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Thursday, June 7, 2007
Sometimes, pleading stupidity is the only reasonable thing to do
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know that House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) sent a letter to Sonny Perdue, suggesting that the governor call a special session of the Legislature to lower state taxes on gasoline.
Early today, we rather limply opined that Perdue was unlikely to do so, simply because it would mean the return of 236 cranky lawmakers to Atlanta.
Mark Twain once wrote that the difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Ditto with analysis.
In his personal blog, state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) chose to go with the lightning bolt rather than the bug.
“A special session for any purpose would force the Governor to immediately transmit his budget vetoes to the House, bringing that issue to a head now as opposed to next January, when the fiscal year will have been largely completed,” he wrote this afternoon.
Links to the 10th District debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Athens Banner-Herald has put up audio links to Wednesday’s debate that featured nine candidates for the 10th District congressional contest. They’re at the top of the story, which can be found here.
The deal on Rand Knight: His press release and bio
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got a note from Rand Knight, a 35-year-old scientist with the National Ecological Observatory Network, who announced his Democratic candidacy for the U.S. Senate race with his e-mail.
Here’s his web site, though some finishing touches are still needed.
If you’ll read his bio and press release, you’ll know as much about him as we do.
Knight comes into this race only four days after former WSB-TV reporter Dale Cardwell did the same. DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones is interested in the race, but has made no formal declaration of candidacy.
Democratic candidate No. 3 in the race for U.S. Senate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The blogs are buzzing today about another Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.
We may have come across the first evidence, at the web site of the Chatham County Democratic party. Among the details of a June 9 fund-raiser is a list of sponsors.
And at the top of that list is “Rand Knight for U.S. Senate.”
He’s got a web site, which is not active. At this point, we know nothing more than that.
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The Athens debate: Much talk about Iraq, and there was the bobble-head doll
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Athens Banner-Herald provides the best account of Wednesday evening’s Jim Whitehead-less debate among the nine other candidates in the 10th District congressional race.
The newspaper had planned a link to the two-hour audio of the local event, but is apparently experiencing some technical bugs. We’ll update when it’s fixed.
At the debate itself, the candidates were asked whether, given the information at the time, they would have voted to go to war in Iraq. Five said yes.
Democrats Evita Paschall and Denise Freeman, Republican Erik Underwood and Libertarian Jim Sendelbach answered in the negative.
But according to the Banner-Herald, “most of the candidates who said they would have let [President] Bush invade said they now think it’s time to leave.”
“We’re currently fighting on a credit card,” Democrat Jim Marlow said. “That credit card is owned by the Chinese. This is the worst foreign policy we’ve ever had.”
Only Republican Bill Greene spoke up for Bush. He said nice things about the surge.
“Anyone who says we need to bring the troops home now really means we need to bring the war home now,” he said.
Whitehead, a former Columbia County state senator and one-time University of Georgia lineman, skipped the affair, as we reported Wednesday. He’s considered the leading candidate.
But in Whitehead’s honor, WGAU voice Tim Bryant, who moderated the forum, “placed a bobblehead doll dressed in a University of Georgia football jersey at the end of the table.”
And while they’re at it, they could plot the override of another veto
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue thinks its ‘too early’ to respond to House Minority Leader DuBose Porter’s call for a special session of the Legislature to lower Georgia’s gas tax, the Macon Telegraph reports today.
No surprise. A sense of calm has finally returned to the state Capitol, after weeks of intra-Republican warfare. The last thing Perdue wants in Atlanta are 236 surly lawmakers, the majority in his own party.
Perhaps he’s a ‘Fred head:’ Newt puts chances of his running at 4-to-1
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ve got to think that, just maybe, Fred Thompson’s non-entry into the Republican race for the White House could be drawing attention away from the other major non-candidate.
The Associated Press reports today that Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker and Georgia congressman, is now giving himself 4-to-1 odds against running for president, “an assessment that conflicts with his recent pronouncements about seeking the Republican nomination.”
Only last month, he said it was “a great possibility.”
Signs of ‘fraying’ among immigration dealmakers?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last night’s votes on the immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate indicated that pressure on Republican conservatives might be having an effect.
The Washington Post specifically singled out Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss as its prime examples.
The topic was one of the challenges to the bipartisan deal, an amendment by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that would have barred illegal immigrants from obtaining legal status if they have been guilty of “legal infractions,” including run-ins with immigration courts.
We’ll let the Post pick it up from here:
But the coalition shows signs of fraying. Georgia’s senators, Republicans Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, had helped forge the immigration deal, but they bolted from the coalition to back Cornyn’s amendment. Chambliss, who was booed recently at his state’s Republican convention, hinted that he could oppose the bill on its final vote.
“I’m committed to the concepts” of the agreement, he said. “To say I support the bill, I’ve never said that.”
Let us also draw your attention to today’s InsiderAdvantage, which reports that political commentator Phil Kent, who is also head of the U.S. Immigration Reform Political Action Committee, has vowed to oust senators who support the immigration bill.
“The top senator we want to defeat is Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and if he votes for the current Senate amnesty bill, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.),” Kent said in a statement issued Wednesday.
