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Thursday, March 15, 2007
Just a presidential election. Nothing to get excited about.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not even April, and already it’s a cruel season for conservative Republicans in Georgia — evangelicals in particular.
The three men at the top of the GOP’s presidential polls, to many Christian conservatives, are far from ideal. John McCain is a long-time foe, twice married. Rudy Giuliani, thrice-married, is wrong on gays, guns and abortion.
Mitt Romney, despite the lack of multiple wedding vows, has a liberal past. And he’s Mormon — a bigger issue in the South than many will admit, especially among Southern Baptists.
Litmus-test candidates, like Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, haven’t scratched.
“You know when they’re praying for Newt Gingrich, there’s a real problem,” said Rusty Paul, a Sandy Springs councilman and former state Republican chairman. He’s just cast his lot with Giuliani.
It’s not just the candidates troubling the Republican core. It’s the calendar as well. A front-loaded primary calendar in 2008 could give states with caches of more moderate Republicans, like California and Nevada, a larger say in the nomination process.
“We’re in the political equivalent of a world without the law of gravity,” says Republican strategist Ralph Reed in Time magazine this week. “Nothing we have known in the past seems relevant.”
On Wednesday, over lunch, several dozen state GOP lawmakers gathered in the Capitol to bemoan the imperfections of the current leaders, and to discuss whether a mass endorsement of a second-tier candidate might provide a needed spark.
The only point of agreement? McCain was unsuitable and Giuliani was nearly so.
Sadie Fields, leader of the Georgia Christian Alliance, doesn’t like any of the top three, and says she’s still waiting for her candidate to jump into the picture.
There are people who say they’ve seen this day coming. Located down the hall from Reed in a Duluth office building, Mark DeMoss runs a public relations firm that caters to Christian-oriented firms.
DeMoss has become a national, unpaid emissary for Romney, making his case before Southern Baptists and other evangelicals.
He organized an introductory meeting last October that included Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham. Last month, he put Romney in front of 100 attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Orlando.
“The strategy among many of us has been, ‘Let’s go find the most Christian person we can find and make him president,’” DeMoss said. “This year — for the first time, perhaps — we’re seeing one of the real problems with that.”
DeMoss argues that Romney’s resume proves that his religion is irrelevant — and that nowhere is there evidence during Romney’s term as governor of Massachusetts that his personal faith has raised any eyebrows.
“As an evangelical, I have more in common with most Mormons than I do with a liberal Southern Baptist,” DeMoss said. “What’s he going to do? What tangible action can come from what you feel is a bizarre theological belief? We don’t apply that standard anywhere else.”
Romney has had good luck in Georgia, sweeping up many Bush adherents among the GOP’s leadership. But DeMoss acknowledges that you might not see Romney behind many pulpits in Southern churches. “It’s possible that may not happen,” he said.
To say that enthusiasm has been lacking in Georgia would be an understatement.
State GOP chairman Alec Poitevint is backing McCain, but no organization has been announced.
The Giuliani campaign is only now cranking up in Georgia. Plans for a mid-April unveiling of support are underway, with Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus as one of the hosts.
Clint Austin of Marietta, a lobbyist, political operative and evangelical, has decided that Giuliani is his man. “We must make a mature and grown up decision,” Austin said. In a back-handed way, he’s impressed that Giuliani hasn’t backed off his positions on abortion or gay marriage. “I don’t think he’s pandering to me,” Austin said.
He compared the former New York mayor to Paul Coverdell, who came from the moderate camp of the Georgia Republican party, and was embraced by hard-core conservatives.
“Like Paul Coverdell, like Johnny Isakson, [Giuliani] is a guy who’s going to bring conservatives into his governing coalition,” Austin said.
But Republican fence-sitters abound in Georgia. Jerry Keen, the House majority leader and one-time head of the Georgia Christian Coalition, is among them.
Keen has met McCain and Romney. His pastor in Glynn County likes the man who brought New York City through 9/11, but Keen is waiting for an audience with Giuliani next month. Even then, he may take his before backing a candidate.
Bottom line, though, Keen said the Republican base doesn’t want to see Democrats hold the White House and Congress. “We can’t let that happen,” Keen said. “Conservatives want to win, too. The movement has matured. We want to retain one leg of the three-legged stool.”
Up from No. 49 to No. 36: Georgia’s heft increases with Dems in charge of Congress
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re late on this one - so hat-tip to chisishardcore and peachpundit.com.
Contrary to what you might think, Georgia has actually picked up clout in Congress with Democrats in charge, according to the annual calculations of congress.org.
Last year, the organization ranked our glorious red state at No. 49, just ahead of Arkansas and the principalities of the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam - which were also included in the survey.
But behind Puerto Rico.
With Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in charge, Georgia’s ranking now stands at No. 36.
Formulations are based on party, committee assignments, seniority, and other such stuff. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, one of two Democratic members of Congress to win by a whisker in ’06, appears to be the biggest winner.
Last year, he was ranked No. 407 in the 435-member House of Representatives. He jumped to No. 45, ahead of John Lewis (D-Atlanta).
Credit probably goes to the fact that Marshall picked up a third major committee assignment in ‘06. He already sat on the House armed services and agriculture committees, weighty in themselves. Now he’s also on the exclusive House Financial Services Committee, which oversees banking, insurance and securities legislation.
U.S. Rep. John Barrow (D-Savannah), who was declared the caboose of the Georgia delegation last year behind Cynthia McKinney, rose to No. 91.
Naturally, the influence of Republicans tumbled with the change in party control. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) is now judged the most cloutless in the Georgia delegation, ranked at No. 414.
Jack Kingston (R-Savannah), whose seat on the House Appropriations Committee made him the most powerful member of the Georgia House delegation last year, tumbled to the middle of the pack.
In the 100-member, seniority-driven Senate, Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson also dropped in influence, according to congress.org, though the changes weren’t drastic. They were Nos. 64 and 84, respectively. Now they’re Nos. 59 and 91.
They also wore thick, woolly coats: A sign of a cold, barren season for the Republican core
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A band of several dozen Republican lawmakers held a quiet, noon meeting in one of those half-hidden rooms of the state Capitol on Wednesday, to discuss uniting behind a single candidate in the ’08 presidential race.
So far as we can tell, participants included state Sens. Chip Rogers of Woodstock, John Wiles of Kennesaw, David Shafer of Duluth, Judson Hill of Marietta, state Reps. Tom Graves of Ranger and Steve Davis of McDonough. Even Eric Johnson of Savannah, the Senate’s president pro tem, dropped by.
These are mostly hard-core conservatives. We’re told the group adjourned without making a decision, but dissatisfaction was a general theme. First on the agenda appears to be ABJM, as in Anybody But John McCain. Second is ABRG. As in Rudy Giuliani.
That would seem to leave Mitt Romney as a possibility, or one of the underfunded, second-tier candidates: Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Duncan Hunter of California, or Jim Gilmore of Virginia. And there’s Newt Gingrich as well.
