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Thursday, October 12, 2006
Bush in Macon: Hunkering down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first thing that struck us about President Bush’s fundraising appearance for Mac Collins in Macon this week was the size of the room.
Presidents multi-task, we know. But it still is the case that Bush flew to Georgia Tuesday – the day after the North Koreans announced their nuclear test and four weeks before the Congressional elections – to make one appearance in a space that was, as these things go, fairly intimate.
By the time the big-check contributors filtered in from the smaller event where they got their picture taken with the President, there may have been 500 people in the room. They gave Bush a warm welcome, but this was a far cry from the crowds he spoke to campaigning in Georgia during the 2002 congressional elections – or for that matter, when he was here last month in Atlanta and Savannah.
Bush’s campaign speech was substantially different as well. Last month, the War on Terrorism was the keynote. On Tuesday, the first part of Bush’s speech was about taxes, and it was clearly hunker-down talk: an appeal to the Republican base to remember a bedrock issue that predates 9/11.
According to today’s Macon Telegraph, the event raised between $400,000 and $450,000, depending on who’s estimating. The Marshall campaign has released estimates of comparable trips by the General Accounting Office and the Washington Post, which would put the costs the Collins campaign would have to pick up at between $297,000 and $448,000.
Even throwing out the larger estimate, that’s a big bite.
Bush’s visit probably says something about the importance Republican strategists place on this race, one of the few where they see any chance of a GOP pickup to offset their losses elsewhere.
But what may have seemed like insurance a few months ago today looks like part of the Republicans’ increasing dilemma. Taking this district away from incumbent Rep. Jim Marshall is no easy proposition, with or without a presidential visit, and the party’s prospects in other key districts are even tougher.
Sonny’s counterpunch: $40 million? What $40 million?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue on Wednesday put a new TV ad in rotation, contradicting the value that Democratic rival Mark Taylor on a Florida land purchase. See it here.
The governor engages in a bit of sarcasm, offering to sell the land to Taylor for $10 million. (We’re forming a conglomerate now to make Perdue our own offer. Let us know if you want in.)
As always, it’s interesting to see what ground a candidate picks out to defend. The governor’s ad states that since Taylor got the $40 million figure wrong, nothing else the Democrat says can be believed.
Perdue didn’t choose to dispute Taylor’s subsequent ad, which calls attention to the $100,000 tax deferral that followed the Florida purchase.
