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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Sonny on Sunday sales: ‘I don’t support that’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue broke weeks of silence on Wednesday, telling a radio audience that he doesn’t support the effort to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sundays.
Perdue made his comments on “The Bert Show” on Q100, a talk-and-Top 40 station aimed at young adults.
“Think of it this way…It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday,” the governor said. “Time management.”
Said state Sen. Seth Harp of Midland, who introduced the bill last week: “I’m surprised, because it’s been tremendously well-received. People came up to me in church and told me it was a good idea,” said Harp, a Methodist. “I hope [Perdue] doesn’t have his mind made up.”
Here’s the sound. And here’s a rough transcript of what Perdue said about S.B. 26:
“I think it’s going to have a tough time, actually. When you ask people generally if they want the right to vote on anything — what kind of toilet tissue the state ought to use, or anything like that — they’ll typically say yes.
“Although they like representative government, they like to have their voices heard. And that’s why we have representative government, where people elect their own legislators to come and make these kinds of decisions.
“Some things rise to the level of referendums — such as, I felt, the symbol, the flag that represented Georgia, which I felt rose to that level. But you can’t do government really by referendum. And so, I don’t support that, and I don’t know whether it will pass the Legislature or not, but it’ll have a pretty tough time getting the last vote….
“You have to always be attuned to where public opinion is, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to follow that. A good leader always leads in a way they think is the right direction for Georgia on significant issues. …
“Think of it this way…It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday. Time management.”
The race to replace Bobby Kahn is on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Democratic party on Wednesday released its formal list of candidates for chairman and other positions up for a vote on Saturday, Jan. 27.
The race to replace Bobby Kahn as chairman contains no surprises: Michael R. Berlon (Gwinnett), Hattie B. Dorsey (Fulton), Carol Jackson (Habersham), Donzella J. James (Fulton), Jane V. Kidd (Clarke), and Jim Nelson (Chatham).
The surprise is in the race for first vice-chairman. Candidates include state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond of Athens, and state Sen. Doug Stoner of Cobb County.
See the entire list below
List Of Candidates for State Committee Elections
(Atlanta) The list of candidates who have filed to run in the State Committee Elections is as follows (listed in alphabetical order):
Chairman
Michael R. Berlon (Gwinnett)
Hattie B. Dorsey (Fulton)
Carol Jackson (Habersham)
Donzella J. James (Fulton)
Jane V. Kidd (Clarke)
Jim Nelson (Chatham)
First Vice-Chair
Gloria S. Butler (DeKalb)
Darryl A. Hicks (Fayette)
Angela Moore (DeKalb)
Michael Thurmond (Clarke)
Doug Stoner (Cobb)
Congressional District/County Liaison Vice-Chair
Randal Mangham (DeKalb)
Sally Rosser (Fulton)
Cheryl Williams (Gwinnett)
Constituency Group Vice-Chair
Virgilio Perez Pascoe (Forsyth)
James Quarterman (Douglas)
Terrence Samuel (Thomas)
Candidate Recruitment Vice-Chair
Winfred Dukes (Dougherty)
Danita P. Knowles (Coffee)
Secretary
Patricia Barlow-Ivry (Habersham)
Stephen R. Leeds (Fulton)
Treasurer
Rex Templeton, Jr. (Chatham)
1st Congressional District Chair
Dennis W. Marks (Lowndes)
2nd Congressional District Chair
Margaret Tyson (Grady)
3rd Congressional District Chair
Ernest C. Broadwell (Fayette)
4th Congressional District Chair
Linda Edmonds (DeKalb)
5th Congressional District Chair
William Curry (Fulton)
Sheila Jones (Fulton)
6th Congressional District Chair
Ben E. Myers (Fulton)
7th Congressional District Chair
Tasso Knight (Gwinnett)
8th Congressional District Chair
Keith Moffett (Bibb)
9th Congressional District Chair
Bob Barton (Lumpkin)
10th Congressional District Chair
R. Terry Holley (Columbia)
Patty Payne (Franklin)
11th Congressional District Chair
David McLaughlin (Floyd)
12th Congressional District Chair
Tony Center (Chatham)
13th Congressional District Chair
Donzella J. James (Fulton)
Sukari Scott (Clayton)
Nikema Williams (Fulton)
Bush/Iraq approval down to 38 percent in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re President Bush, some truly disturbing numbers can be found in the poll of 800 Georgia voters released this morning by Strategic Vision, a GOP-leaning public affairs firm.
Bush’s overall approval has dropped to 42 percent — and Iraq is to blame. On the economy, 46 percent said they approved of what he’s doing. On the war on terror, 49 percent expressed approval.
But when it came to Bush’s Iraq policy, only 38 percent approved. This in a state widely viewed as pro-military, and one of the most friendly to the president.
Only 33 percent approved of sending more troops to Iraq, and 43 percent said they would support Congress if it chose to cut off funding to block the sending of more troops. Forty-nine percent said they would oppose the maneuver.
The poll was conducted Jan. 12 through 14, and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus three percentage points.
On local matters, 52 percent of those polled said they favored legislation to allow grocery stores to sell alcohol on Sunday.
The fight to keep a red state blue intensifies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sadie Fields is turning out her conservative Christian troops against S.B. 26, the bill to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine — in communities that elect to permit it.
In an e-mail sent out early this week, the chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance asked followers to contact members of the Senate Committee on Regulated Industries, which now has the bill.
Fields also lists the sponsors of the measure, introduced last week by Seth Harp of Midland. Among those who have signed onto the bill, Fields pays particular attention to co-sponsor Don Thomas of Dalton, a Republican physician who last year, she notes, “led the legislation to add additional bans on smoking in public places.”
In the preamble of the ban introduced by Thomas, Fields notes, the intensified smoking ban was justified by the “offenses against public health and morals” that cigarettes and such present.
She also includes this link to a Christianity Today article, which says church-goers are more likely to drink heavily, and less likely to sit in pews, when blue laws are erased.
