Atlanta Metro News

Conservative David Frum this morning on the downside of a decision to choose Rush Limbaugh as the Republican party’s answer to President Barack Obama:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. …

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.”

With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence - exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word - we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

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Gingrich the Phrasemaker on European socialism

Monday, March 2, 2009, 10:03 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As everyone learned last year, Newt Gingrich’s new and enhanced role in the Republican party is that of Chief Phrasemaker.

He’s the coiner of policies boiled down to bumper-stickers. Last year, it was “Drill here, drill now.”

Over the weekend, at the Conservative Political Action Committee event in Washington, Gingrich shaped the proper message for opposition to President Barack Obama’s plans to stimulate the economy.

This from the New York Times News Service — with a paragraph on Ralph Reed thrown in absolutely free:

It means declaring war, as Newt Gingrich, the movement’s guiding light, did here Friday, on Obama’s “European socialism transplanted to Washington” — a phrase fast seeping into the conservative lexicon. (Gingrich also deplored “the Bush-Obama big spending program,” a sign that former President George W. Bush, a onetime hero to conservatives, was being thrown overboard.)

It means wincing, ever so slightly, at the name of the messenger Republicans put forth to respond Tuesday to Obama’s address to Congress. “Um, you know, I think Bobby’s had better days,” said Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, referring to Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. “But I thought the content of the message was great.”

The Washington Post’s online cartoonist is already having fun with Gingrich’s address.

On the same topic, Matt Bai of the NYT Magazine this weekend tackled the larger topic of Gingrich’s resurgence:

Newt Gingrich had to wait a little longer for his rehabilitation, but there are parallels between Nixon’s journey and his. It may seem inconceivable to those outside the party, the idea of this aging, white-haired holdover from the ’90s going up against the incumbent Obama in 2012. And yet, in Republican Washington, the idea is taken quite seriously. “If you were going to make a list of 10 potential Republican nominees, Newt would be on any list,” [Grover] Norquist told me. “He’s probably in most people’s Top 5.” Twice during the course of reporting this article, I sat down in Washington restaurants only to hear the people next to me speculating about Gingrich’s prospective 2012 campaign.

Worth noting is the fact that French President Nicholas Sarkozy rarely makes it into Gingrich’s speeches anymore. Two years ago, Sarkozy was a topic in nearly every address made by the former House speaker and Georgia congressman. Sarkozy, Gingrich said, personified the conservative revival that was possible in America.

But it seems that a link was broken when Sarkozy called for “a regulated capitalism in which whole swathes of financial activity are not left to the sole judgment of market operators.”

Like Bush, the French president apparently fell victim to creeping European socialism. Not that French tactics to beat the economic downturn don’t have some attraction.

One element worth imitation: The French government is offering free newspaper subscriptions to 18-year-olds. This will assure the continued employment of many aging journalists in that country.

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Your morning jolt

Monday, March 2, 2009, 08:27 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This morning on ajc.com:

— Georgia Power gets its wish as opponents fume.

— Who voted for pay-in-advance nuke bill, and who didn’t.

— DOT says it’s capable of spending stimulus money without Gena Evans.

— Obama to tap Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as health chief.

Elsewhere in Georgia:

— Lucid Idiocy: Macon Telegraph political reporter declares his man-crush on House Speaker Glenn Richardson over.

And from beyond:

— WSJ: Dow could open below 7,000.

— WSJ: Obama as Bush’s vindication on Iraq.

— CNN: Rahm Emanuel tags Rush Limbaugh as the energy of the GOP.

— C-SPAN: The Limbaugh speech he was talking about.

— Politico: After scandal, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter regains political footing.

— NYT: U.S. says Iran has enough uranium for an atom bomb.

— NYT: Obama will sign spending bill despite earmarks.

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On the slowing flow of people into the South

Sunday, March 1, 2009, 10:46 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Perhaps in a few years, each of us will look back and tell of the moment we realized that this economy was spiraling in an exceptional and dreadful way.

When that time comes, I will remember a party out in the ‘burbs of Atlanta last summer. The wife and I were accidental attendees, courtesy of a couple we knew from high school.

The mansion was a multi-million dollar monument to the Southern high life, with countless kitchens and bedrooms and sitting rooms, never mind the home theater, servant quarters, sauna, indoor-outdoor pools and breathless view.

Liquor flowed free. Caterers offered acres of food. Music was non-stop. A dance troupe performed. And the house interior was dressed to the nines - because the party was in fact a last-chance business proposition.

The owner was a developer who had bet that the South’s love affair with growth, its ability to lure a ceaseless tide of newcomers into a sunny and economical embrace, would continue as it has for nearly 50 years.

But the bet had soured. The developer had fallen hopelessly behind on his mansion payments. If one of the 300 or so invited guests couldn’t be persuaded to pick up the mortgage, the bank would assume ownership.

This was a going-bust party, a last hurrah on the edge of a cliff. Similar, but smaller, displays of bravado have no doubt occurred across the nation. But the evening was an eye-opener in a region that, over the last half-century, had become famous for weathering hard times.

The statistics are still preliminary, but there are indications that the flow of new residents into the state - an important key to Georgia’s economic boom - has slowed significantly.

The state’s public school population normally increases by 20,000 to 30,000 students each and every year. Like clockwork. When school began last fall, officials counted only 6,000 additional students.

Child’s play, you say.

But adults, too, are apparently arriving in fewer numbers. Last week, the helpful people at the state Department of Driver Services came across this nugget: In 2008, the number of out-of-state license transfers dropped nearly 7 percent, to 216,131. It was the second decline in two years.

In Florida, such transfers have dropped 30 percent in five years.

The numbers have implications both political and economic. Because representation in Congress is based on population, decades of migration to the Sunbelt have increased the clout of the portion of America that extends from California to Florida.

After the 2010 census, Georgia is expected to add one more congressional seat to the 13 it already has. But talk that the state might add two seats has all but disappeared.

The bigger impact is economic, of course. “You’re not going to get unlimited growth without workers. The state’s economy has been dependent on new people moving in and spending their money,” said University of Georgia demographer Doug Bachtel.

According to the state Labor Department, in each of the last 12 months, Georgia has had a higher unemployment rate than the nation as a whole. This in a state where a diversified economy, a non-unionized workforce, and even the weather had worked to soften blows from previous downturns.

“With a nationwide recession, there’s less reason for people to move around,” said Roger Tutterow, a professor of economics at Mercer University.

And perhaps that is the larger, positive point. Since World War II, the history of the South has been its effort to rejoin the Union. Not just socially, through the struggle over segregation and Civil Rights, but economically. We’ve wanted to look commercial hubs in New York or Boston or Chicago in the eye, as equals.

We have finally achieved that equality. We’re hurting as badly as everyone else. Maybe more.

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