can do the most good ... for democracy by advancing the Libertarian Party and just voter choice."
After Hawkins resigned in late March, Givens had seven weeks to cobble together a platform and build name recognition before the special election. He attended debates with his two opponents, focusing mostly on the future of the state's education system and its energy policy.
He struggled with a lack of funding - he says much of his campaign was self-funded - and carried the extra weight of his candidacy on top of his daily teaching duties and his pursuit of a specialist's degree.
Givens was also planning a wedding. His then-fiancee was left to take care of the details and the couple's animals.
"It's a difficult thing to do," he said.
With all the effort, Givens didn't feel like his platform mattered much as voters nearly "anointed" the familiar Miller to the position, Givens said.
Givens makes sure to point out that he isn't complaining about voters' decisions.
He said he, too, came to like Miller on the campaign trail, calling the freshman senator "a reasonable person."
"We've got a good person in office," Givens said.
"The only thing that really made me sad ... as far as the election went, I just don't think there was ever any real debate," said Givens. "I fear that when people voted, they didn't vote because of a real reasonable understanding about the philosophy of each person. I think they voted based upon name recognition."
Even if every voter in District 49 made a decision based on political philosophy alone, Givens, a social liberal in a conservative county, may still have found himself on the short end.
"In a hypothetical world, if all of the voters of Hall County sat down and listened to all of us, the results may have very well been the same," said Givens. "I can't say what people are. Everyone has the tendency to believe that their own opinions are the majority opinion, and I don't bear such illusions."
Besides, Givens' said winning wasn't his mission.
Instead it was to bring attention to the Libertarian Party and the fact that candidates outside of the Democratic and Republican parties can be reasonable.
"I think I did accomplish that mission," said Givens. "I was satisfied with that."
With this year's political season and a wedding behind them, Givens' new bride, Devidyal, admits she's "a lot happier" with the couple's life.
Givens defers to his wife when asked about future political endeavors. She answers only with a look.
Givens concedes that he might seek out a different kind of political activism in the future.
"I don't know if I would want to do it again with as little as support as we've had, and that's not an insult to the Libertarian Party," Givens said.
"Sometimes, running for office isn't the best thing. Sometimes just political activism and getting a bloc of voters together (is the best thing)."