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RECENT POLLS show that two out of every three Georgians are in favor of being allowed to buy packaged alcoholic beverages on Sunday. Therefore it should be obvious that Georgia politicians won’t allow it. The minority rules.

Well, at least it does in an election year for the General Assembly, though don’t be surprised by a last-minute decanting of this effort.

It’s persistently amazing how that the knees of an incumbent facing re-election (the entire General Assembly membership in November) turn as shaky as those of someone who has chugalugged a fifth of the hard stuff when thinking about the supposed wrath of single-issue voters.

Of course, everybody knows that the wets can already have their booze even while the drys can have their law just as long as they stay sober long enough to buy their alcohol a few hours before their neighbors go to church. Or something like that.

Indeed, that’s precisely the argument made by Gov. Sonny Perdue, who doesn’t drink and has promised to veto any Sunday sales measure that sneaks through. He argues Georgians should show better “time management” by buying their packaged alcohol on other days of the week. “I can’t explain it,” says Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland, who sponsored a Sunday sales bill in the last session, “other than to say it’s caught up in election-year politics.”

THAT’S NOT IT at all, responds Jaillene Hunter, spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle “At this time, there simply has not been any kind of broad expression of support for a vote on Sunday sales this year from Senate members or from the citizens of our state.” Polls don’t count ... except when out soliciting for campaign contributions.

The inevitability of this eventually occurring is known. And it might this year, barring only Perdue’s threatened veto.

That’s because Senate has passed a bill, awaiting House action, that permits Sunday beer sales at larger sports stadiums and allowing limousine customers on Sunday to be served cocktails. Isn’t that considerate? Those wanting to go to a big sports events can drink on the way, drink while there, drink on the way back — and have a designated driver, too!

However, since this is “germane” to the alcohol issue it could now be amended in the House, where Sunday sales support has been louder.

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Dalton, pushed just that and as he chairs the Regulated Industries Committee got it approved for a floor vote. His proposal would allow voters to decide on a local-option basis. Only those counties or cities where voters have previously OK’d Sunday by-the-drink sales could have such a referendum. (Rome has by-drink sales, unincorporated Floyd County does not.)

Such is to be expected as the dry forces for some time now have looked like drowned rats. Time and again, unlike the old days and excepting those largely rural and underpopulated regions where the Demon Rum still lurks in the woods, when the people have spoken they’ve said: “Another round, please.”

AT PRESENT, Georgia is one of only three states that continue to ban Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages at stores, permission for the poured by-the-drink variety at restaurants long ago having been granted at least on a local-option basis.

Just how weird this odd little rearguard coalition trying to block Sunday sales has gotten is shown by this: Besides the expected Christian fundamentalists, where does the organized opposition come from? The liquor-store owners, who don’t want to be forced to work on Sundays or hire more employees because supermarkets and convenience stores receive an open tap.

And, according to Senate President Pro-tem Eric Johnson, R-Savannah, “There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to chip away at the Sabbath” because “this is also the party that gave Mike Huckabee (a Southern Baptist minister) a victory in Georgia. The evangelical Christian voters are probably the largest single group turning out in the Republican primary.”

Indeed, exit polls in the Republican presidential primary showed that 64 percent of those voters described themselves as “born again” or evangelical Christians — an interesting juxtaposition to the 65 percent of Georgians whom the polls show want to buy a suitcase of beer on Sunday.

Easily explained, however. Most of the total electorate showing up for the primary voted in the Democratic presidential primary. Obviously, every one of those must have been a drinker.

IN THE MIND of some Republicans that may explain everything. To vote Democratic, plainly one has to be besotted.