ATLANTA – Baseball’s best home run hitters and strikeout artists will be lining up in Denver instead of Atlanta on Tuesday for the All-Star game. And Georgia Republicans are trying to pin the blame squarely on Democrats for the league’s switcheroo.
Gov. Brian Kemp’s debut re-election ad assails the “liberal mob” for running the event from Truist Park. The state GOP held a baseball-themed rally near the ballpark demanding an end to “cancel culture.” And the Republican National Committee plans to run an ad during Tuesday’s game bashing the move.
“This was supposed to be Atlanta’s night. But we were robbed,” Melvin Everson, a former Republican legislator, said in the ad released Monday. “Democrats stole our All-Star game to push their divisive political agenda.”
Major League Baseball yanked the game in April in protest of a new Georgia election law that imposes new restrictions on voting. Though many state Democrats assailed the shift, it became a rallying cry for Republicans who say fearmongering from critics of the law deprived metro Atlanta of a premier event.
That was the theme of a rally Sunday at Murph’s, the eatery owned by Braves legend Dale Murphy that sits a short walk from the stadium. More than 100 Republicans crammed into the restaurant to hear from a lineup of speakers headlined by Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the RNC.