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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
He didn’t know Taylor, but played him on TV
Or how rappers got the idea that Fulton County buildings were great locales for their videos
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eight years ago, Joel McElhannon was a 24-year-old neophyte in Georgia Republican politics. He was a tad overweight, with a shock of black hair. One might have called him stout.
Yet it was McElhannon’s girth that got him the casting call.
It was at the height of the 1998 general election season, and the plea came from John Watson, a party staffer who is now Gov. Sonny Perdue’s chief of staff.
Mitch Skandalakis was the GOP’s abrasive, no-holds-barred candidate for lieutenant governor, and he needed someone who, in bad light, looked like Skandalakis’ Democratic opponent — the hefty Mark Taylor, a state senator from Albany.
Fred Davis, a media consultant known for taking chances in his TV spots, was in charge. He’s the guy who would create Perdue’s “King Ratâ€? Internet commercial in 2002.
Said McElhannon on Tuesday: “They told me to show up at the basement of the Fulton County government at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning. They padded me up with this foam rubber belly thing that made me a ton bigger, and they put this bath robe on me, and messed up my hair,� he said.
“They told me to kind of shuffle down the hallway. At the end, Fred was like, can you kind of slip and fall? Which is what happened at the end of the commercial. The padding was actually helpful there,� McElhannon recounted.
We are speaking, of course, about the most famous political commercial that most Georgians will never see. It accused Taylor, falsely, of cocaine addiction. The cinderblock hallway was to represent a drug rehab clinic. Skandalakis settled the resulting slander suit.
The TV spot was given rerun status this week, following a Saturday debate between Ralph Reed and Casey Cagle, the two GOP candidates for lieutenant governor. Reed was the aggressor in the confrontation, and prompted Cagle to admit that, yes, he’d given Taylor $1,000 in 1999, following the Democrat’s victory in the race.
Cagle said he and fellow senator Eric Johnson had given identical donations by way of apologizing for the brutality of that particular TV ad.
Cagle also noted that Reed, as a new but heavy-weight political consultant, was major part of the machinery of the Skandalakis campaign. Many Republicans blame that one race for dragging down Guy Millner’s bid for governor.
Reed has distanced himself from the Skandalakis campaign of 1998. And many of those who served on Skandalakis’ campaign staff say that while Reed was valuable during the primary, he wasn’t that much use in the general election.
But no one has mentioned the supreme irony.
Young McElhannon, the stand-in for Taylor, is now Cagle’s top political consultant — strategizing the Cagle fight against Reed.
Like Davis, McElhannon said he was told by Skandalakis campaigners that the documentation behind the commercial was in hand. It wasn’t.
“Looking back on it, it was a horrible thing to do, because it was wrong. As much as I don’t like [Taylor], don’t like his politics, it was not right to flat out lie about somebody. But I was a young naïve kid who thought I was helping out the party,â€? McElhannon said.
Understand that McElhannon is a predictable witness when it comes to Reed. If Reed didn’t know about that TV spot, McElhannon said, he should have.
“He should have just flat-out walked away. Nothing happens on my campaigns that I don’t know about,â€? McElhannon said. Something to be filed away, under “Famous Last Words.â€?
Another battle for DeKalb
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When he qualified for the lieutenant governor’s race Tuesday, Democrat Jim Martin released a list of 22 legislators who are endorsing him. It’s of course intended to show broad support for the former Atlanta legislator and Human Services commissioner, but in particular the DeKalb/Atlanta names look like a blowback to Sen. Steen Miles, the latest entrant in the race (see below).
The senators endorsing Martin are: David Adelman (DeKalb), Gloria Butler (DeKalb/Gwinnett), Vincent Fort (Fulton) and Sam Zamarripa (Fulton).
The House members are: Kathy Ashe (Fulton) Tom Bordeaux (Chatham) Tyrone Brooks (Douglas/Fulton), Roger Bruce (Douglas/Fulton), Robert Bryant (Chatham), Douglas Dean (DeKalb/Fulton), Karla Drenner (DeKalb), Pat Gardner (DeKalb/Fulton), Gerald Greene (Calhoun/Clay/Early/Miller/Randolph/Seminole), Michele Henson (DeKalb), Lester Jackson (Chatham), Mary Margaret Oliver (DeKalb), Nan Orrock (DeKalb/Fulton),Bobby Parham (Baldwin/Putnam), Robert Ray (Bibb/Crawford/Houston/Lamar/Monroe/Peach/Upson), Georganna Sinkfield (Clayton/DeKalb/Fulton), LaNett Stanley-Turner (Fulton), and Rep. Rob Teilhet (Cobb).
And Steen Miles dips in
Entry of third candidate in the Democratic race could make for an expensive run-off.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One-term state Sen. Steen Miles of DeKalb County has decided she wants to be lieutenant governor after all. Sounds like she intends to ride the DeKalb County wave of votes in the Democratic primary. She’ll be drawing from both other candidates, Jim Martin and Greg Hecht.
This is from her morning press release: “I’m running to make certain voters have viable choices and that we have continuity of a Democratic governor and lieutenant governor elected in November. Further, I didn’t come into the political arena to make a career, but to make a difference. We need to do everything possible to regain Georgia for Georgians.”
You will recall Miles as the senator who put Jane Fonda in for plaudits this session, though the resolution was later withdrawn.
Burmeister bows out
One of GOP's leading women in the House says no to a fourth term
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the highest ranking women in the leadership of the state House abruptly announced Tuesday she would not run for re-election, citing the need to spend more time with her family.
State Rep. Sue Burmeister, a three-term lawmaker from Richmond County, said she would instead concentrate on spending more time with her two sons and two daughters. “I practice what I preach, and family should always come first,” Burmeister said.
Burmeister was the sponsor of the 2005 legislation requiring women to wait 24 hours before obtaining an abortion, and a sponsor of the voter ID legislation.
She serves as vice chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, secretary of the House special judiciary committee; and is a member of the Health and Human Services; Appropriations and Government Affairs committees.
Burmeister’s husband recently took a new job in Alabama. Last year, her 24-year-old son was arrested and charged with aggravated child molestation.
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