By LEE N. HOWELL
Politically Speaking

If erstwhile gubernatorial candidate Steve Langford had been half as gutsy during his campaign as were his post-election comments about Ga. Secretary of State Lewis Massey, he might have done a little bit better than coming in fourth in a four-man field.

Indeed, he might have made the runoff. And, if he had forced primary front-runner state Rep. Roy Barnes into a runoff, it is pretty apparent from those comments that Langford would not have suspended his campaign in order to avoid a political bloodletting.

To be fair, Steve was probably a pretty feisty candidate at least compared to those homogenized milquetoasts we too often see on the campaign trail.

The few times he was on television, Langford did talk about the good ol' boy network that attempts to solve problems by throwing special interest money at them.

But, Langford just did not have the deep pockets of Guy "Moneybags" Millner, so he could not buy the election; he did not have the name recognition that comes from having run a statewide campaign; and he did not have access to the network of monied interests that come from having a popular and influential lobbyist as a father. (Of course, when you are using your limited television exposure to lambaste the members of that monied network, it is fairly unlikely that regardless of who your father is they would help you.

As we all know, young Mr. Massey forced Barnes into a runoff and then wimped out. That is what most irritated Langford. (It was also not a great surprise to those who said Massey's mentor, Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard, dropped out of the governor's race everyone expected him to win handily because he had no guts and that Massey was just like his mentor.)

What he did by "suspending" his campaign was simply to deny the majority of the voters in the primary who opposed Barnes the opportunity to defeat him. (Personally, I am glad that he did wimp out, because I like Roy and I would prefer to have him face "Moneybags" rested and with a full warchest rather than bloodied and broke!)

But, one does not have to dig that far back in the state's political history to find an interesting parallel.

Three decades ago, incumbent Lt. Gov. Peter Zack Geer led the primary field with 49.6 percent of the vote, but a little-known state legislator forced him into a runoff. That legislator, George T. Smith, trounced Geer in the runoff.

I don't know whether Massey had the potential of being a giant-killer, but since he suspended his campaign we will never know what might have happened if the challenger had done everything right and the front-runner had stumbled all over himself.

Langford also said that Massey's dropping out proved that he must "never really believed very strongly in the ideas he promoted in the first place,"

Of course, by bowing out, Massey maintained his position as being the "fair-haired hope for the future" of the Georgia Democratic Party.

That may be and the Party does need some hope but if Massey runs again and has nothing more to offer than he did this time, I might just end up voting for the Republican. Unless, of course, that Republican is still "moneybags" trying for the umpteenth time to buy his way into public office.

[Lee N. Howell has been observing and writing about politics in Georgia and the Southern Crescent for the last 25 years.]