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Mac Barber's Political Career

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His name has been on almost every state election ballot since 1948, and it will be there once again for the July 18 Democratic primary election.

Jack McWhorter Barber, a whimsical, eccentric politician known to generations of Georgia voters simply as “Mac Barber,” is a candidate at the age of 82 for the Public Service Commission post now held by David Burgess.

Barber is running a statewide campaign on the cheap, basically relying on the tactics that have won many a race for him over the past 50 years. He puts up a few yard signs; he buys a small newspaper advertisement here and there; he talks on the phone to the byzantine network of friends and supporters he has made during his long political career.

On paper, it would seem to be no contest. Burgess has the backing of the Democratic Party establishment and Gov. Roy Barnes, one of the most powerful …show more content…

When he was on the PSC, Barber would focus his energies on helping people whose electricity or gas or telephone service had been cut off. During a recent interview, he proudly showed a visitor a picture of himself standing next to a stack of crates containing letters or phone messages he received at the PSC asking for assistance. “932,000,” Barber recited. “We took that many calls and responded to every one of them. I returned many of these calls at night. Now, I stayed over there many a night ‘til three or four or five o’clock in the morning.”

The low point in Barber’s life came in 1984 when his wife, Janette, passed away. “I had the most precious, magnificent wife the Lord ever made,” he said. “I thought she would live forever.” Instead, she died nine days after being diagnosed with cancer. In the ensuing months, Barber saw his mother, both brothers and both sisters pass

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