Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2006 > October > 26
Thursday, October 26, 2006
It depends what you mean by “8th District”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Jim Marshall’s campaign has released a poll that shows the incumbent Democrat up 16 points over Republican challenger Mac Collins, and at the magic 50 percent mark.
Marshall spokesman Doug Moore said the campaign has been guarded about its polling information, but wanted to debunk a poll conducted for a group called the Center for Immigration Studies, which had Collins ahead by a point in the 8th District Congressional race.
That poll, which was conducted in 14 congressional districts earlier this month, asked voters around the country a lot of questions about immigration policy, as well as who they were voting for. But Democratic state chairman and Peach Pundit contributor Bobby Kahn read the fine print and discovered the firm which conducted the survey, the Polling Company, appears to have mistakenly polled the old 8th District, which Collins represented.
Only about 13 percent of Collins’ old district is in the one he’s running in this year, and in any case being ahead by a point on your own turf is nothing to write home about.
Ted Prill of the Collins campaign said he hadn’t been aware of the immigration poll until this week, and quickly brought the subject around to President Bush visit on Collins’ behalf next week, which he said “affirms this is a very competitive and close race.� Although, not in Marshall’s poll.
This confusion, by the way, is what comes of fun with numbers.
Back in the ‘90s, when Democrats wanted Newt Gingrich to relocate to a Republican-rich Northside district, they moved his number: the 6th. The Democrats thought they could win the 8rd district, which is what most of the Southside area Gingrich had represented became. But Collins won and stayed there until his 2004 Senate race.
We suspect Republicans had something of the same thing in mind last year when they put Collins’ old number on the newly drawn Central Georgia district, most of which had been the 3rd.
The judge’s white gloves come off: His own mother sued him?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lesson No. 236 in Georgia politics: Make a lady judge mad, and she doesn’t get even. She gets even plus attorney fees and court costs, plus damages and punitive fines. And to boot, she gives you 20 to serve.
Carol Hunstein, the incumbent Supreme Court justice, has just let loose what’s probably the most brutal ad Georgia’s ever seen in a judicial race. She tells the world that her opponent, Bush administration counselor Mike Wiggins, was sued by his own mother, and was accused by his own sister of threatening to kill her — the sister — when she was eight months pregnant.
Mike Wiggins campaign has denied all charges in the Hunstein ad, and calls its content “cruel, false and personal.”
This is a long file, and we’ve got a good deal of back and forth to wade through.
First, see the ad here.
This is the transcript:
“We expect only experienced judges to serve on Georgia’s Supreme Court. But Mike Wiggins has never tried a case.
“We expect our Supreme Court to uphold Georgia values. But Mike Wiggins was sued by his own mother for taking her money. He sued his only sister. She said he threatened to kill her while she was eight months pregnant. A judge ordered Wiggins never to have contact with her again.
“Mike Wiggins. The wrong experience. The wrong values for the Supreme Court.”
Here’s the Wiggins response, passed to us at 2 p.m. Given the seriousness of the issue, we present most of it verbatim below:
“FACT: Mike has been through at least three detailed FBI background checks. He held some of the highest security clearances in the federal government. Those background checks concluded there was absolutely zero reason to question Mike’s personal integrity.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘We expect only experienced judges to serve on Georgia ’s Supreme Court. But Mike Wiggins has never tried a case.’
“FALSE: Mike Wiggins has tried cases in court. In fact, he has won a ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals as well as several federal courts. And, Mike has controlled appellate litigation on the most complex constitutional issues at the top courts in the country including several that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘We expect our Supreme Court to uphold Georgia values. But Mike Wiggins was sued by his own mother for taking her money.’
“FALSE: Mike and his mother agreed together upon a lawsuit on a promissory note as a way of recovering money that was stolen by a third party. Mike recovered the money taken, returned it to his mother, and the lawsuit was dismissed.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘He sued his only sister, she said he threatened to kill her while she was 8 months pregnant.’
“FALSE: Mike has never threatened his sister, and any charge that he did is utterly false. Mike did file a motion in a guardianship case to prevent the removal of life sustaining care from his mother while she was in a coma. Years earlier, at his mother’s request, Mike made a promise to her that he would protect her life and her life savings. The order entered by the court completely vindicated Mike’s position in the case. It gave him sole control over his mother’s finances and health care, and ordered that personal property be returned to the estate and that over $12,000 be repaid to the estate.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘A Judge ordered Wiggins never to have contact with her again.’
“FALSE: At Mike’s own request, in the very same order discussed above, the judge ordered that Mike ‘not initiate any direct personal contact with [her] and that [she] shall not initiate any direct personal contact with [him] in perpetuity.’ It was in fact a mutual instruction to ‘initiate direct personal contact’ only through the lawyers in the case. As noted above, the judge also gave Mike sole control over his mother’s health care decisions and over her modest financial resources and ordered that more that $12,000 and personal property be returned to the estate and placed under Mike’s protection as his mother’s guardian and conservator.
Finally, here’s the Hustein response to the Wiggins response, handed to us at 3:30 p.m. by Hustein spokesman Linton Johnson:
“Mr. Wiggins is asking Georgia voters to trust him with a seat on our state’s highest court, but he has no judicial record and therefore very little is known about him. This ad informs Georgians of his lack of experience and raises serious questions about his judicial temperament. It is our understanding that Mr. Wiggins has declined many opportunities to talk with the news media about his qualifications for office, or lack thereof. This ad fills that information gap.
“Justice Hunstein is under attack by an outside group that has raised and spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to spread outrageous distortions of her 22-year record of judicial service.
“It’s an attempt by the insurance industry and other special interests to buy a seat on the Supreme Court. Did they think Justice Hunstein and her supporters would let them do so without a fight?â€?
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
