🗳️ Can Your Vote Be Bought? — Because Someone Sure Is Trying

Faith | Family | Politics

By Dean Burnette — Grateful USA Citizen | Southern Fried Thoughts

Published: Tuesday, June 9, 2026

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│ “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.”

│ — Matthew 7:15-16

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Well, pull up that porch swing and pour yourself something cold, friend, because we need to have ourselves a real honest-to-goodness heart-to-heart today. Not the kind you see on those slick television commercials with the swelling orchestral music and the soft-focus flag waving in the breeze. No sir. A real conversation. The kind your granddaddy would have had with you on the back porch while the lightning bugs were just starting to flicker up over the kudzu.

Because early voting has kicked off here in Georgia for the June 16th Runoff Election, and I’ve got something sitting heavy on my chest that I just have to get out.

Somebody is spending fifty million dollars to buy the Georgia Governor’s seat.

I’ll say that again, nice and slow, so it sinks in like summer rain into dry red Georgia clay.

Fifty. Million. Dollars.

Now I don’t know about you, but where I come from — born in Louisiana, raised up in Georgia — fifty million dollars is not a campaign budget. That’s a purchase order. That’s not a candidate asking for your vote. That’s a candidate pricing your vote. And friend, that distinction ought to keep you up at night just a little bit.

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💰 When Money Does the Talking, Who’s Actually Speaking?

I want you to think about something with me for just a minute.

When you see a political commercial — and Lord knows you’ve seen about a thousand of them by now — what exactly are you watching? Are you watching a man or woman pour their heart out to you? Are you seeing their genuine record, their real character, the actual fruit of their life’s work?

Or are you watching a product?

Because fifty million dollars doesn’t buy you truth. It buys you perception. It buys you prime-time ad slots and social media algorithms and billboard space on every highway from Savannah to Dalton. It buys you consultants who’ve studied exactly what words to say to make your heartstrings hum like a well-tuned guitar. It buys you a carefully crafted image designed in a boardroom by people who wouldn’t know a Georgia peach from a plastic fruit bowl.

The news media — God bless ’em and Lord help ’em — they love this stuff. You know why? Because division and drama sell. Every breathless headline, every attack ad they replay on the evening news, every manufactured outrage — it’s all content. It’s all ratings. They are not your friends in this process, folks. They are participants in it. And the candidate with fifty million dollars has a whole lot more access to those cameras and those microphones than the man or woman who built their reputation one handshake and one community meeting at a time.

Don’t let them do your thinking for you. That’s what I’m here to say.

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🍑 The Proof Is in the Pudding — Or the Gumbo, in My Case

My Mama, God love her Cajun soul, used to say that you could tell everything you needed to know about a person by watching what they do when nobody’s looking and by tasting what they cook when they’re not trying to impress you. The truth comes out in the details, friend.

The same goes for politicians.

I don’t want to know what a candidate says they’ve done. I want to know what they’ve actually done. I want to know:

• Where have they shown up when the cameras weren’t rolling?

• What does their church family say about them?

• Have they been present for their own family — because if you can’t lead your household, what in the wide world makes you think you can lead Georgia?

• Have they served their community in ways that cost them something — time, money, comfort — before they ever asked anything from that community in return?

• What is the fruit of their life?

That last question is the one I keep coming back to, and it comes straight from the Good Book itself. Matthew 7:16 — “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” That ain’t political commentary, friends. That’s eternal wisdom. And it applies to every single name on that ballot.

A fifty-million-dollar war chest doesn’t produce fruit. Character produces fruit. Service produces fruit. Faithfulness over time produces fruit.

Money just buys a prettier tree to hang fake fruit on.

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🗳️ So Here’s Where I Stand — My Picks for June 16th

I’ve done the homework. I’ve prayed on it. I’ve dug past the commercials and the mailers and the slick websites. I’ve looked at records, character, community involvement, and — yes — the fruit. Here’s where I landed, and I’m going to tell you why, because you deserve more than a name on a bumper sticker.

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 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Georgia — Mike Collins

Mike Collins is a Georgia businessman and truck driver’s son who understands what it means to work for something. He’s not a career political creature who slithered up through the system collecting IOUs and favor chips. He’s a man who ran a business, met a payroll, and knows what government overreach actually feels like when it lands on your doorstep — not because someone briefed him on it, but because he lived it.

Mike Collins went to Washington in the House and he fought. He didn’t go up there to make friends with the swamp. He went up there to represent Georgia, and that’s exactly what he did. He’s proven, he’s principled, and he’s the kind of man who earns your vote rather than tries to purchase it.

My vote: Mike Collins. 🇺🇸

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 🍑 Governor of Georgia — Burt Jones

Now, here’s where I want you to pay real close attention, because this is the race where somebody is reportedly spending fifty million dollars to win.

Fifty million dollars.

And then there’s Burt Jones — the current Lieutenant Governor of Georgia — who has spent the last several years actually doing the job right here in front of God and everybody. He didn’t just show up when election season rolled around with a checkbook. He’s been present. He’s been working. He’s shepherded Georgia through some genuinely difficult political waters with a steady hand and a backbone that didn’t bend every time the Washington wind changed direction.

Burt Jones is a Georgia man. A businessman. A farmer. A man who comes from family roots planted deep in this state’s soil. He’s shown up for Georgia conservatives not with a television commercial but with results. He fought against federal overreach. He stood for election integrity. He stood for Georgia’s working families and small business owners.

When I look at the fruit — the actual fruit — of these two campaigns, I see one man who has served and one man who is spending. I know which one earns my vote.

My vote: Burt Jones for Governor. 🍑

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 🏛️ Lieutenant Governor of Georgia — Greg Dolezal

Greg Dolezal is a man who has served in the Georgia State Senate, representing his district with conservative principles and genuine community investment. He’s not a flashy candidate. He’s not buying up every billboard between Atlanta and Augusta. He’s a family man, a man of faith, and a proven conservative voice in Georgia government who understands the role of Lieutenant Governor and the weight of that responsibility.

In a world that rewards volume and spectacle, Greg Dolezal is the quiet kind of strong that I actually trust. The kind of man your pastor would recommend. The kind of man your neighbor would vouch for.

My vote: Greg Dolezal for Lieutenant Governor. 🏛️

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 📋 Georgia Secretary of State — Tim Fleming

The Secretary of State’s office in Georgia is one of the most important offices on this ballot, and I don’t think enough people treat it that way. This office oversees our elections. Our business registrations. The integrity of our public records.

After everything Georgia — and frankly, the whole country — has been through regarding election integrity concerns over the last several years, we need someone in that office who is unimpeachably committed to clean, transparent, accountable elections. Tim Fleming is that candidate.

He brings a conservative, principled approach to what must be a non-partisan function. Elections should be trustworthy. Period. Full stop. No asterisks.

My vote: Tim Fleming for Secretary of State. 📋

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 ⚡ Georgia Public Service Commission District 5 — Bobby Mehan

The Public Service Commission doesn’t get nearly enough attention, and that is a genuine shame, because this commission regulates your utility rates. Your electric bill. Your natural gas. The cost of keeping the lights on and the house warm.

Bobby Mehan has a background in energy policy and a commitment to keeping Georgia consumers — regular working families, small business owners, farmers — protected from runaway utility costs while also supporting Georgia’s growing energy needs responsibly.

You want someone on the PSC who understands the balance between energy production, cost to consumers, and long-term reliability. Bobby Mehan gets it.

My vote: Bobby Mehan for PSC District 5. ⚡

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 🎓 Georgia State Superintendent of Schools — Fred “Bubba” Longgrear

Friends, I want to be plain about something. Our schools are not just buildings where children go to sit in desks. They are the furnaces where the next generation of Americans is either forged or melted down. And right now, there are forces at work in American education that I believe are doing a whole lot more melting than forging.

Fred Longgrear is a genuine educator — someone who has been in the classroom, who understands curriculum not as a political football but as a sacred trust between teachers, parents, and children. He believes in parental rights. He believes in academic excellence. He believes that a Georgia child’s education should prepare them for life — for work, for citizenship, for faith, for family — not indoctrinate them into an ideology.

Richard Woods has served, and I appreciate his service. But after careful consideration, I believe Fred Longgrear brings fresh energy and vision to an office that carries enormous responsibility for Georgia’s future.

My vote: Fred Longgrear for State Superintendent of Schools. 🎓

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🙏 A Final Word From the Porch

Here’s what I want to leave you with, and I want you to hear it in the spirit it’s offered — with love, with genuine Southern concern for this place and these people I call home.

Your vote is not a product. It is not a commodity. It cannot be correctly valued in dollars. It is the sacred, hard-won expression of your voice as a free American citizen — bought not with fifty million dollars but with the blood of men and women who gave everything so that you could walk into that voting booth and make a free choice.

The media will try to make you afraid. They will manufacture urgency and outrage because outrage keeps you watching. Big-money campaigns will try to overwhelm you with sheer volume — enough commercials, enough mailers, enough lawn signs to make you think inevitability is the same as worthiness.

Don’t you believe it for one single second.

Go look at the fruit. Ask around your church. Ask your neighbors. Ask the people who’ve actually seen these candidates in action when there was no camera pointed at them. Pray on it. And then go vote.

Early voting is happening right now, and Election Day is June 16th, 2026.

Georgia, your voice matters. Your values matter. And your vote — your vote — is not for sale.

Not for fifty million dollars. Not for five hundred million.

Not today. Not ever.

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God bless you, God bless Georgia, and God bless these United States of America.

— Dean Burnette

Southern Fried Thoughts

Louisiana Born — Georgia Grown

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“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” — Psalm 28:7

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│ ⚠️ GEORGIA RUNOFF REMINDER:

│ Georgia law prohibits cell phone use in the voting area.

│ Print this guide before you go!

│ Early voting is underway. Election Day: June 16, 2026.

│ Know your candidates. Vote your values. Bring a friend.

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