Potential Foe Passes On Barrow Challenge

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With Friday’s filing deadline in Georgia fast approaching, Rep. John Barrow appears to have avoided another threatened primary challenge. A potential Democratic Party rival, state Sen. Lester Jackson, has said “no” to the party leaders who were upset about Barrow’s vote against the new health law and had been urging him to run.

Jackson, who had been invited to the White House when the health law was signed, said Monday that he won’t go after Barrow in the primary because “There are things I still want to do in the Senate.

He said he has spoken with Barrow, and the two still don’t see eye-to-eye on the new law. “As politicians we will agree to disagree,” Jackson said.

Barrow is already facing former state Sen. Regina Thomas, who is black, in a rematch of the 2008 primary that Barrow eventually won with ease after Obama’s endorsement.

Since his health care vote some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have indicated that they have no intention of lending Barrow a hand in his re-election effort this year. They view the vote against President Barack Obama ’s most important legislative priority as a betrayal, especially after Obama and members of the CBC helped him win last cycle’s primary challenge against a black state legislator in a district that is 44 percent black.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003648533