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Friday, October 6, 2006
More Foley fallout: At least they’re not saying he’s done a heckuva job
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late this week, as Speaker Dennis Hastert headed home to Illinois voters, to answer questions about Mark Foley, pages and instant messaging, the flaks for Republican members of the U.S. House were called together in Washington for some coaching.
The instructions, according to one who was there, were to remain upbeat about the economy and national defense, and let the scandal play itself out.
For the most part, the message seems to be working. The state’s Republican delegation is hanging with the speaker — for now. It’s just that little note of temporality that jars.
“Any decision about anybody’s resigning is just premature,� said U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell, whose Democratic opponent, Steve Sinton, has called on him to reject Hastert.
“We’d be getting ahead of ourselves to discuss who’s going to be in the leadership of the 110th Congress. We’ve got an election to deal with first,� said Brian Robinson, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.
The House may stay Republican after November. It may not. But the enthusiasm missing from those statements suggests that Hastert might be gone no matter what.
More on the fall-out from Foley: The 12th District contest between U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Max Burns has dropped down eight spots in the latest National Journal tally of the most competitive U.S. House races in the country, from 24th to 32nd.
There’s only one Democratic incumbent — Leonard Boswell of Iowa — left on the list of the publication’s top 30 races on the country.
That’s because races involving Republican incumbents have moved up the list.
Taylor takes us to Disneyworld
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Taylor, the Democratic candidate for governor, finally gets on the TV screen with a big swipe at Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue. It’s all about the Florida land deal. See it here.
Meanwhile, an Insider Advantage poll has Perdue increasing his lead, 54 percent to Taylor’s 30 percent, with 8 percent for Libertarian Garrett Michael Hayes. Matt Towery’s outfit is subscription-based. If you’ve paid him, you can read the rest here.
The guv is against harassment of elite young men. Five years ago.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boys and girls, it’s time to slip on those Freudian thinking caps we passed out last week.
Gov. Sonny Perdue has put out a hard-hitting mailer that accuses his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, of shutting down a bill to prohibit Boy Scouts from being ousted from meeting in government buildings because the organization won’t permit gay troop leaders.
“When the Boy Scouts were being harassed by the radical homosexual lobby” is how this howl from the Republican incumbent begins.
Let us posit some points:
A) Perdue has campaign money coming out of his ears. He can attack when he wants, where he wants, how he wants, and as quickly as he wants. In Navy parlance, he has the weather gauge. The terms of battle are his choice, and his alone.
B) Of all Taylor’s alleged short-comings, Perdue selected for his first blow a 5-year-old bill that the governor says would have protected an elite group of young, male adolescents — who are doing nothing but the nation’s work — from predatory homosexuals.
So here’s the question: Is Perdue really attacking Taylor? Or is he putting air between himself and that crew up in Washington — we can’t immediately recall their names or their party affiliation — who are now being criticized for their lax attitude toward a predatory homosexual and an elite group of young, male adolescents?
