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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Isakson and Chambliss: Still in the hunt, just not in the picture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Friday, Ted Kennedy and other senators who had given birth to the bipartisan deal on immigration reform held a press conference in Washington, to serve notice that they would persevere on the issue.
But two Republican senators, who had been in photographers’ frames with Kennedy when the deal was unveiled in mid-May, were missing this time.
They were Georgia’s own Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss.
The duo weren’t about to make the same mistake twice. We’re told that both senators have caught nearly as much flak for their appearance at the original photo op as they did for their substantive roles in the bipartisan negotiations.
Isakson and Chambliss have been operating in tandem throughout the debate. They haven’t withdrawn their support from the effort — which would hard to do immediately, given that President Bush wants a crack at reviving the bill this week.
But since the bill flunked a test vote last Thursday, they have emphasized two points: a) The current version of the bill isn’t “good enough for Georgia,’ and b) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been irresponsible for cutting off debate.
Isakson and Chambliss want two votes in particular. One is an amendment that would remove the executive branch’s ability to block or delay any spending on a border fence mandated by Congress.
To satisfy critics who doubt the will of the federal government on this matter, the amendment would put funding for border security in the same class as entitlement spending — like Medicaid or Medicare.
Both senators also wanted a vote that would require illegal immigrants to return home before receiving “Z” visas that would give them legal status in the United States.
Of the two senators, with his name on the ballot next year, Chambliss is most vulnerable on the immigration issue.
And as long as the bill is in limbo, so is he. Talk radio, cable TV and Internet blogs have vowed to keep up the pressure.
Last week, a web-based organization called grassfire.org included Chambliss and Isakson in a national round of attack TV ads, entitled “Where’s the Fence?” The Georgia version, which appeared in metro Atlanta only, included photos of the two senators, both with buttons reading “Got Amnesty?”
On Friday, Stephen Elliott, president of grassfire.org, promised more TV ads in Georgia. “We’re going to continue to target the senators who have not openly opposed the bill,” he said.
The Georgia effort to change Catholic minds in Iowa and New Hampshire
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If there’s one thing politicians can’t stand, it’s an outside group inserting itself into local affairs.
But occasionally, it’s the other way around. Someone in Georgia decides to stir the pot everywhere else.
On the Fourth of July, 37-year-old Steve Dillard will launch a national web site called CatholicsagainstRudy.com.
Despite his age, the Macon attorney describes himself as “the grandfather of conservative Catholic bloggers,” having operated a now-defunct site known as Southern Appeal until a couple years ago.
Dillard was a chief Internet advocate for William Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general who finally won a seat on the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2005.
Dillard, a convert to Catholicism, was also a vocal critic of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign. That’s why he’s going after Rudy Giuliani, who has had only limited success among Southern evangelicals because of the thrice-married candidate’s support of abortion rights, and his statements in favor of civil unions for gay couples.
“We need to tend to our own house. And we need to hold Republicans to the same standard that we did John Kerry,” Dillard said recently.
Many social conservatives are worried that a Giuliani victory in the Republican race for the White House would be followed by a decline in the party’s emphasis on core issues that have rallied Christian conservatives to the GOP side since the early 1980s.
“[Giuliani]is emblematic of a coming — or already existing — rift in the Republican party,” Dillard said.
The attorney, who currently leans toward Fred Thompson, said CatholicsagainstRudy.com would be fit for family viewing.
“You won’t see the picture of Rudy in drag on my web site. You’re not going to see the video of him kissing Donald Trump. I’m not even getting into the divorce stuff,” Dillard said. “I want it to be on his stated public policy. I don’t want this to be a ‘I hate Rudy’ web site.”
That’s because he admits the distinct possibility that Giuliani could carry the day.
“If he becomes the nominee, the web site will shift gears a little bit,” Dillard said. “I don’t hold out the notion that a faithful Catholic couldn’t vote for Rudy in a general election against someone like Hillary Clinton.”
The real battle is over which high school gets the clubhouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Cobb County school system is again redrawing its high school districts to accomodate new construction. This time much of the action is in the far northwest corner.
School board members are in the rough for dividing a massive golf community in two.
Let’s just say that political discourse in this territory is conducted on a higher plane. Today’s Marietta Daily Journal has an angry resident saying this:
“I just don’t understand how anyone in their right mind can take a community and play holes one through three and be in the Harrison school district, and play holes four through nine and be in the Allatoona school district.”
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