Galloway pens another keeper: With Democrats in twilight, a new political game emerges, & 5 former House Democrats may provide needed ballast in ATL.

Jim Galloway writes in the ajc's Political Insider:

Since the dust settled from last month’s elections, six state lawmakers, all white and all from rural Georgia, have thrown up their hands in despair.

With the Democratic Party entering a kind of twilight existence in Georgia, the six have declared themselves Republicans.

November’s Democratic deflation could tempt one to declare politics at an end in Georgia. But it is simply moving into a more subtle, intramural phase in which six virginal Republicans could play a crucial role — particularly in the House.

Georgia politics has become an all-Republican matter of fiscal conservatism vs. social conservatism. With Democrats largely on the sidelines.

Last month’s coup against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle by Republican leaders of the Senate, stripping him of authority over that chamber, could be interpreted as another facet of the social-fiscal conflict.

For decades, under Democratic rule, members of the state Senate patterned themselves after their Washington counterparts: They were in the deliberative chamber where hot legislation went to cool off.

That has become less so since the Republican takeover. Some of the most divisive social measures of the past few years — on immigration, abortion, stem cell research, voter ID and firearm possession — have had their speedy births in the Senate.

Politicians elected statewide, including the lieutenant governor, often prefer their legislation without sharp edges — and to that extent, Cagle has occasionally served as a brake. But no longer. The Republican senators now in charge hail from districts that are thoroughly populated with GOP voters. Subtlety is no longer required.

That makes the House — with its labyrinth of a committee system — even more important for fiscal conservatives who want to avoid what they see as the excesses of their socially committed colleagues.

This is where five former Democrats — state Reps. Alan Powell of Hartwell, Bob Hanner of Parrot, Amy Carter and Ellis Black of Valdosta, and Gerald Greene of Cuthbert — could make an outsized difference. (Tim Golden, a Democrat from Valdosta, switched in the Senate.)

“I’m a fiscal conservative,” said Hanner, a 35-year veteran of the Capitol.

“I was Gerald yesterday, I’m Gerald today, and I’ll be Gerald tomorrow,” Greene said.

Powell, upon becoming the first to switch after the Nov. 2 vote, said he remains as curmudgeonly hostile to Republican extremes as he is to Democratic ones. “My politics have not changed, but I saw the numbers crystal clear,” Powell said. “I am reflecting my constituents.”

None of the five want to step on the toes of new friends, and all declare themselves to be lifelong conservatives. But none have offered up evidence of a road-to-Damascus conversion like that experienced by Zell Miller, the former governor and U.S. senator who has became a champion of conservative social issues.

In all likelihood, the five Democratic converts in the House will provide ballast for the fiscally conservative side of the Republican ledger, making it even harder for the most passionate members of the GOP base to get what they want.