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Friday, November 3, 2006
How Georgia’s GOP might survive the blue wave
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We may have the first clues telling us how well Georgia Republicans have insulated themselves against the anti-GOP wave washing against the rest of the country.
The GOP here has put its faith in a boatload of cash and a massive GOTV effort in which absentee and early voting plays an important role.
Secretary of State Cathy Cox’s office just released the first statewide numbers on absentee balloting: 352,723 votes, about 8 percent, have already been cast.
Of those, 45 percent are from advance voting. About a quarter are no-reason absentees.
Now for the test of GOP strategy: In the Legislature, no race has soaked up Republican resources like the Senate District 50 seat, now occupied by Nancy Schaefer of Turnerville.
She’s big among Christian conservatives, and so Republican strategists have been keen to rev up the evangelical base in that area. As an added measure, they’ve entered pastors against Democratic incumbents in two House District races contained within Schaefer’s district.
Gov. Sonny Perdue and House Speaker Glenn Richardson have made repeated trips to the area.
All this work appears to have made a difference. Of the seven counties in Senate District 50, five show absentee balloting well above the state average: Towns, 17.4 percent; Rabun, 14 percent; Habersham, 15.6 percent; Stephens, 19 percent; Banks, 6.7 percent; Franklin, 5.5 percent; and Hart, 11.3 percent.
In many key Democratic counties across the state, absentee balloting appears to be at or below the state average. That includes DeKalb County, the richest Democratic county, and Dougherty County, Mark Taylor’s home. Republican counties tend to be above the state average.
Here’s a sampling. Bibb, 9.5 percent; Chatham, 7.4 percent; Cherokee, 8.9 percent; Clayton, 5.6 percent; Cobb, 8.3 percent; Columbia, 10 percent; DeKalb, 7 percent; Dougherty, 6.8 percent; Fayette, 9.3 percent; Fulton, 5 percent; Gwinnett, 6.6 percent; Hancock, 8.5 percent; Henry, 10.6 percent; Muscogee, 7.3 percent; and Richmond, 13 percent.
Three DA’s and a sheriff, in bipartisan balance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Supreme Court Justice Carol Hunstein, who’s in a tough fight against challenger Mike Wiggins, has got another TV ad out.
(See the item on Wiggins’ new radio ad a couple entries below.)
The Hunstein ad is built around four canny endorsements from law enforcement types. The purpose is to combat charges from Wiggins and allied 527s that Hunstein is soft on crime.
The first on the screen is Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head, a Republican. It’s hard for a candidate to win statewide without Cobb. Wiggins is campaigning openly as the Republican candidate in the non-partisan race — so Head’s endorsement of Hunstein in this ad could have impact.
Then comes Dougherty County DA Ken Hodges. Albany is the hometown of Mark Taylor, the Democratic candidate for governor. You can expect a heavy turnout.
Tom Brown, sheriff of DeKalb County, is next. DeKalb is Hunstein’s home turf, but also boasts the richest vein of Democratic votes in the state.
Finally, there’s Danny Craig, district attorney for Richmond County. With Augusta at its center, Richmond County may be the most ideologically conservative in the state. Chockful of Republican voters.
Of robo-calls, pink letters and door-knockers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of our colleagues, the esteemed Jim Tharpe, is searching for Democrats, Republicans, even Libertarians who are getting socked by campaign messages — part of his effort to explain this year’s GOTV effort.
If you’re swamped with robo-calls, fliers and pink letters — and brave enough to converse with a working journalist — e-mail him at jtharpe@ajc.com.
We’d offer a free toaster to the 10th e-mailer, but that would require us to eat our bagels raw.
Another Beltway group jumps into Hunstein/Wiggins race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve got another Washington D.C.-area group playing in Georgia’s state Supreme Court race between incumbent Justice Carol Hunstein and challenger Mike Wiggins.
Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse, which carries an Alexandria, Va., address, has paid for a round of robo-calls on Wiggins’ behalf.
The message is a plea to base GOP voters not to ignore the state’s top judicial race, which is at the bottom of the ballot.
“When you go to the polls, please remember to vote in every race,� the female narrator says.
Meanwhile, the Wiggins campaign is up with another radio ad. This one’s by Wiggins’ wife, who defends her husband for fighting “to keep his mother alive and stop a relative from stealing from her.�
But she also tries to shift the topic, by declaring that �on a technicality [Hunstein] released a felon who murdered a grandmother. As soon as he hit the street, he paid a killer to murder the witness who put him in jail.�
One interesting note: The wife’s name is never mentioned. According to Wiggins’ web site, she is Erika Birg, partner in an Atlanta law firm.
There are many reasons for not identifying one’s wife. Professional sensibilities must be considered. Many law firms like to work quietly, out of the glare of any spotlight.
Another reason might be that — if one is directing one’s effort toward the conservative Christian base — a wife who doesn’t carry her husband’s name could raise some eyebrows.
Pants on fire: A pair of topics for discussion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the race for state Senate District 33 out in west Cobb County, Republican challenger Mark Grant, a 47-year-old chiropractor, has accused Democratic incumbent Steve Thompson of voting in 2006 against the Republican bill to block illegal immigrants from receiving state services.
It’s on his web site here.
The problem is that Thompson didn’t vote that particular day. He was excused, so that he could attend the funeral for his father-in-law in another state. Oops.
Here’s another one that will perhaps prompt more debate.
The campaign of Bill Loughrey, the Republican candidate for Fulton County commission, has put out a flier on his Democratic opponent, incumbent Robb Pitts. “Why did Robb Pitts testify for one of Atlanta’s most violent rapists?” it asks. The question is the subject of a TV ad as well.
Ali Nejad, dubbed the “Pantyhose Rapist,” was convicted in December 2005 and sentenced to 35 years in prison without possibility of parole.
Pitts’s campaign says the Democrat was a long-time friend of the family. “After the defendant had already been tried, convicted, and sentenced,” the rapist’s mother asked Pitts to ask the judge to recommend putting the son in a prison close to her home.
Is that testifying for a rapist? The Pitts campaign is comparing this to past GOP attacks — in particular, 1994 race in which Mitch Skandalakis, then the chairman of the Fulton County Commission, tried to help a fellow Republican unseat Gordon Joyner, a black Democratic commissioner.
Skandalakis helped to finance a brochure that featured a doctored image of Joyner, with an Afro and an exaggerated lower lip.
We asked Loughrey. He said he point of his TV ad and flier was that, while Fulton County government was collapsing around his years, Pitts was in a courtroom giving aid and comfort to the perpetrator, rather than the victim.
You folks talk about it amongst yourselves, and tell us what you decide.
