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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The accents threw her: A glimpse at how Hillary Clinton intends to court and win the South
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hillary Clinton says she never thought Iowa would look so much like Mississippi.
The occasion is this morning’s piece by David Yepsen, the influential political columnist for the Des Moines Register.
In it, Clinton declares that Iowa will be the “hardest state” she faces — in part because she brought her ground game later than Barack Obama or John Edwards.
But it’s also because she’s a woman. Said Clinton to Yepsen:
“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here,” she said, theorizing it may be the risk-averse nature of a state built around agriculture.
“I think not only do I have to bring people to me, I have to maybe reassure people here maybe more than I do in New Hampshire, which has had a woman governor,” she said.
“I think Iowa poses a special burden, or a special obstacle to me because when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That’s not what I see. That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”
We’re still trying to figure out which state should be offended.
More on ‘the Ox’ and Giuliani. And Fred Thompson.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Almost as soon as we posted the info on state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for president, some of you pointed out — correctly — that Oxendine’s name also appears on a list of Fred Thompson supporters.
So we put in a phone call and caught up with the Ox in Savannah.
He’s only endorsed Giuliani, he told us. But back in May, during the state GOP convention, he did put his name to a petition urging Thompson to run for the Republican nomination.
“I signed a petition encouraging him to run. I wanted to encourage him to run, and I’m glad he’s running,” Oxendine said.
The insurance commissioner said the race needed to hear what Thompson had to say. And after listening to him, Oxendine went with someone else.
We’re recommending a telegenic plague of locusts. But wait — we already have a presidential race.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The basic problem, Gov. Lester Maddox once said during a prison crisis, was that Georgia needed a better class of criminal.
Now, Georgia needs a better crisis.
On Peachpundit.com, SpaceyG, a.k.a. Grayson Daughters, this morning notes that — on his first full day back from an Asian trade trip — Gov. Sonny Perdue found that his water crisis had been trumped by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his California wildfire.
Says the Space Girl:
“Sonny got bumped down to second tier for America’s Best Crisis Governor all over national news last night. We were reduced to a mere [voice-over] on ABC, while over on CBS’s second block, some babbling dope kept yammering about how ‘panicked’ we were here in Georgia, yet failed to display anything remotely resembling this ‘panic’ we’re having…..We are soooooo B-list.”
‘The Ox,’ too, boards the Rudy Giuliani bandwagon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine has become the second statewide GOP official to jump on the Rudy Giuliani presidential bandwagon.
In a release, “the Ox” said Giuliani’s “message of fiscal conservatism and his commitment to protecting American families” resonated with him.
The fact that Oxendine got more votes in 2006 than any other statewide Republican candidate, including Gov. Sonny Perdue, probably resonated just as well with Giuliani.
The second-highest vote-getter of 2006 was state School Superintendent Kathy Cox. She’s also signed with Rudy. And then there is House Speaker Glenn Richardson as well.
Last spring, former state GOP chairman Rusty Paul and well-connected lobbyist Clint Austin caused some throat-clearing when the pair — both of evangelical bent — became the first in the state Capitol crowd to endorse the pro-choice, former New York mayor.
Jumping on board doesn’t seem as risky these days. Much of the Republican base appears to accept the fact that that the usual rules don’t apply.
