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Thursday, November 30, 2006
Our headline? ‘Perdue put in place at RGA convention’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re grateful to a reader for passing on this item from the New York Times blog, The Caucus.
It seems that at a forum on the internet during the Republican Governor’s Association, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke of how the internet is causing big revenue and circulation problems for the nation’s newspapers.
“You know, if some of them went out of business, it wouldn’t all bad,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
“That’s what some of us were just thinking,” added Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Memo to the governor: When one of them disses the Dawgs, see what kind of reaction you get when you sit down and fire off a letter to a blog.
Immigration as an ‘08 issue: Tancredo for president?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just chatted an hour or so ago with Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance. He said he’s come across feelers that U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican, has put out for a presidential run.
A Tancredo candidacy could test the continued strength of immigration as a key to the Republican base. The Colorado congressman has made a cottage industry of criticizing U.S. immigration policy. Most recently, he ticked off Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, for referring to Miami as “a Third World country.”
Of irony, Curt Thompson, and notorious ‘notarios’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As long as irony is the topic of the day, we might as well make mention of state Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross), whose Colombian-born wife has been hit with a deportation order.
Thompson told agents that his wife is the victim of bad paperwork by a “notario,” who caused his wife to miss an important immigration hearing on her status.
According to some Latin American countries, a “notario” is a lawyer. In the U.S., it’s more often a simple notary public. Some U.S. “notarios” misrepresent themselves as lawyers and often file incomplete and improper immigration applications for unsuspecting clients.
Thompson is an outspoken advocate for immigrants’ rights, and this year voted against S.B. 529, the Republican-sponsored legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants’ access to state services.
We talked to state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), the chief sponsor of the bill. He said he feels for Thompson — but wanted to point out that the new legislation addresses Thompson’s exact situation.
“With the help of [Democratic senator] Sam Zamarripa of Atlanta, we outlawed them in S.B. 529. The only person who can claim to be a ‘notario’ would have to be an actual lawyer who works in immigration related matters,” Rogers said.
Frozen in time: The group that hauled down the ‘56 flag
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We had to dig through the files, but we finally found it.
One late night in January 2001, a group of prominent men gathered at the Governor’s Mansion on West Paces Ferry Road to put the final touches on Gov. Roy Barnes’ lightning-like strike to bring down the 1956 state flag and its Confederate battle emblem.
The businessmen and politicians who were behind the move to dump the symbol of an out-dated South seated themselves in a wide circle. An official state photographer froze them all with a flash and a fish-eyed lens.
So far as we know, the photo has never been published before.
In the far left-hand corner is Ed Holcombe, a longtime lobbyist for Georgia Power Co., named this month as chief of staff for Gov. Sonny Perdue. It was his job to build support among Capitol lobbyists for the flag change.
The entire group, from Bobby Kahn, chief of staff to Barnes, clockwise: Allen Franklin, president and COO of the Southern Co. who also was the chairman of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce; state Rep. Charlie Smith (D-St. Marys); Holcombe; Jim Bostic, a senior vice president for Atlanta-based Georgia Pacific; state Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton); former state representative Denmark Groover of Macon; Barnes; state Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta); Charles Hood, then in charge of governmental affairs for Georgia Pacific; state Rep. Larry Walker (D-Perry); and state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus).
This is a photo rich in historical irony. The hauling down the Confederate battle emblem was one of the issues that Perdue used to topple Barnes in 2002.
Confederate enthusiasts may look at Holcombe, and his business fellows, and see a conspiracy here. But it is, in fact, simple photographic proof of the constancy of Georgia politics. Under Democratic rule, business interests had a strong hand in setting the agenda. Remember that Georgia was under the threat of economic boycott at the time.
Republicans have likewise sought to tie themselves to the state’s business community. In large part, this was the motivation for the state GOP’s unsuccessful support of Mike Wiggins, the chamber-of-commerce backed candidate for the state Supreme Court.
