Max Cleland

That sticker has been a badge of honor for many on Election Day.

Its history goes back to the tenure of former Secretary of State and later US Senator Max Cleland, who served as Georgia's top elections official from 1982 to 1996.

But the original design didn't feature a peach.

Candice Broce, then spokesperson for then Secretary of State Brian Kemp, talked with GPB about the sticker's past in 2020.

Wellstone had passed because of the plane crash, but we lost the Wellstone seat.

We lost Max Cleland.

There were we lost almost everything.

And we held on in South Dakota, which is a little crazy.

When you are a public worker, you're now negotiating against the taxpayer, which I find that to just be gross.

Well, that's what cost me a friendship with Max Cleland.

Really? Yeah, well, he was running for the Senate, and the controversy was over the Transportation Security Agency and whether or not they would be allowed to unionize.

And Max Cleland was absolutely in favor of them being allowed to unionize.

I said, that's all we need.

The TSA going on strike.

As it turns out, the majority of the commissioners felt that the commission had been lied to, deliberately obstructed, undermined by the White House, or set up with staff that had conflicts of interest in the investigation.

One of these concerned commissioners, Max Cleland, resigned because the commission had been deliberately compromised by the President of the United States.

Commissioner John Lehman, meanwhile, admitted on NBC Nightly News that the commission had to go through Karl Rove and other senior White House members to access key documents in their investigation, and that we purposely put together a staff that had, in a way, conflicts of interest, stressing, lest there be any doubt, that all of the staff had, to a certain extent, some conflict of interest.

Commission members even considered bringing criminal charges against Pentagon officials who had deliberately lied to them about the military's complete lack of response on that day.

They wanted unionization of the federal workforce.

Max Cleland in Georgia.

Uh, Democrats to this day eviscerate Saxby Chambliss, who beat Max Cleland, but Cleland was a guy who was holding up the Department of Homeland Security legislation 'cause he wanted to expand unionization of federal employees, uh, in the Department of Homeland Security, and he was roundly beaten by the Republicans.

Uh, the media will never forgive Saxby Chambliss of Georgia for beating Max Cleland in that election.

Uh, and, and it was-- it's a defining moment in American history, and at that moment, those towers fell on September 11th.

Really, we haven't moved beyond the trauma of it as a nation.

It is an intelligence agency cut out to be used, abused, befriended, enemied, whatever, as need be.

James, is that the 9-11 commission where people like Max Cleland resigned and called it a disgrace and underfunded sham?

Grief.

I mean, yeah.

All the accusations, all the 9-11 bullet points and brackets.

all linked up in your show notes.

And James, hopefully we're putting in enough references that people go, Max Cleland, I don't know who that is.

Go look him up and you'll find non-conspiracy theory.