Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > June > 21
Thursday, June 21, 2007
State Rep. Mike Jacobs, the new Republican, picks up his first opponent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two days after he switched to the Republican party, state Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Atlanta) has picked up his first announced Democratic opponent.
Keith Gross, who describes himself as a small business owner and real estate agent, announced Thursday afternoon that he was ready to challenge the newly minted Republican incumbent for ownership of House District 80 in north DeKalb County.
Gross, 23, says he’s owned a chocolate company in California, a steakhouse in Washington D.C., and is in the process of starting a sports equipment company in Atlanta devoted to something called kite-boarding. (We’re old and frail. What do we know?)
“Mike Jacobs has lied to us. He’s became a court jester at the Gold Dome, trading his honor in exchange for proximity to power,” Gross said in a press release.
Democratic party spokesman Martin Matheny said Gross had contacted Democratic officials weeks before Jacobs made his switch, to discuss challenging Jacobs in next year’s primary.
But Matheny also said that Gross is “one of a handful” of Democrats who have expressed interest in the race.
Another Democrat higher in the food chain told us that Gross hasn’t been one of the party’s recruiting targets — which were identified to us as a pair of older, more experienced possibilities.
We know not who, but some enterprising soul has established a web site, Democrat for District 80, collecting contact information for anyone willing to volunteer time or money to whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee.
We’ve got to stop doing Neal Boortz’ research for him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late last week, while dissecting the difficulty of gathering votes for the immigration reform bill, U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ticked off the Limbaugh-Hannity-Boortz triangle.
“Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem,” Lott groused.
Apparently, the senator was dissatisfied with the hole he’d dug himself. Too snug. So he kept on shoveling today, making his new home a little wider and deeper, in this article from the Biloxi, Miss., Sun-Herald.
The topic was goats. And immigration reform. We think.
Said Lott:
”If the answer is ‘build a fence’ I’ve got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain’t no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence.”
“Now people are at least as smart as goats,” Lott continued. “Maybe not as agile. Build a fence. We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times they quit trying to jump it.”
“I’m not proposing an electrified goat fence,” Lott added quickly, “I’m just trying, there’s an analogy there.”
And the flak he’s taken from talk radio?
“I keep trying to tell everybody, ‘Calm down, calm down. Let me be the one that offends the left, the middle and the right.’ I’m doing great, aren’t I? But it gives you a level of utopia that is just so blissful.”
Blogwatch: ‘Once upon a time, education was on the Republican hit list.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Libertarian blogger Jason Pye has jumped to the defense of 10th District congressional candidate Paul Broun, who apparently has earned the second berth in a July 17 run-off with Jim Whitehead.
On Wednesday, Whitehead’s people told us that they would chase after Broun for past statements questioning the federal government’s spending on such things as spending and disaster relief.
Says Pye: “Broun is dead on, for the most part.”
“I seem to remember a certain party running on eliminating the Department of Education (among other departments) in 1994 and returning education back to the local level.”
Putting the governor’s visit to Northern Ireland in Gaelic context
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’re ignoring Gov. Sonny Perdue’s historic trade visit to Northern Ireland, the blogger complained.
On Tuesday, the Georgia government and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle became the first senior public officials to meet in joint fashion with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, top leaders of a newly formed, home-rule government that weds Protestant and Catholic.
The fact that the two Irish gentlemen did not shoot each other in front of strangers is apparently considered important in some circles.
“I’m getting fed up with the local media,” the writer snarled today.
But not at us. This was an Irish blogger, upset that the local paper had given more ink two other events.
One was the case of the two missing government laptops, which were later found locked safely in a cupboard.
The other was an article in which Mr. McGuinness, the deputy first minister and a Catholic, encouraged anyone with knowledge about the location of the grave of a British captain — who was shot by the IRA and secretly buried in 1977 — to come forward.
Perspective is everything.
It was too traumatic. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was in Atlanta on Wednesday to address the National Association of Attorneys General.
After his speech, an Associated Press reporter asked him if the firings of eight federal prosecutors had damaged the reputation of the U.S. Justice Department.
“No,” said Ashcroft, who then walked away.
Apparently, there was no chance to ask him what he thought about that trip that Alberto Gonzales, as White House counsel, made to Ashcroft’s hospital bed in 2004.
Gonzales, now his successor as AG, is addressing the group in Buckhead, even as we post.
