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Tuesday, April 4, 2006
The DeLay factor in Georgia
A candidate with close ties to Abramoff — but none that are illegal — bows out of a 'negative, personal campaign.'
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Tuesday morning, every Republican in Georgia with geek credentials was attempting to triangulate the meaning of former House majority leader Tom DeLay’s resignation.
“Because I care so deeply about this district and the people in it, I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative personal campaign,” Delay said.
Ralph Reed faces the same Democratic gauntlet, plus a tough Republican primary. What’s the impact of this on his campaign for lieutenant governor?
Reed’s not saying. His daily communiqué focused on a Henry County judge’s decision in an eminent domain case. The rival GOP campaign of Casey Cagle also remained mum.
Carolyn Meadows of Cobb County, a former member of the Republican National Committee and a board member of the National Rifle Association, backs Reed in the lite gov race, and knows DeLay.
She wasn’t surprised by DeLay’s decision to pull out of his race. “I figured this would come sooner or later,â€? said Meadows, though she admits the timing caught her off guard.
But she expects no repercussions for Reed. “I think there’s still enough time that this is all going to die down before the election,” Meadows said.
Before you argue that Georgians don’t really care what happens in Texas, know this: Last week, one of the most popular pieces of literature passed among Republican lawmakers, in the House as well as Senate, was a photocopy of a mailer from a Texas education PAC.
The target was a GOP candidate in a special, February statehouse election in Austin. The district was limousine Republican. The flier carried the “culture of corruption� message pushed by Democrats — with photos of DeLay, Reed, and Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Democrat won.
Not Denise Majette, but Steen Miles
Her motto: What's good for DeKalb County is grrrreat! for Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrats in Georgia released a collective breath when Denise Majette, the former U.S. Senate candidate, announced she would run for state school superintendent — rather than lieutenant governor.
Her candidacy would have guaranteed at least a run-off for two white males already in the race: Jim Martin and Greg Hecht — an added expense that cash-strapped Democrats can’t afford.
But now there’s another bullet out of DeKalb County to be dodged. State Sen. Steen Miles, a first-termer, says she’s contemplating a run for lieutenant governor.
Miles, who like Majette is African-American, is the senator who pitched the Jane Fonda resolution this session. So at least we’ll have something to talk about.
We couldn’t catch Miles on Tuesday. But in an InsiderAdvantage interview, she sounded like she could be talked out of it.
Because she’s so new to politics, one Democratic analyst said Miles’ impact on the race would be less than that of Majette, though she could still force a run-off.
“Denise Majette is to Steen Miles what Jesse Jackson is to Al Sharpton,� our analyst said.
Says Chambliss: No round-up of illegals
"I think we’re kidding ourselves to think that we can do that"
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You could almost see U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss squinting at the needle as he threaded his way through the immigration issue on Tuesday.
He was on the phone with a half-dozen reporters. First bit of news: Chambliss doesn’t think the legislation now before the U.S. Senate has much of a chance of passing this week.
“This bill has tied immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. That’s proven to be a difficult hurdle to get beyond,� he said.
“I’m not one of those folks who thinks that you can round up everybody who’s here illegally and send them back. I think we’re kidding ourselves to think that we can do that,� Chambliss said. “So we have got to make some accommodation for folks. But we can deal with that issue short of giving them citizenship.�
The fine line that Chambliss walks can be found in the furrowed rows of Georgia farms. He doesn’t want his farmers to have the federal government peering over their shoulders, looking at their payroll lists.
Yet at the same time, he said farmers are a first line of defense against illegal immigration, and must bear some of the responsibility.
A final word from the Mexican Consul General in Atlanta.
Nearly two weeks after the event, the Mexican consulate in Atlanta has issued a formal response to recent events in the state Legislature.
In late March, you’ll recall, the House was debating the illegal immigration bill now on Gov. Sonny Perdue’s desk. State Rep. Matt Dollar (R-Cobb County) rose to speak, and produced what he said were two matriculas consulares — photo IDs issued by the Mexican government to Mexican nationals legally residing in the United States.
Except the IDs had Dollar’s photo on them, and his name. Dollar, a genuine U.S. citizen, said he obtained them through the Mexican government — though he later backed away from this statement.
Dollars’ words were transmitted to Remedios Gomez-Arnau, the Mexican government’s top diplomat in Atlanta. She went straight to the Capitol and House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s office, where she demanded Dollar’s curly head — or at least the Mexican government’s documents, which he claimed to possess.
She was shown the door. It wasn’t pretty.
We made inquiries to the consulate, but until Tuesday morning had heard nothing. Here’s what we received, in part:
“The matricula consular is a document that has been issued for 130 years and, since May 2002, it contains a series of security features that avoid its possible forgery and make it a highly reliable document,� wrote the consulate’s spokesman, Armando Bello Padilla.
“In such sense, the Consulate General of Mexico rejects categorically any demonstration of doubt on the seriousness and consistency of the processes followed in the issuance of such consular document,� the spokesman said.
The translation, we think, is something like this: “The documents are reliable, and frat-house fakes don’t count. Anyone who says otherwise is fibbing.�
