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October 2007
The race is on: Giuliani, Biden on top in Georgia — alphabetically
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ballot for Georgia’s Feb. 5 presidential primary has been formally set.
Both the state chairmen of both Republican and Democratic parties were required to submit lists of their bona fide candidates to Secretary of State Karen Handel by Thursday, Nov. 1.
The pair completed the work a few days early. Here’s a PDF with the formal communication, just to prove that neither side named Stephen Colbert.
Republican chairman Sue Everhart named, in alphabetical order: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and Fred Thompson.
Democratic chairman Jane Kidd named: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis J. Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson.
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Obama up and running in Georgia; Clinton getting organized
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Barack Obama campaign promises a big crowd of supporters at 6:30 p.m. Thursday when it opens its Georgia headquarters. Several state lawmakers threaten to attend.
Obama’s is the first presidential campaign — Democrat or Republican — to set up shop here.
The location is 370 Northside Drive in Atlanta, just down the street from Paschal’s Restaurant, where U.S. Rep. John Lewis endorsed Obama’s chief Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Obama is further along with his ground game in Georgia. But the Clinton campaign is advertising a campaign training session for Georgia volunteers on Saturday, Nov. 10.
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Why water conservation can’t work, and the logic behind that thought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Tuesday, the print version of the Journal-Constitution featured Gov. Sonny Perdue telling the world that a 10 percent cutback in water usage in north Georgia — which he ordered the week before — was largely symbolic.
It would have little effect on whether the region dries up and blows away.
“The facts do indicate the consumption is to some degree inconsequential, ” he said. “What we are trying to encourage is a spirit of good citizenship.”
Given the fact that the governor admitted such conservation was painful — “For some companies, it has been terrible and [meant] a loss of jobs,” he said — we wondered why Perdue was so dismissive of his own order.
Then someone much smarter than us explained it.
Throughout this water crisis, every state official of high standing — not just Perdue, but House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle as well — has been asked whether overdevelopment is part of the problem.
In each case, the official has said no. Metro Atlanta’s unbounded growth has little or no relationship to the availability of water.
But if you admit that conservation has an impact on water use, then it follows that consumption is an issue that’s more than symbolic. And putting a lid on development would be a next step.
So if you want to keep that growth engine churning, you can’t permit yourself to view conservation as anything more than necessary morale boosting.
We’ll let you people argue over whether Perdue is right or wrong. All we’re saying is that there’s a certain consistency in his logic.
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Last session’s hot fight over the budget turns into a cold war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five months after Sonny Perdue vetoed or deferred about $130 million in projects, agencies find themselves still stuck in the middle of a nasty budget feud between the General Assembly and the governor.
A new House committee has begun hauling the top layers of state operations into meetings to ask them what they are doing with the money that the Legislature approved for spending in April — and Perdue later deferred.
The Department of Education and Board of Regents, which have two of the largest budgets in state government, were up Tuesday. Turns out they are pretty much sitting on the disputed money, according to our colleague James Salzer.
Spending it would just make somebody mad.
For those who need a refresher, here’s what happened. The General Assembly passed a mid-year budget that included a $142 million property tax cut. Perdue didn’t like it, so he vetoed the property tax cut.
The House was miffed so it overrode his veto, but the Senate failed to follow suit, so the attempted revolt died. Then the General Assembly passed a $20.2 billion budget for fiscal 2008.
Perdue signed the budget, but in some instances of spending, he told agencies to ignore the wishes of legislators. Legislature leaders went ballistic. So they told agencies they’d better follow the wishes of the Legislature and ignore the governor.
The result: millions of dollars approved by the General Assembly and Perdue isn’t getting spent.
One example: DOE officials said they haven’t yet spent the $1.6 million the General Assembly approved for foreign language programs in elementary schools. Perdue told the DOE to instead send each elementary school $1,200 for library materials.
DOE officials told the House committee Tuesday that the checks aren’t in the mail.
The same goes for about $2 million in Board of Regents projects, from a Washington internship program and an Albany water policy center to funding for a smoking cessation effort.
“Right now we have no plans to spend these funds,” William Bowes, the University System’s vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, told the committee.
That’s fine with House members. House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) has warned agencies that if they go against the General Assembly’s wishes, they will pay for it during the 2008 session. Agencies live and die on what they get appropriated by the governor and Legislature, so they take such threats seriously.
For his part, the committee’s chairman, state Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla), made it clear he understands the fix agencies are in at this point. “You’re in a position where you can’t win on this issue,” he said.
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Tom Bell drops off the Thompson bandwagon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tom Bell, the CEO of Atlanta-based Cousins Properties, has given up his job as top fund-raiser for Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
This according to the Washington Post.
Thompson’s people say Bell’s departure was expected and is not to be confused with the musical chairs game that other members of the campaign staff have played.
“He is going to remain active with the campaign but, we’ve known all along, and he’s been up front with us, that once we got past the testing the waters portion of this adventure that we needed to find a full-time campaign finance chair for the actual campaign,” said Thompson campaign spokeswoman Karen Hanretty.
On his visit to Atlanta earlier this month, Thompson used Bell’s spacious 36th floor suite of offices on Peachtree Street as his field headquarters.
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A Bush lands in the ATL, to talk about education and Saxby
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The more popular Bush family member is coming to town Thursday.
First Lady Laura Bush will be the main attraction at a luncheon hosted by the Communities in Schools program, which calls itself the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization, the White House said Tuesday.
The group is holding their national conference at the Hyatt Regency this week.
The First Lady will also make a quick trip to the Piedmont Driving Club, to serve as the main attraction at a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Because he hasn’t raised enough money yet.
For Mrs. Bush, the speech to educators marks a return to the issues that have been the former librarian and teacher’s top priorities even before she became a resident of the White House: literacy and schools.
The First Lady has expanded her visibility on other issues over the past year. Most recently, she has been bashing Burma in a very public way - including a roundtable meeting at the U.N. - for the leadership’s repressive treatment of citizens.
Thursday’s appearance promises to be more upbeat.
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Blogwatch: And the 69th most influential conservative in America is…..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This would be Erick Erickson of Macon, the founder and CEO of redstate.com, who also operates the more locally oriented peachpundit.com.
No other Georgians have made the conservative list. So far.
The rankings — of American liberals as well as conservatives — are being published by The Telegraph of London. This is something of a tease. The lists have been published in installments. Nos. 1 through 60 are still, apparently, under discussion.
So there’s still hope for Wooten and his blog.
On the liberal side, Jimmy Carter was ranked No. 72. Former Georgian Julian Bond took 83rd place.
Among conservatives, Erickson ranks below Justice Antonin Scalia, radio talker Michael Savage and Louisiana Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal. But ahead of Justice Clarence Thomas, Chuck Norris and Pat Buchanan.
Why Erick?
At just 32, Erickson epitomises the new power of the Internet. A small-government fiscal and social conservative based in the South, he taps into and influences the Republican “base” that the GOP’s 2008 candidates are courting. Only started blogging in 2003.
Oh. So that’s what we’ve been doing wrong.
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Note to Cagle: The helmet is not optional. And the tight pants may look stupid, but they really do help with chafing.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Casey Cagle was running for lieutenant governor, he said he wanted to get deep into economic development.
He’s done that.
The lieutenant governor of Georgia has taken over the leadership of the underpromoted and economically dicey Tour de Georgia cycling race that will once more cross the state this spring.
Cagle is now chairman of the board of the Georgia Partnership of Economic Development, a 501(c) 6 organization developed by the state.
The GPED holds title to the Tour de Georgia, which over the last five years has developed a substantial reputation in the cycling world as the final North American event before the Tour de France.
Which means Cagle, a golfer who only cycles recreationally, will soon be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.
The Tour de Georgia hit a funding snag last year, coming up short in the sponsorship department and the $3 million cost of the race. Cagle is already addressing it.
He’s made Elizabeth Dewberry, who raised money for his ’06 campaign, the executive director of the Tour de Georgia. She does the occasional triathalon.
The next race is scheduled for April 21 to 27. The route, and the cities the cyclists will speed through, will be announced Nov. 14.
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Can they stop Sonny?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opposition to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plans to get a greater share of Lake Lanier water for Georgia is bulking up in Alabama and Florida, the two downstream dependents on that water bent on stopping Sonny.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) issued a statement attacking Georgia’s desire to send less of the water downstream. The Apalachicola River and the state’s huge oyster and fishing industry would be devastated, she said.
Joining her in her denunciation are Florida’s two senators - Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Mel Martinez - and Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.).
Meanwhile, in Alabama - and how often do you get to say something like that? - 15 mayors and other local officials are meeting Tuesday with the Southeast Water Alliance at the state house to open a new front against Perdue.
The group is meeting in the Star Wars Room (we kid you not) to talk about conservation. They’re out to refute Perdue’s claim that while Atlanta was conserving water to prepare for the drought, Alabama was doing “little or nothing.”
So take that, you … you … you … Georgia guy, you!
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Dems’ fightin’ words
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Kenny Be out in Colorado, where Democrats are holding their nominating convention next year, is doing profiles of all the state delegations attending the get together and was kind enough to share this with us.
In the section on how to recognize Georgia delegates at the convention, Kenny Be offers this: “Everyone hates Georgia, and they always have. That’s why ‘Gone with the Wind’ (about the Civil War burning of Atlanta) has been America’s all-time favorite movie.”
Wait, there’s more: “Georgians have all the personality of a high-school security guard. All strangers are suspects, and all rules are made to be enforced — or, better yet, created on the spot.”
And finally: “To find a Georgian at the 2008 Denver Democratic National Convention, just look for the delegates who are demanding arcane new procedures and laughing at those who ask why.”
Oh, Kenny Be, know this: If that convention ever comes back to Atlanta, Kenny Be in trouble.
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Yep, that sounds like Charlie - almost
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. John Linder, a Republican from Duluth, did some reminiscing on the House floor last week while talking about a resolution that would rename the VA center in Augusta after the late Charlie Norwood, the longtime congressman from that town who died earlier this year.
Linder was talking about Norwood’s days in the Army, during which Norwood first proposed that dentists be sent to forward operating bases. Norwood was one of those dentist who went to the front and one day his commander called and asked him to file a report on anything “that’s out of the ordinary” at the front.
Linder: “Charlie said to him, ‘Well, I’ve got a chair here and you can come down here and sit your butt on it and write your own report, I just don’t have time.’ The colonel did come down, and they changed the entire way the Army did dental business because of Charlie’s ideas.”
That certainly sounds like Charlie. But, frankly, we’d rather hear the unrated version of that story. We just know there is one. After all, this was Charlie talking.
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How the mussels must see us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Apparently, the view of Georgia’s elected officials is less flattering downriver.
Georgia officials are showing unusual unity to voters by publicly, and loudly, fighting for a solution to the state’s unprecedented drought. In Alabama and Florida - the two states at war with Georgia over the water in Lake Lanier - the Georgians look more like the snake oil salesmen of yore.
Consider these claims:
Georgia officials said the metro area has less than 90 days of water left. The other states say it’s closer to 260 days, and that’s if it never rains. The 90-day level is the “conservation level” for the reservoir, not the end of the supply.
Georgians said Lake Lanier’s water should go to the people of Atlanta, not to preserve endangered mussels downstream. One Alabaman put it this way: “Sturgeon and mussels are not the only thing downstream.” Turns out there’s a nuclear reactor and whole bunch of jobs.
Georgians claim that a two-decade effort to rewrite the rules for water use have never been completed because Alabama and Florida refuse to cooperate. The others noted that Georgians walked out of a mediation session in September - as they have from numerous other meetings over the past 20 years.
Georgians said they’re willing to work with the two other states. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) once sent invitations to three other senators and both governors from Georgia and Alabama to talk. He never heard back from Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Well, that last one we can explain. The guy was in Asia. For Pete’s sake, give him time to get through all that back mail.
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‘Go Fish Georgia’ was more important than anyone thought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Gov. Sonny Perdue announced his “Go Fish Georgia” program early this year, it wasn’t hard to find a smirking lawmaker in the state Capitol.
But objections centered on the governor’s priorities. The idea itself was politically astute and economically defensible — a $19 million project to further cement the Republican bond with rural and suburban outdoorsmen.
“We will turn Georgia into a fisherman’s paradise, ” Perdue said.
Only last week was the true folly of the enterprise exposed. It is difficult to build an empire of anglers when you don’t control the most necessary ingredient.
Two “Go Fish” tournaments on Lake Lanier were canceled last week due to a lack of water. The first contest, the Governor’s Go Fish Georgia Pro/Am Tournament, was to be held Thursday.
Instead of tooling around in a bass boat, Perdue will spend that day in Washington, in White House-backed negotiations with Florida and Alabama, in yet another attempt to determine who controls how much water flows from Lake Lanier.
With his lawsuit against the U.S. Corps of Engineers — which controls how much liquid is released from behind Buford Dam — and his appeal to President Bush for emergency relief, Perdue was the aggressor in last week’s eruption.
On Friday, the governor — even while singing Kumbaya with U.S. Interior Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne — made it clear he was prepared to continue his role as provocateur. “I also come away willing to call the question during these times of scarcity,” Perdue said.
Even so, it was clear that Republicans in the state Capitol have been caught flat-footed by the implications of this water crisis.
Georgia’s governor insists his state has the moral high ground, that the need for drinking water trumps all — and the only villain in the drama is a bureaucratic Corps that thinks more of mollusks than it does people.
On the shores of West Point Lake last week, a WSB-TV reporter asked Perdue if a lack of planning by metro Atlanta and the state might also be a factor.
“Next question,” Perdue replied. When pressed, the governor gave a terse “No.”
The next day, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson contradicted Perdue, by deed if not by word. They announced a plan to speed construction of reservoirs throughout north Georgia.
Water will now be at the top of the to-do list when the Legislature meets in January. Reality will wreak its own havoc on philosophy. One example: with the need for tens of thousands of acres to store the rains comes the fiery issue of eminent domain.
Republican lawmakers have quickly realized that fishing is more important than even Sonny Perdue thought. But only as a byproduct.
On Friday, Joe Fleming, a lobbyist for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce stalked the halls of the Capitol. Yes, he said, drinking water is a concern. But water is more than the stuff that keeps us from drying up and blowing away.
Water is fuel for businesses, from car washes to car plants. Water is jobs.
Fleming’s canary in the coal mine is the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Cartersville, which requires millions of gallons a day from the Etowah River.
The facility’s 600 employees supply beer to much of the Southeast, filling 220 trucks a day, according to the company web site. But beer doesn’t necessarily have to be made in Georgia.
So when canaries get thirsty, lawmakers pay attention.
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Jackson on Genarlow: ‘We’ve endured the crucifixion, and now we see the stone is rolling away’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got out of the presser with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and several Democratic state legislators — all on the topic of Genarlow Wilson.
Here’s a sound clip with most of Jackson’s comments.
Some highlights:
— “He’s now free,” Jackson said. “He should be freed today without any additional encumbrances.”
— Justice delayed is often justice denied, Jackson said. “But here justice late is justice welcome.
— “In some sense, Genarlow’s case is a wake-up call, a chance for us to reflect and to review, to go forward by hope and not backward by fear,” Jackson said.
But most interesting was the prayer at the end of the press conference, which Jackson led.
“We thank You for his parents, who would not surrender in the face of tyranny,” Jackson said. “Now its morning time, and we feel a sense of joy that it’s morning time. We’ve endured the crucifixion, and now we see the stone is rolling away.”
“In Genarlow Wilson, You say the ground is no place for a champion. And so we rise.”
The decision by state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, who is black, to lead the legal effort to uphold Wilson’s sentence had created a strain in Georgia’s African-American community.
After Jackson prayed, state Sen. Vincent Fort announced that Baker had decided he would not appeal the state Supreme Court’s decision — prompting applause led by Jackson, who thumped on a brace he wore on his right arm.
“There have been difficult times that have bordered on the cusp of divisiveness,” Fort said. “Maybe we can bind the wounds back up.”
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So you’re ready to do some journalism
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier this week, we gave you a first look at the third-quarter campaign finance reports by four candidates for the U.S. Senate.
It was a cursory summary. Much more scrutiny is required. We’ll get around to it, but not immediately. Instead, we’re giving you first crack at it.
While you’re watching the Rockies crush the Boston Red Sox, as you’re obligated to do — given your residence in a National League city — take a gander through the reports filed by Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, and Democrats Dale Cardwell, Vernon Jones and Rand Knight.
This is serious stuff. Chambliss’ report alone is 461 pages.
Let us know if you see any patterns, or anything at all curious. If you choose to post anything, remember this: Facts matter. Stick to them.
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From the state Capitol to a girl in the checkout line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eons ago, Charles “Chuck” Walston was a refugee from Journal-Constitution-style journalism who became a speech-writer for Gov. Roy Barnes.
Something about the pre-speech before the one about the Confederate battle emblem comes to mind.
So, soon afterwards, there was this ugly 2002 election, and Barnes was suddenly out of a job. Walston joined him.
Old-timers will remember that Walston had a part-time band in Atlanta, called The Vidalias. But Washington doesn’t like onions. The layer-by-layer stuff is too complicated.
So Walston now fronts for something called the Bourbon Dynasty. Booze is something comforting and familiar to D.C.
Here is Walston’s latest effort, something called “Girl in the Checkout Line.”
We will slap the video with a PG-13 rating — catchy, with an unassailable moral: Lose an election, and see yourself doomed to ogling young girls who have yet to make the first payment on their college tuition loan.
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Disaster: A bright side?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While drought-weary folks in the Atlanta metro worry that their water will run out before the federal government declares the region a disaster area and funnels in money and other help, farmers out in the country are already getting some relief from Uncle Sam.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared 24 Georgia counties agricultural disaster areas because of the drought, making many of the farmers in those counties eligible for low-interest loans to help them recover, Rep. Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrats who represents many of those counties, said Thursday.
But be warned, city dwellers, rooftop gardens don’t make you eligible for drought relief.
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Jim Marshall, now the one and only
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, once known as a Democrat who voted against increased funding for SCHIP and Georgia’s PeachCare, now has the distinction of being the nation’s only Democratic congressman to vote against the $35 billion expansion of a program that provides health insurance to poor kids.
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), along with Marshall, had voted against an earlier version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. But after Democrats made a few hasty changes to the bill and put it up for a vote Thursday, Taylor voted for it, leaving Marshall standing alone against a bill national Democrats hope to make into a major campaign issue next year.
“This bill is improved from the first one,” Marshall said in a statement after the vote. “It has a greater focus on needy children, but I still have concerns regarding fairness and funding.”
Marshall is against allowing adults and middle-class families to enroll in a program intended to help poor children. He also opposes raising tobacco taxes to pay for the major expansion, as the bill proposes.
Despite the bill’s easy passage in the House - it was approved 265 to 142 Thursday - President Bush said he will again veto the measure. Democrats won no new Republican votes with the modified bill and so still lack the two-thirds majority needed to override another veto. That left Marshall looking forward to the third attempt to reauthorize SCHIP through 2012.
“I hope the next version will be better than this one because I want to expand the program,” Marshall said.
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Chances grow slimmer that Bush will side with Georgia over water
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is as we thought.
A few phone calls made this morning lead us to believe that the entry of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist into the water wars has probably killed any chance that President Bush will give Georgia — and Gov. Sonny Perdue — what he wants.
In other words, an emergency order that gives Georgia control over the water behind Buford Dam.
Early on, Perdue’s push had a chance of succeeding. But with Crist and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley making noises of their own, the White House is coming to realize exactly what it’s stepped in — a complicated 18-year battle over resources.
Heightened by a drought, no doubt. Even so, the Bush Administration is likely to back off and let lawyers sort it out.
Look for the White House to issue something — maybe as quickly as tomorrow. But it’ll be window-dressing, and not what the governor of Georgia has asked for.
Here’s a copy of the Crist letter we posted earlier in the day.
How knotty is the water problem? Riley’s office just put out a press release saying that “Atlanta-Based Southern Company confirms impact on Farley nuclear plant if water flow reduced.”
Read the entire press release on the jump.
OFFICE OF GOVERNOR BOB RILEY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 25, 2007 Atlanta-Based Southern Company Confirms Impact on Farley Nuclear Plant if Water Flow Reduced Governor Riley has warned of consequences for jobs, electricity for region
MONTGOMERY — In a letter sent Wednesday to the governors of Alabama, Florida and Georgia, the chairman and president of the Atlanta-based Southern Company confirms that the current flow of water in the Chattahoochee River is the minimum needed for the Farley Nuclear Plant in Alabama to operate, and that any reduction in flow could impact plant operations.
That’s the same argument Alabama Governor Bob Riley has been making as he tries to stop an effort by Georgia’s political leaders to take control of water releases from Lake Lanier to communities and areas downstream — including the Farley Nuclear Plant in Houston County, Alabama.
Governor Riley is traveling to the Farley Nuclear Plant on Thursday to hold a news conference about the dangers to the plant and surrounding areas if Georgia succeeds in controlling the release of water.
“More than 800,000 households in the region — in Alabama, Georgia and Florida — rely on the Farley Nuclear Plant for their electricity. Any attempt by Georgia to reduce the flow would be damaging to these families. Families, not mussels,” Governor Riley said.
In a letter to President Bush on Monday, Governor Riley said the releases currently being made from Lake Lanier are the minimum necessary to maintain the required flow for cooling water at the nuclear power plant. A lack of adequate cooling water, Governor Riley wrote, “could require a shutdown of the plant, thereby putting the reliability of the electric power grid in the region at risk.”
David M. Ratcliff, the chairman, president and CEO of the Atlanta-based Southern Company, said in his letter to the three governors that the current minimum flow value of 2,000 cubic feet per second allows the Farley Nuclear Plant to “continue uninterrupted, long-term operations,” but that “Operations at flows and levels less than this could impact plant operations.”
The Atlanta-based Southern Company’s public utility subsidiaries own several power plants in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, including three in Georgia, the nuclear plant in Alabama, and a plant in Florida.
“We operate these and other facilities in an economic dispatch regime as a large integrated electric system,” Ratcliff writes. “Changes to our normal operating regime have numerous implications.”
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And the water war keeps those riptides churning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just in time for a football game in Jacksonville to serve as a metaphor, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has lined up against Georgia.
Joining Alabama’s governor, Crist, too, has written a letter to President Bush telling him that Georgia’s request for control of Lake Lanier’s water is silly.
Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama thought the Florida-Alabama alliance — Georgia would call it an axis, we suppose — so important that his press office relayed the news at 2 a.m. this morning.
Here’s a copy of the Crist letter.
Says Crist:
“Reacting to the concerns of an upstream State to suspend environmental laws unilaterally at the expense of a downstream State’s ecology and economy cannot be justified in any circumstance.”
To match Gov. Sonny Perdue’s press conference on the banks of West Point Lake on Wednesday, Riley plans to hold a meeting with reporters today at the Farley Nuclear Plant in Houston County, Ala., “discuss the threat posed to the plant’s operations by Georgia’s attempts to cut water flows.”
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All dressed up and nowhere to speak
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All dressed up and nowhere to speak
Political consultant and former editorialist Phil Kent has just sent out a notice that protesters booed conservative author David Horowitz from a stage during an Emory University lecture sponsored by the university’s College Republican chapter.
Kent says the event was part of something called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.”
Protesters included some dressed in Guantanamo orange. “There was also a sizable group of men and women dressed in traditional Muslim garb as well as students wearing Kafiyehs, a symbol of Arab solidarity,” Kent’s missive said.
Sigh. We never get invited to the best Halloween parties.
Read Kent’s press release on the jump.
EMORY AUDIENCE DENIED FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY AT HOROWITZ LECTURE
College Republicans host Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Program, Disruptive crowd shuts down David Horowitz lecture on campus
ATLANTA (October 24, 2007) - On Wednesday evening, the Emory University Chapter of the College Republicans hosted acclaimed author and activist David Horowitz for a lecture on radical Islam as part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. >From the beginning of Horowitz’s speech, rowdy protesters continually interrupted him and less than half an hour into the event, the crowd became so disruptive that police were called in and Horowitz had to be escorted off stage.
Over 300 people - a cross-section of students, professors, and Atlanta community members - packed into White Hall where the event was held. The audience included a wide range of Leftists from Amnesty International, Veterans for Peace, and Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as Muslim groups such as the Muslim Student Association. In addition, members of “National Project to Defend Dissent & Critical Thinking in Academia,” an organization dedicated to opposing Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events throughout the country, participated in the protests dressed in orange attire as a reference to Guantanamo Bay. There was also a sizable group of men and women dressed in traditional Muslim garb as well as students wearing Kafiyehs, a symbol of Arab solidarity.
“I’ve spoken at Emory University several times and I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Horowitz responding to the crowd as they shouted and jeered. “This is exactly what the fascists did in Germany in the 1930s.” Protesters began their efforts as soon as Horowitz was introduced with boos and chants of “Heil Hitler.” Despite the people who stood with their backs to Horowitz and the shouting of obscenities and other remarks from audience members, Horowitz attempted to deliver his speech that covered academic freedom and radical Islam. The loud chants, sign-waving, and disruptive gestures continued to escalate from audience members until the atmosphere was so chaotic that even the police present were unable to subdue the crowd. Horowitz was led off stage and left the campus under tight security, and the event came to an abrupt end. “This is a poor reflection on Emory, and we are embarrassed by the actions so many in the campus community,” said Emory College Republicans Chairman Ben Clark.” The Emory administration must make it clear that they do not condone the protesters’ behavior, but that they respect Horowitz’s right to speak on campus and will work to ensure that this does not happen again.”
Many in the audience left the event disappointed. “Even the students who did not agree with David Horowitz did not get a chance to speak their minds because of the protesters’ disruptive actions,” said Emory Professor Mark Bauerlein. “No one was able to listen to the lecture or to speak themselves - pro or con - everyone was shut down.”
Over 100 campuses across the country are hosting speeches, film screenings, and other events this week, as part of the Terrorism Awareness Project ( www.terrorismawareness.org ), a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center dedicated to waking up American college students to the threat of militant Islam. Elsewhere in Atlanta, the Georgia Tech College Republicans will host a screening of the film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West on Thursday, October 25th at 6:30 p.m. “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week has been very effective across the country, and even our opposition demonstrates that,” said Horowitz, reflecting on Wednesday’s debacle at Emory. “We’ve already won this debate.”
The Emory College Republicans works to represent the Republican and conservative students on campus. Our group provides members with opportunities for political involvement and works to bring conservative viewpoints to Emory.
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New SCHIP bill, same old reaction
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Details were still sketchy by Wednesday evening, but House Democrats and the White House are talking about a compromise on the bill that would add hundreds of millions of dollars to Georgia’s PeachCare, a health insurance program for poor kids. The House may vote on it Thursday.
The few details that have already been leaked to reporters, however, indicate that the compromise won’t be changing the minds of the 10 Georgia congressmen who voted against the original bill - and then voted to uphold President Bush’s veto of it - this month.
The compromise would still expand SCHIP, or State Children’s Health Insurance Program, by $35 billion over five years and raise the money through an increase in tobacco taxes, Republicans complained.
It’s not clear yet whether Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, one of only two House Democrats to vote against the original SCHIP bill, will change his vote - something the state Democratic Party would love to see him do on the eve of Marshall’s re-election campaign.
Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, has proposed an alternative bill to fund SCHIP through 2012 and he took Wednesday’s news about the compromise as a sign that Democrats have no intention of negotiating the bill with more than a handful of moderate Republicans.
“They’re not working with those of us who are interested in finding a solution, they’re not dealing with our leaders,” Price, a long-time physician, said. “My understanding of the changes they made in the compromise is that they’re nothing but fig leaves. They do nothing to change the structure of the bill.”
The House is expected to approve the compromise if it votes Thursday, just as it did the original version. What Democrats need to see in the vote, however, is whether their new proposal picked up the support of enough Republicans to override Bush’s predictable veto of the bill. The Senate already has those votes.
Some after-the-fact politicking on the water crisis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This water crisis has every politician in Georgia, in particular Gov. Sonny Perdue, wary of sparking a regional backlash.
Over the weekend, Perdue calls for President Bush to hand metro Atlanta the keys to Buford Dam, the better to preserve water for Georgia’s premier economic engine.
But don’t you know that ticks off downstream Georgia.
So what does the governor do? First, late Tuesday he requires upstream Georgia to reduce its water usage by 10 percent. You can’t ask downstream Georgia (and Alabama) to do with less water — unless you ask upstream Georgia to feel the pain first.
Then he schedules a press conference at 2:45 p.m. today on the shores of West Point Lake, in downstream Georgia. We haven’t been clued in on what Perdue will say.
But we’re guessing that the governor wants to assure locals that he knows human beings and human economies live in downstream Georgia — not just federally protected mollusks.
By the by, Harris Blackwood of the Gainesville Times has an article out today noting that one court case arising out of the three-state water dispute is being overseen in Jacksonville, Fla., by a federal judge from Minnesota.
The judge, Paul A. Magnuson, seems to have the appropriate background. Past cases include a lawsuit filed by Jesse Ventura against the World Wrestling Federation.
Hank Johnson says he wants to examine Charles Walker’s conviction
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson is expressing doubts about the prosecution of former state Senate majority leader Charles Walker of Augusta.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, has added Walker to a list of those alleged to have been selectively prosecuted by a Bush-controlled Justice Department.
The most prominent name on the list belongs to former Alabama governor Don Siegelman.
Walker — once the most politically powerful African-American in Georgia — was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of stealing from a charity he set up, bilking his newspaper’s advertisers, forcing Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital into using his personnel services business and misrepresenting ownership in companies doing business with the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
Walker’s son, Champ, called over the weekend to tell us his dad would be placed on the list. It’s all about getting a peek at the personnel file of former U.S. Attorney Rick Thompson of Savannah, who initiated the investigation — but was canned for improperly using his office for partisan purposes. Another federal prosecutor took up the cause.
Johnson, of DeKalb County, is a member of the judiciary committee. He said the Walker case “bears investigation” because of the long litany of charges that Walker faced.
“I wondered about his innocence before I even became a congressman,” Johnson said.
Clinton and Thompson settle into their Georgia leads
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to a new survey by Strategic Vision, a Republican-oriented firm in Atlanta, Hillary Clinton and Fred Thompson are running parallel presidential races in Georgia.
By the numbers, this is a three-day poll of 800 likely Georgia voters, with an overall margin of error of 3 percentage points. But 368 and 328 Democrats were asked their presidential preferences separately, which means the margin of error skyrockets just where it gets most interesting.
So read with caution.
Among Republican candidates, the field remains largely unchanged, according to the SV poll.
Fred Thompson led with 39 percent, followed by: Rudy Giuliani, 20 percent; John McCain, 9 percent; Mike Huckabee, 7 percent; Mitt Romney, 6 percent; Ron Paul, 3 percent; Tom Tancredo, 2 percent; and Duncan Hunter, 1 percent.
Undecided came in a heavy third, with 13 percent.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton widens her summertime lead to 40 percent, followed by Barack Obama with 27 percent. That’s an improvement for Clinton since June, but it’s still tighter than what the New York senator has built nationwide.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll out today shows Clinton leading Obama 48 to 17 percent.
Among the rest of the Democratic field in Georgia, John Edwards was at 11 percent; Bill Richardson, 5 percent; Joe Biden, 3 percent; Chris Dodd, 1 percent; and Dennis Kucinich, 1 percent.
And 12 percent can’t make up their minds.
For politicians, the most frightening aspect of the SV survey could be the whether voters favor a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in the next six months. Forty-three percent said yes. But 43 percent also said no. And 14 were undecided.
Strategic Vision also did individual horse-races in the ’08 race for U.S. Senate. Republican incumbent beats all four Democrats (for the first time including Josh Lanier of Statesboro) by similar margins of roughly 58 percent to 26 percent. You can read the details on the jump.
Poll Results
- Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Sonny Perdue’s overall job performance?
Approve - 57%
Disapprove - 32%
Undecided - 11%
- Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Saxby Chambliss’ overall job performance?
Approve - 52%
Disapprove - 36%
Undecided - 12%
- Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Johnny Isakson’s overall job performance?
Approve - 57%
Disapprove - 33%
Undecided - 10%
- If the election for United States Senate were held today, whom would you vote for Saxby Chambliss, the Republican or Vernon Jones, the Democrat?
Saxby Chambliss - 57%
Vernon Jones - 28%
Undecided - 15%
- If the election for United States Senate were held today, whom would you vote for Saxby Chambliss, the Republican or Dale Cardwell, the Democrat?
Saxby Chambliss - 58%
Dale Cardwell - 26%
Undecided - 16%
- If the election for United States Senate were held today, whom would you vote for Saxby Chambliss, the Republican or Rand Knight, the Democrat?
Saxby Chambliss - 58%
Rand Knight - 25%
Undecided - 17%
- If the election for United States Senate were held today, whom would you vote for Saxby Chambliss, the Republican or Josh Lanier the Democrat?
Saxby Chambliss - 58%
Josh Lanier - 24%
Undecided - 18%
- Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush’s overall job performance?
Approve - 36%
Disapprove - 49%
Undecided - 15%
- Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy?
Approve - 40%
Disapprove - 43%
Undecided - 17%
- Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq?
Approve - 35%
Disapprove - 49%
Undecided - 16%
- Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism?
Approve - 52%
Disapprove - 39%
Undecided - 9%
- Do you favor an immediate withdrawal of the United States military forces from Iraq, within the six months?
Yes - 43%
No - 43%
Undecided - 14%
- Do you view President Bush as a conservative in the mode of Ronald Reagan? (Republicans Only)
Yes - 9%
No - 79%
Undecided - 12%
- Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is performing its job?
Approve - 18%
Disapprove - 71%
Undecided - 11%
- Do you think Georgia is headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?
Right - 51%
Wrong - 35%
Undecided - 14%
- For the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination whom would you support? (Republicans Only)
Fred Thompson - 39%
Rudy Giuliani - 20%
John McCain - 9%
Mike Huckabee - 7%
Mitt Romney - 6%
Ron Paul - 3%
Tom Tancredo - 2%
Duncan Hunter - 1%
Undecided - 13%
- How important is it for the Republican presidential candidate to be a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan, very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important, or undecided? (Republicans Only)
Very Important - 55%
Somewhat Important - 25%
Not Very Important - 6%
Not Important - 10%
Undecided - 4%
- For the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination whom would you support? (Democrats Only)
Hillary Clinton - 40%
Barack Obama - 27%
John Edwards - 11%
Bill Richardson - 5%
Joseph Biden - 3%
Chris Dodd - 1%
Dennis Kucinich - 1%
Undecided - 12%
- When making your selection for a presidential candidate, what are you looking for most in the candidate, charisma, experience, or ideology? (Democrats Only)
Experience - 37%
Ideology - 29%
Charisma - 24%
Undecided - 10%
Strategic Vision, LLC is an Atlanta-headquartered public relations and public affairs agency. Results are based on telephone interviews with 800 likely voters in Georgia, aged 18+, and conducted October 19-21, 2007. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. Additional information on Strategic Vision, LLC may be obtained at www.strategicvision.biz.
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.
Says Gov. Riley of Alabama: We need that extra water for a nuke plant, not mussels.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has asked President Bush to deny a request by Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue for a disaster declaration, saying it would put Alabama people and jobs at risk, according to the Birmingham News.
We just got a copy of Riley’s letter ourselves a few minutes ago. Among the highlights:
— “While Alabama understands that it must bear its fair share of the pain from the drought, Alabama does not believe that it should bear more than it’s fair share.”
— “Georgia, in essence, wants you to suspend all releases out of Lake Lanier beyond those needed for Atlanta-area water supply. That would be a radical step that would ignore the vital downstream interests of Alabama.”
— “Georgia has repeatedly framed its request as a contest between people in the Atlanta area and endangered mussels in Florida. Nothing could be further than the truth….Georgia ignores the fact that the Farely Nuclear Plant sits on the banks of the Chattahoochee River and requires cooling water.”
— Riley also takes issue with Georgia’s estimation that it has 80 or so days before toilets run dry. Actually, the Alabama governor said, it’s more like 260 days — and we’re coming up on the rainy season.
Both governors are Republican, and one’s tempted to wonder which one has more clout with Bush — remember that Perdue is chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
But when it comes to water, there is no Republican and there is no Democrat. There’s only thirsty and not-yet thirsty.
Paul Coverdell as an example for those with questions about Rudy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the effort to win the evangelical vote, the late U.S. senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia has become a posthumous stalking horse for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. Ask Ralph Reed.
We didn’t, but David Kuo did.
Kuo was President Bush’s deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He’s now got a blog on Beliefnet.com.
You can see the entire interview here, but this is the key Q&A:
Kuo: “Do you think an evangelical Christian should have problems voting for Rudy Giuliani given his liberal social policy positions?”
Reed: “Rather than particularize that answer to Rudy Giuliani, let me say as a general proposition that those are prudential judgments based on the individual candidate—-and their opponent.
“In 1992, the pro-family community supported Paul Coverdell, who was pro-choice, for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Until his untimely death in 2000, Paul voted consistently pro-life, helped defeat the Clinton health care plan, and became one of the most respected conservatives in the U.S. Senate.
“There are circumstances when an 80 percent friend is not a 20 percent enemy. We will have to await the outcome of the dialogue between Mayor Giuliani and the faith community and voting in some early primaries to know the answer with regard to this race.
“Religious conservatives should stand on principle but also recognize that a political party is not a church. If they do so, they will be the most effective voting bloc in the nation.”
‘What Atlanta wants, Atlanta gets, and right now, they want our water.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In metro Atlanta, Gov. Sonny Perdue has successfully cast the debate over water as a case of mollusk versus man.
But downstream, people in other parts of Georgia aren’t sure they like being compared to bivalves. They prefer to think of themselves as a giant Slurpee. Metro Atlanta is the straw — and a greedy one at that.
It’s always a disappointment to find out you’re not as beloved as you thought.
These are the key paragraphs from the Sunday editorial in the Valdosta Times:
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s temper tantrums against the Army Corps of Engineers, the state of Florida and anyone else associated with not giving into his demands continued through the weekend, with meetings at Lake Lanier and declaring northern Georgia a disaster area Saturday to further enforce what everyone else has long known — Atlanta is a greedy, poorly designed behomoth of a city incapable of hearing the word “no” and dealing with it.
The wasteful ways of Atlantans continued through the past decade of severe drought in the state. The water restrictions meant little to them “up there” as they had plenty of water at the time, while rural Georgia and farmers were watching their crops burn in their fields, listening as Atlanta politicians who apparently do think their food originates in a grocery store passed policies designed to prevent them from accessing the water literally beneath their feet.
These same politicians can’t bring themselves to tell their greedy constituents complaining about the low flows in their toilets this week that perhaps if they didn’t have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit. That watering your lawn isn’t as important as watering crops. Or that their greedy overbuilding has taxed their supplies of natural resources beyond their capabilities.
However, all of that requires a degree of common sense and we’ve seen precious little of it from any politician in this state this year. So South Georgia, watch out. What Atlanta wants, Atlanta gets, and right now, they want our water. If our legislative delegation wakes up, perhaps they can have the state agree to at least let us keep what falls from the sky, even while they suck our ground, and our pockets, dry.
Notes from the GOP debate in Florida: On Fred Thompson and John McCain’s applause line.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fred Thompson’s trip to Atlanta last week resonated during last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando.
Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript, via the New York Times:
[CARL] CAMERON [of Fox News]: Senator Thompson, earlier this week, you were asked about your lobbying, years ago, for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. And you were quoted as saying, That was private life, as if to dismiss the question.
CAMERON: Can you explain to us what you meant by that and why…
THOMPSON: No, I…
CAMERON: … it would make a difference?
THOMPSON: No, what I said — what I hope I said was that it was my private law practice, as opposed to my public service. I was a member of a firm, of counsel to a large firm. And it was their client. They asked me to do a little work on it. I made a few calls. And that was that.
Frankly, I’d forgotten about it. But they’ve come forward now, because I’m their worst nightmare.
After that happened, I went to the United States Senate and voted consistently against them on every bill that came up. Now they’re trying to defeat me.
Elsewhere in the debate, John McCain again got the largest round of applause. At this point, given his standing in the polls, it’s hard to say whether it matters.
In any case, here’s the AP description:
McCain said Clinton had recently tried to spend $1 million on a Woodstock Museum, commemorating perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.
“Now my friends I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” he said.
“I was tied up at the time,” he deadpanned, and the audience rose to applaud the reference to the five and a half years McCain spent as a prisoner of war during Vietnam.
Barnes: ‘We knew this water crisis was coming’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While former Gov. Roy Barnes was at the Capitol to extoll the virtues of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards this week, he weighed in on the water crisis.
He told our colleague James Salzer that the crisis shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody in state government who was paying attention.
“We knew it was coming. It’s not something like we got up in the morning and said, ‘Well, this is a new problem,’ ” Barnes said. “This is a problem that we’ve known has been coming for years and years and years.”
Barnes, who served from 1999 to 2003, said his plan was to create a North Georgia Water Planning District and build three new reservoirs.
“I’d already issued the bonds for the one out in west Georgia. We were going to build one north of Cherokee [County] and one to the east of [Lake] Lanier,” the former governor added.
“The other thing we were going to do was give grants to cities and counties to fix leaks. The greatest problem that you have is leaks,” he said.
Barnes said there is no reason Georgia can’t continue growing and still have enough water for public consumption.
“Los Angeles added one million people without increasing their water supply,” he said. “And if Los Angeles can do it, I’ll tell you Georgia can.”
Word from inside the state Capitol is that streamlining the permit process for reservoirs will be priority legislation when lawmakers gather in January.
Notes on the governor: From Asia, with tough love
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When last seen on Thursday, Gov. Sonny Perdue was involved in a grip-and-grin photo opportunity with an auto magnate in South Korea.
The same Korean news site picked up on some funereal diplomacy the governor engaged in this summer:
“When Byun Joong-seok, the wife of the late Hyundai founder Chung Joo-young, died in August, Perdue sent flowers to express his condolences and as a token of his gratitude for Hyundai’s project in his state.”
What with his pick winning her job as the new Department of Transportation commissioner, and a muscular fight over mussels and water with the U.S. Corps of Engineers, this has been a good week for Perdue.
The pity is that the governor has been out of town during the dual crises, on a weeklong trade trip. Statements have been generated from PDAs in Tokyo and Seoul, but that hardly satisfies us media jackals.
Somebody has to put his mug on TV, to serve as the face of Georgia’s problems — specifically the draining of Lake Lanier.
And so Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has reluctantly shouldered the burden. In the last few days, Cagle has been taped walking along the shores of Lanier by ABC. He’s been on Fox. CBS has got him in the can.
He just showed up on NBC’s “Today” a few minutes ago. He’ll call into CNN later this morning.
What a hard working fellow that Casey Cagle is.
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Proof of hope for the Hatfields and McCoys
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the more jarring sights at the Fred Thompson rally on Thursday was watching Joel McElhannon and Jared Thomas walk into the place together.
Not quite arm in arm, but almost.
You’ll remember that McElhannon was a chief strategist for Casey Cagle in the Republican race for lieutenant governor in 2006.
Thomas was Ralph Reed’s campaign manager.
McElhannon is now on the Thompson payroll. Thomas said he was working merely as a volunteer — he remains as head of the Georgia chapter of Americans for Prosperity.
Nothing like a new election cycle to heal old wounds. Almost brings tears to the eyes.
Baxter: Nearly half of GOP voters in S.C. say Mormonism troubles them
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Right there in his hand, our former colleague Tom Baxter has a poll that says 45 percent of likely Republican voters in South Carolina say they’re less likely to vote for Mitt Romney next January because of his Mormon faith.
And so, Baxter speculates, it might not have been such a good idea for fundamentalist university chancellor Bob Jones III to broadcast news of Romney’s religion — despite the endorsement that came with it.
Because his newsletter, the Southern Political Report, is now open to all comers, we can link to it — as John Lewis said — without reservation or hesitation. Enjoy.
What Fred said: A transcript of Thursday’s interview
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After the noon event in Kennesaw, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson held a fund-raising luncheon with state lawmakers in downtown Atlanta.
Afterwards, in the 36th floor offices of Tom Bell, CEO of Cousins Properties, Thompson had time for a 10-minute, two-topic interview. The subjects were illegal immigration, and concerns of evangelical voters.
Here’s the transcript that served as a basis for Friday’s AJC story.
The first question was about immigration, and its impact on the South.
Said Thompson:
“Illegal immigration is a problem all over this country. I don’t think it’s limited to just Southern states. People are concerned that the politicians kind of announced one day that there are ‘X’ million people that have come here, and are illegal, and there’s more on the way.
“And there’s basically nothing that we’re doing to stop it.
“We have essentially open borders. I think that came as a surprise to a lot of people, and there’s been a reaction to that. There was a reaction to that bill that they tried to pass. It was a bad bill.
“And so now we’re struggling with securing the border, which has got to be the first thing that we do — securing the border, which is part of enforcing the law, as the first fundamental step we’ve got to take.”
(Read the rest on the jump below.)
Are you talking about a physical wall or electronic surveillance?
“All of the above, plus I think the border patrol has still got to be enhanced. The numbers have been increased somewhat, but it appears that we need more. Whatever it is we need we’re going to have to have.
“It’s not a matter of a lack of technology. We used to say, we can go to the moon but we can’t do this? It’s been a long time since we’ve gone to the moon, and we’re telling the American people that we can’t secure our own borders? Certainly, we can. Obviously, we can.
“Electronic means is a part of that. The wall is a part of that. There’s several hundred miles already on the books, that are supposed to have been built. And we just need to get about doing that.”
And the 12 million or so who are already here?
“If you secure the borders, stop luring people here with sanctuary cities, with in-state tuition treatment for illegal immigrants and other things of that nature, if you’ll help these employers do more to identify illegals, with an E-verify system that will allow them to quickly and electronically do that, with the help of the federal government, you will address the problem by attrition in large measure.
“They set up a false choice — either we get giant busloads of people tomorrow, and round them all up, or we have to grant amnesty. Attrition by enforcement is what makes the most sense.”
Do you favor boosting penalties on employers?
“I don’t know that you have to boost penalties on anyone if they know that the law is going to be enforced. I think the issue now has to do more with enforcement than it has to do with the size of the penalties.
“No one wants to have a penalty levied against them. That’s a stigma and bad for business.”
You’re going to talk to the Values Voter Summit in Washington. You’ve had people question your church-going habits, your faith. James Dobson and such. What do you say to them?
“Everybody has their critics. And everybody has things coming at them from different directions. I’m no different there. I point to my record.
“I am a consistent conservative. Over eight years of service at the national level, dealing with national issues. I have been a consistent tax-cutter, a budget balancer — which we did not long after I got elected. Welfare reform. Strong national defense, and 100 percent voting record with regard to pro-life issues.
“I’m a strong believer that a source of a lot of the problems in this country has to do with the judiciary, and that we need strong federal judges who will apply the constitution and the laws of this country and not make it up as they go along, according to their own personal dictates and desire to change social policy.
“I think that underlies a lot of the difficulties that we have, in regard to social and religious decisions that have been made over the last several years.
“My record is consistent on that. While a lot of people are saying a lot of the same things regarding these issues, certainly some are not.”
Is a discussion of the strength of your beliefs fair game?
“I think it’s fair to discuss. I don’t have any problem with discussing any of that. I’m a person of conviction. I’m a person of faith. I’ve been blessed in many ways. I’m aware of those blessings.
“I have received the worst tragedy that a man can have in his life. [This is a reference to the death of his grown daughter.] I’ve received the greatest blessings. I have been a father at a very young age. I’m now the father of a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old.
“You learn from that what’s important and what’s not. You learn the importance of God in your life, and the need to try to live your life in a way that your loved ones will be proud of.
“If you’re right with the man upstairs, and you’re right with those who love you, and those who you love, then everything else will take care of itself.”
At the airport, someone in the audience asked if you regretted the lobbying work you did for an abortions rights group. Do you?
“No, I don’t. I was practicing law, and this was a client of a big firm. They asked me to help out on a couple matters.
“Now, [the same abortion rights group is] out there trying to defeat me because I went to the United States Senate and voted against them for eight straight years, on everything that came up — whether it be federal funding for abortion, whether it be Mexico City policy, whether it be partial-birth abortion or any of those issues that they may have been interested in.”
“[Supreme Court] Chief Justice John Roberts was asked similar questions about clients of his law firm, and he pointed out that, in our country, don’t confuse the lawyer with the client. And I don’t think most people make that mistake.”
Norwood bill approved unanimously
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The memory of the late Charlie Norwood, a longtime Augusta congressman who died in February after a long fight with an incurable lung affliction and cancer, hasn’t faded on Capitol Hill.
The House on Wednesday approved, on a 414-0 vote, a resolution expressing support for increased research into the causes and potential treatments of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, from which Norwood suffered. It didn’t include any money for that research.
The Senate approved a similar resolution in July.
The legislation, which is named for Norwood, a Republican, was marshaled through the House by Rep. Nathan Deal, a Clermont Republican and longtime friend of Norwood.
“I was pleased the House was able to honor the memory of my good friend Charlie Norwood,” Deal said in a statement. “This represented an important step in the fight against the devastating effects of IPF.”
Norwood had IPF, a gradual hardening of lung tissue, for which there is no known cause or cure. He had a lung transplant in 2004, but suffered several setbacks until his death eight months ago.
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Fred Thompson appears in Cobb, and Mark Taylor greets reporters — on behalf of John Edwards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two presidential candidate doings today, one Republican and one Democrat:
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, in metro Atlanta for a pair of fund-raisers, will be endorsed this morning by Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren and District Attorney Pat Head.
In July, Warren became the first Georgia sheriff to have his deputies trained to determine the immigration status of inmates in the county jail, and to work with U.S. immigration officials to keep some of those without papers locked up.
This afternoon, prominent Georgia Democrats will gather on the steps of the state Capitol to discuss their endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards: Former Gov. Roy Barnes, former Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, state Sens. Vincent Fort and Valencia Seay, and Macon city councilwoman-elect Lauren Benedict.
We don’t know what the specific occasion is — Edwards won’t be there. But we think this may be Taylor’s first formal encounter with the press since his defeat in last year’s race for governor against Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue.
Another Democrat explores the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vietnam vet and business executive Josh Lanier of Statesboro, a former staffer for Herman Talmadge, has announced the formation of an exploratory committee as a prelude to a run for the U.S. Senate.
Lanier put out the press release late Wednesday. He’s promising a “clean campaign,” and so is restricting donations to $100. His campaign web site, with video, can be found here.
We’re a bit pressed for time, and will have to revisit the topic later. In the meantime, click on this copy of his announcement. Enjoy.
Sayeth the Speaker to agency heads: Say hello to my auditors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Never let it be said that House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) picks his targets randomly.
Richardson sold the Legislative Services Committee this morning on the idea of authorizing up to $50,000 for a “forensic audit” of state agencies, according to our colleague, James Salzer.
Richardson wants to use the accounting firm of KPMG to do the audits as part of his three-year plan to transition into so-called “zero-based” budgeting.
The idea is that state agencies, which will collectively spend $20.2 billion in 2008, will have to start from scratch each year and justify every dime the General Assembly allocates. The audits are to give the Legislature an idea of where the money is being spent now.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find,” Richardson said.
But the House speaker did know who the first two targets of the audits would be: the Department of Revenue and the Department of Human Resources. Both are on Richardson’s black list.
Some lawmakers have long disliked Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham, who has been aggressive in going after tax cheats. But Graham really got on their bad side over suggestions that he helped Gov. Sonny Perdue cook the books earlier this year to help justify the governor’s veto of a $142 million tax cut that Richardson championed.
(The state auditor later said there was no evidence that Graham did so.)
DHR ran afoul of Richardson because, the speaker said, the agency didn’t provide him answers to questions he had about some shifts lawmakers approved in the agency’s funding several months ago.
House members in particular are sensitive to agencies not providing budget information. Richardson said Perdue’s office has directed agencies not to cooperate with in-depth investigations of their budgets, and the governor vetoed a bill on the issue this year.
Richardson said he will demand agencies cooperate with the audit process and zero-based budgeting, a concept Senate leaders support as well.
“I haven’t spent a lot of effort asking if there is going to be any cooperation. I am just trying to do my job,” he said. “If they refuse to cooperate … they will have a budget of zero. This is not a request. You are going to have a zero in your budget if you don’t come forward with information.”
Kingston: ‘Would take a serious look’ at U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Move over, Lynn Westmoreland.
The Savannah Morning News is quoting a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston as saying the coastal congressman would “certainly take a serious look’ at running for the U.S. Senate in 2010 if Republican incumbent Johnny Isakson decided to run for governor.
Kingston has passed on a Senate contest before. But spokesman Rob Asbell said that the fact that the Republican congressman’s four kids are nearly grown has changed Kingston’s domestic calculations. Kingston’s youngest is now a junior in high school.
“By 2010, there won’t be any kids in the house,” Asbell said.
Then again, if Kingston thinks he can get shed of his offspring that easily, he might not have the grasp on reality he needs to be a U.S. senator.
Price’s swing at Democrats hits Marshall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, battled with Democrats’ fiercest defender, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, on CBS’ “The Early Show” Wednesday morning over funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP.
And that wasn’t good news for U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, the only Georgia Democrat to vote against the SCHIP bill, much to the ire of many members of his state party.
Emanuel fumed that Price’s vote against a bill that would add $35 billion to the program, known in Georgia as PeachCare, showed he was “isolated from the real concerns that are facing working parents.”
“The Republican governor of Georgia has endorsed what we are doing here,” Emanuel said. “And the reason is because we’re solving a big problem in Georgia.”
Price countered Emanuel’s wielding of Gov. Sonny Predue’s name by tossing out Marshall.
“I know [Emanuel] doesn’t think that his colleague on the Democrats side, Jim Marshall, doesn’t care about kids, and Jim Marshall voted with us on this,” Price said.
Price said later that he wasn’t fanning the flames of Democratic anger with Marshall, one of the most vulnerable incumbent Democrats in the country. He’d just grown tired of what he called Democrats’ hypocritical claims.
“I’m sure he voted in the interest of his district,” Price said of Marshall. But the Democratic portrayal of Republicans as the enemy of poor kids, he said, “ignores there also are Democrats who believe that the posture of the Democratic leadership is wrong.”
Why we’ll need a House appropriations subcommittee on sousaphones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Up in Athens today, House Speaker Glenn Richardson will make a sales pitch to Georgia’s district school superintendents — on his proposal to end property taxes in the state.
It will be a hostile crowd. Spitballs are expected. Already this morning, state School Superintendent Kathy Cox expressed skepticism in an interview with political talk radio host Tim Bryant of WGAU (1340AM).
Here’s the sound clip. And here’s the meat of what she said:
“We’re analyzing that and looking at the impact it could potentially have on revenue for schools, and what it could do in terms of local discretion and programming.
“I think there is some real, legitimate concern that taking away that ability of local folks to raise revenue could really hurt things. Like, for instance, music programs and things that are heavily locally funded. There would really need to be a shift in terms of who pays for things like the band and the chorus and all of that.
“Also, even in elementary school the state only pays for an art, music or P.E. teacher currently. If you have all three at your local elementary school, that’s local dollars….So there’s quite a bit of ramification of taking away the locals’ ability to tax themselves.”
ICYMI: McKinney now registered to vote in California
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is the detailed follow-up to yesterday’s post.
But here’s the key paragraph:
[Cynthia] McKinney, who served five, often provocative terms as a U.S. congresswoman representing voters in DeKalb County and roughly the southeast section of metro Atlanta, has been registered to vote in Marin County, Calif., since May 4, 2007, according to records at the Marin County Registrar of Voters. Marin is a county north of San Francisco.
Not to worry: We’ve got a voter ID law now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This news out of the city of Chickamauga up in north Georgia, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
Officials with Georgia’s secretary of state office confirmed they are looking into a claim that a man was offering money to tenants of Chestnut Hills Trailer Park if they would register and vote on behalf of candidate Steve Tarvin.
Fighting poverty is fabulous, darling!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When we ponder glamour and fashion we can’t help thinking of U.S. Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Linder. We’re sure you do, too.
The two Georgia Republicans are among 90 members of the House and Senate listed as honorary hosts of an event dubbed “Wine, Women & Shoes” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. Wednesday night.
No one told us so, but we suspect it’s all about Gingrey shaving his mustache.
WW&S is comprised of “Washington’s most prominent women,” according to the group’s PR folks, who dubbed the fete “Glam meets a good cause.” WW&S raises money each year to benefit just one advocacy group. This year’s beneficiary is ONE: The campaign to Make Poverty History, which focuses on making clean water and education available to the poor.
And what better way to “make poverty history” then with high-heeled ladies, finger food and Gingrey and Linder dodging the paparazzi?
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A Karl Rove, Max Cleland face-off
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let the following serve as a lesson to organizers of the current snoozers that somehow pass for presidential debates:
First, take a controversial learning institution. Say, Regents University in Virginia, founded by evangelical politician and broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Pick two pairs of debaters. Put former U.S. senator Max Cleland and retired Army general Barry McCaffery on one side. Set up ex-White House guru Karl Rove and former Florida governor Jeb Bush opposite them.
Toss in a question: “Should America bring democracy to the world?”
Then let the feathers fly, leaving the preservation of civilization to a single moderator, PBS journalist Charlie Rose.
This will happen on Oct. 26. Witnesses will be charged $40. Splatter sheets will be provided to occupants of the first three rows.
So far as we know, this will be the first time Rove and Cleland have met. Many supporters of Cleland believe that Rove — during Cleland’s unsuccessful re-election campaign — was behind the TV ad that paired the triple-amputeed, Vietnam veteran with an image of Osama bin Laden.
Rove was asked about it as he exited the White House last month. “We’ve got better things to do than write television ads in Senate campaigns in Georgia,” President Bush’s brain said.
In the last three months, the Republican challenger to Marshall has out-raised him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Federal campaign finance reports filed in the 8th District congressional race could ease pressure on Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall to support an override of President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP expansion bill.
Marshall’s been taking some heat for voting against the measure.
But campaign contribution reports filed at midnight Tuesday show a tightening race for money with Republican Rick Goddard, a former Air Force major general.
Goddard, in fact, outraised Marshall over the last three months. Goddard reports donations of $120,799.55 for a total of $272,780.72. His cash on hand is $226,634.21.
Marshall raised $106,442.86 over the last three months, for a total of $478,440.30 since his 2006 campaign. But the Macon incumbent has a 3-to-1 advantage in cash on hand. Marshall reports a nest egg of $724,176.44, and a debt of only $7,500.
Unlike in the 12th District, occupied by Democrat John Barrow, Republicans have been able to rally largely around a single candidate — with both their support and their checkbooks. Gov. Sonny Perdue attended a fund-raiser for Goddard during the period, but does not personally show up as a donor.
Donors to Goddard include Calder Clay ($500), who twice ran against Marshall; House Majority Leader Jerry Keen ($1,000); U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta ($2,000); donations from PACs run by Heineken and Coors brewing companies; Ralph Reed ($1,000) and the Loose Group ($5,000).
Former Republican congressman Mac Collins, who has indicated his interest in the Republican nomination, shows only $857 in cash on hand. On his form, the $130,000 loan to himself has disappeared.
Another GOP possibility says no to running against Barrow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With a general election just over a year away, state Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Pooler) has decided not to challenge Democratic incumbent John Barrow (D-Savannah) for his congressional seat.
Larry Peterson with the Savannah Morning News has the details.
Barrow has been a steady target for the national Republican party, which has perennially kept him on its list of most vulnerable Democrats.
This year, Carter was viewed as the best GOP bet. The lack of a formidable, well-funded Republican candidate to run against him is an indication of the troubled straits in which the GOP finds itself.
Peterson has this:
[Barrow] reported Monday that he has $944,892 on hand. Local political consultant Dave Simons said Barrow “would have to screw up a lot more than he has” to be politically at-risk.
Simons, who usually works with Republicans, said it’s relatively late for Carter to begin getting himself known in the district. It includes all or part of 22 counties, and Barrow has visited most of them repeatedly.
Savannah Republican Chris Edenfield already has declared his candidacy. Two other Republicans, Wayne Mosley of Vidalia and former Augusta mayor Bob Young, have been mentioned as possible candidates.
McKinney shows up on presidential ballot list — in California
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hank Johnson just might be able to breathe a little easier today.
Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is on the list of recognized candidates for president on the web site of the California secretary of state. She’s listed as a Green Party candidate.
Don’t count on this as the last word. In September, McKinney posted a letter on her web site declaring that she had no interest in the Green Party nomination.
But a report by Atlanta Progressive News — also now posted on her web site — says the elusive McKinney is doing some academic work at Berkley.
The secretary of state’s listing includes no physicial address for McKinney. Just an e-mail address.
A total of seven Green party candidates are listed on the California roll, including Ralph Nader.
Broun loaded with debt, out-raised 5-to-1 by Fleming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, the Athens Republican elected this summer, has been out-raised by more than 5-to-1 in the last three months by his GOP challenger, state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem.
Fleming, who announced for the 10th District seat on Sept. 12, had raised $273,000 as of Sept. 30, according to federal campaign disclosure reports filed Monday.
Broun reports $52,149 raised in the last three months. More important, he’s still carrying a debt of $293,079 from the special election — which he won in a run-off against former state senator Jim Whitehead of Columbia County.
“The people elected me to go to work for them, not to selfishly spend my time raising campaign dollars for the 2008 election,” Broun said in a statement issued late Monday.
Democrat Bobby Saxon of Nicholson, Ga., a former Iraq veteran who also entered the race this summer, reports $32,828 in contributions.
Broun’s election in July was prompted by the death of Republican incumbent Charlie Norwood of Augusta.
The new congressman said by the time he took office in July, his district had been without representation for nearly six months.
Said Broun:
“Focusing on service to the people rather than on campaign finances resulted in a cash-on-hand balance that politicians and media pundits find less than impressive.
“However, I have no regrets for putting people before politics, and people before my own political image.”
In Florida, a GOP property tax initiative hits rough waters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Republican deal to cut $11 billion in property taxes in Florida over four years looks to be in trouble. New numbers are showing the cuts could cost $1.7 billion over those four years — and GOP lawmakers pushing the effort had promised no harm to education spending.
Read the story out of Tallahassee here.
Democratic help is required in that state’s legislature to achieve the required super-majority — as it would be required in Georgia. In Florida, it was fading fast.
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‘Irregularities’ and ‘chaos’ require new election of Fulton County GOP chairman, says report
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A report handed to the state committee of the Georgia GOP recommends that last spring’s re-election of the Fulton County Republican chairman Mike Dvorscak be invalidated.
The entire report can be found here. Copies have been sent to members of the state committee, with the requirement that they cast by Oct. 27 — via e-mail, snail mail or fax — their votes on whether to accept the finding or not.
Remember that Fulton is the only county GOP organization with a $2 million endowment.
This is the gist of the report:
“As a result of …significant irregularities and because of the extreme chaos during balloting, the Committee unanimously concludes that to insure the integrity of the election of the chairman of the Fulton County Republican party, another election be conducted.”
On why we’re at a loss for words
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Next weekend, a special subset of the Republican Governors Association, convened by chairman Sonny Perdue, will gather at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga.
This is part of Perdue’s effort to wrest control of the GOP’s image-reformulation process from national types.
Zell Miller will be there. Newt Gingrich will lead a discussion on health care. The recently unemployed Karl Rove might show up for Sunday lunch.
Four governors from the South and its borders will be there: Perdue of Georgia; Mark Sanford of South Carolina; Charlie Crist of Florida; and Matt Blunt of Missouri.
But alas and alack, we won’t be there. The Georgia press has been barred. The gathering is of no interest to local political reporters, RGA spokesman Chris Schrimpf assured us.
Only a single journalist, from the hallowed and Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, will be admitted, Schrimpf said. And even this reporter will be restricted to the sessions on health care.
No Zell and no Karl for him.
Now, you’d think that this lost opportunity to spend a weekend on the links in east Georgia would upset your working press. We polled the crew here at the Capitol, and it does not. They understand.
A discussion of major national affairs by major national figures requires major national journalists. It can’t be done otherwise.
You see, we don’t just have a water shortage in Georgia. We have a word shortage — and we journalists are on strict rations.
This is why so many articles in this newspaper and other Georgia publications carry the names of two people. Double bylines conserve words — much like showering together saves water.
Now, before you panic, Georgia has a reasonable supply of ordinary, everyday nouns and verbs suitable for describing a bank heist or a pennant race or foot-tapping in a men’s room. As long as we’re careful, there should be plenty to go around.
But Perdue and the RGA understand that what this state lacks are the big, sizable, Sunday-go-to-church words — and the resulting phrases — necessary to discuss important topics such as health care. (Scientists blame soil depletion and the lack of crop rotation. Decades later, we still suffer from the excesses of King Cotton.)
As usual, Newt will bring his well-exercised vocabulary from the suburbs of Washington. Serious words have become so thick around Gingrich’s house that local hunters are set upon them, to thin the ranks. Sonny Perdue has gone to Japan this week, and will come back with cartons of imported dictionaries, just for the occasion.
And that Wall Street Journal reporter? If Delta doesn’t lose them, he’ll bring his supply of big words from New York, checked in three alligator-hide valises with polished brass fittings. He’s promised to drop off any leftovers, as a favor to his less fortunate Georgia cousins.
Buford Dam as the next Fort Sumter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the radio this morning, Neal Boortz is urging Gov. Sonny Perdue to seize control of Lake Lanier from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, to keep the federalists from sending more water downriver.
We think he is speaking tongue-in-cheek.
But if he’s serious, Perdue may not be the right fellow for that particular job — aside from the fact that the governor’s in Japan on a trade mission. Open revolt sounds more like the bailiwick of Ray McBerry, who ran against Perdue in the 2006 Republican primary.
McBerry received 48,498 votes, or 11.6 percent.
In Chattanooga earlier this month, McBerry was a Georgia delegate to the Second North American Secession Convention.
Among the convention’s findings: “The States of the American union are and of right ought to be, free and self-governing.”
Yes, a seccessionist can still get nearly 50,000 votes in Georgia. Which gives some context to the John Lewis post just below.
‘America is readier to elect a white woman than it is a black man’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No doubt you saw the other shoe that dropped after Hillary Clinton left town with John Lewis on Friday.
The next day, the pair went to Alabama, where the Alabama Democratic Conference — an assembly of African-Americans within the party — also endorsed Clinton in the race for the White House.
We’ve had others tell us before that, among black voters, the contest between Clinton and Barack Obama pits an African-American’s optimism against his or her sense of realism.
Joe Reed, the long-time chairman of the ADC, as much as confirmed it.
Here’s his take, as noted by the Birmingham News:
Reed… said he urged the organization to support Clinton over Obama. The ADC was founded in part to champion the election of more blacks to public office.
“We’re hungry for victory, and by we, I mean Democrats, black ones and white ones,” Reed said. “I think Hillary has the best chance at victory.”
Pressed to say why he thought a white woman had a better chance at the White House than a black man, Reed snickered.
“You just said it. She’s white. I think America is readier to elect a white woman than it is a black man.”
That was much the same reason Reed gave in 1988 when ADC endorsed Walter Mondale over the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination.
Reed said that while Alabama and America have come a long way in race relations since that time, it hasn’t come far enough to elect Obama.
On the same topic, the New York Times had a weekend piece datelined from South Carolina, focusing specifically on black women and their role in that state’s presidential primary. It focuses specifically on the thoughts of beautician Clara Vereen:
“I’ve got enough black in me to want somebody black to be our president,” she said in her tiny beauty shop, an extension of her home, after a visit from an Obama organizer. “I would love that, but I want to be real, too.”
Part of being real, said Ms. Vereen, whom everyone calls Miss Clara, is worrying that a black president would not be safe.
“I fear that they just would kill him, that he wouldn’t even have a chance,” she said as she styled a customer’s hair with a curling iron. One way to protect him, she suggested, would be not to vote for him.
Lewis, Scott endorse Hillary Clinton at Paschal’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. John Lewis, the Atlanta Democrat and civil rights icon, today endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as did Rep. David Scott of Atlanta, the last of Georgia’s four African American congressmen to choose between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.
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| John Spink / AJC |
| Rep. John Lewis shows his support for Hillary Clinton on Friday at Paschal’s restaurant on Northside Drive in Atlanta. |
Lewis’s endorsement, in particular, is a coup for Clinton, who made a hastily scheduled first trip to Georgia to accept the endorsements. Clinton’s campaign issued a statement here hailing Lewis’ endorsement.
Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany and Rep. Hank Johnson of DeKalb County previously announced their support for Obama.
Clinton and Obama, who would become the nation’s first African American president, are in a tight struggle for black votes that both candidates believe are critical to their success in the 2008 primary.
For months, Lewis has been ducking reporters who ask him whom he’d back in the race. For Lewis the decision wasn’t an easy one.
Lewis has fought all his life for civil rights and the right of blacks to vote and could have thrown his weight behind the up-and-coming Obama, who has so successfully rallied support - and gathered cash - in metro Atlanta. However, Lewis also has been a friend of both Hillary and former President Bill Clinton for years.
Both candidates - and their respective surrogates - have lobbied Lewis heavily to back them.
“I have looked at all the candidates, and I believe that Hillary Clinton is the best prepared to lead this country at a time when we are in desperate need of strong leadership,” Lewis said in a statement issued prior to Clinton’s arrival. “She will restore a greater sense of community in America, and reclaim our standing in the world.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton suggested to reporters that the endorsement swung to Clinton because of Lewis’ long personal ties to her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
“Barack Obama has great admiration for John Lewis and understands his long relationship with Bill Clinton. He looks forward to his support when Barack Obama is the nominee,” Burton said.
Hillary’s coming to town — tomorrow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds her first public campaign event in Georgia on Friday.
It’s a noon appearance at Paschal’s Restaurant in Atlanta. Given the locale, it’s safe to say that her focus will be on challenging Barack Obama for the African-American vote in the state.
You’ll note that we told you she nearly made a stop through the ATL last Saturday, when both the state NAACP and the Legislative Black Caucus were congregating.
Republican Fred Thompson will be in Atlanta next Thursday.
On why a Mormon is the only GOP alternative to Giuliani
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post has copped a five-page memo written by Mark DeMoss of Duluth, Ga., — a Christian public relations specialist who has become Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s unpaid ambassador to the evangelical GOP base.
It’s addressed to conservative Christian leaders, and addresses the impact of the current splintering. Read the entire memo here.
DeMoss pitches Romney as the only alternative to the Republican nomination of Rudy Giuliani, who would become the party’s first pro-choice nominee since Gerald Ford. DeMoss lists three “growing” concerns. Pay attention to the last one:
Currently, conservatives (whether evangelical or not) are dividing their support among several candidates. In the long run, this only helps Rudy Giuliani, who clearly does not share our values on so many issues.
Talk of a possible third-party candidate draft movement only helps Giuliani (or, worse yet, Clinton), in my view. While I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. James Dobson that not having a pro-life nominee of either major party presents an unacceptable predicament, I would rather work hard to ensure we do nominate a pro-life candidate than to launch an 11th hour, third-party campaign. Mike Huckabee affirmed this concern when he told the Washington Post last week, “I think a third party only helps elect Hillary Clinton.”
Perhaps most troubling to me is the idea I keep hearing that electing someone like Hillary Clinton would “actually be good for the conservative movement,” since it will “galvanize our forces, enable us to build our mailing lists and raise more money…therefore, I’m not going to vote for anyone this time around.” Well, I am not willing to risk negatively changing the Supreme Court, and our entire judicial system, for the next 30 years in exchange for building our conservative mailing lists and operating budgets for the next four or eight years. That, in my opinion, is selfish, short-sighted and dangerous.”
Addressing Romney’s Mormonism, DeMoss recapped previous arguments, but also reminded evangelical leaders that the Rev. Jerry Falwell, whom DeMoss called a “second father,” created the Moral Majority from a coalition of “evangelicals and like-minded Roman Catholics, Jews and, yes, Mormons.”
Clarence Thomas and Fred Thompson: A single degree of separation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Looks like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson will be in town on next Thursday, Oct. 18.
Thomas, on a book tour, will speak to the Atlanta Press Club at noon. Details can be found here.
Thompson visit is still forming, but includes a Powder Springs fund-raiser at the home of Lance Cooper, a Cobb County attorney and former state senate candidate.
The connection? Thomas works with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. And Thompson coached Roberts before his Senate hearing.
Seeking Zell Miller’s advice on a better Republican party
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ties of the Zell Miller clan to Republicans at the state Capitol are becoming ever stronger, if that’s possible.
Murphy Miller, the 52-year-old son of the former Democratic governor and U.S. senator, was on a list of five judicial appointments announced by Gov. Sonny Perdue this week.
Miller is currently the public defender of the Enotah Judicial Circuit, and was named a superior court judge for the same circuit. We’re told that he’s made something of a name for himself in the indigent defense world. (After he clerked for the law firm of Roy Barnes in Marietta.)
Miller’s dad, of course, endorsed Perdue in last year’s election — over his former Senate floor leader, Democrat Mark Taylor.
Later this month, Perdue — as chairman of the Republican Governors Association — will host a small summit of his GOP peers at a Greensboro, Ga., resort, to discuss the direction of the national Republican party.
Zell Miller will address the group.
Exceptional immigrants allowed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said he’s all for locking down the U.S.- Mexico border and keeping illegal immigrants out.
But he took a great deal of heat from Georgians this summer during a vitriolic congressional debate for suggesting that an exception be made for migrant farm workers.
Chambliss, whose been involved in the issue most of his congressional career, argues that without that foreign help harvesting U.S. farmers will have to leave crops to rot in the field. And President Bush this week agreed, issuing new rules - created with Chambliss’ input - that would make it easier for farm workers to come legally into the country on so-called H-2A visas.
So, does achieving his career-long goal mean another backlash for Chambliss on the eve of his reelection campaign?
Chambliss can argue why it shouldn’t. The workers would be doing jobs Americans don’t want and then returning home, he said. There would be no “amnesty” - a path to citizenship - for any of the estimated 2 million workers.
Besides, Chambliss noted, while many Georgians take a hard line on immigration, they benefit more than most Americans from the migrant help. Only one state - North Carolina - employs more H-2A workers than Georgia.
Saxby, SCHIP ‘n’ Dale. All brought together, courtesy of YouTube.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In terms of technology, this is incremental, but still worth noting. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Republican up for re-election next year, has posted on YouTube.com an eight-minute explanation of his vote against the SCHIP bill.
“Georgia taxpayers would be required to fund families in other states with significantly higher incomes,” he said.
Just by coincidence, one of his Democratic opponents, Dale Cardwell, posted his own YouTube comments on the Washington fight last week — shortly after President Bush vetoed the bill to expand the federal/state program for children’s health insurance.
“It was just plain wrong for Saxby Chambliss to vote this year against PeachCare, a program that over a quarter million Georgia kids rely on for their health care. He did it because President Bush and the big insurance companies wanted it that way,” said Cardwell, the former TV journalist.
Carter on CNN: You’ve got to admit, the man knows his audience
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On this afternoon’s “Situation Room” on CNN, the Wolfman asked Jimmy Carter what beefs he had with the Republican presidential candidates.
“Well, they all seem to be outdoing each other in who wanted to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity, things of that kind,” Carter replied.
Blitzer asked Carter which of the GOP crew scared him the most. But the former president demurred. “If I condemn one of them, it might escalate him to the top position in the Republican ranks,” Carter said.
One other thing. The former president said he’s convinced America tortures people.
Obama goes to ground in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama’s people on Wednesday announced the beginning of their professional staff in Georgia - the first of the Democratic presidential campaigns to do so.
The Obama campaign will open a staff headquarters in Atlanta on Nov. 1 - just three months before the Feb. 5 presidential primary in Georgia.
Eureka Gilkey, who has served as deputy political director for the campaign, as Georgia state campaign director. Gilkey will be joined by Trista Allen, who served as Southern field director. Allen will serve as Georgia field director.
That’s all we know about this pair. Drop us a line if you have more info.
Gauging a campaign’s interest in a backfield state is always difficult - no one wants to wants to insult, but no one wants to overpromise, either. Obama’s campaign has always been fairly upfront about the fact that, to them, Georgia serves as an excellent source of manpower for its efforts in South Carolina.
Unless it’s changed in the last five minutes, South Carolina votes on Jan. 29. Georgia’s vote comes a week later, swamped by a bazillion other states.
Four personal candidate appearances in Georgia since February have given the Obama campaign a trove of 50,000 names for its database. Some are small-dollar contributors, some large ones. Just as important are the volunteers.
In a conference call, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said that — on one weekend in September, days after Obama’s last stop through Atlanta — about 400 supporters from Georgia were trucked into South Carolina for door-knocking.
There’s gunsmoke rising out of Oklahoma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This week, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce formally notified the state Senate that it can expect another fight over the bill to permit employees to keep firearms in cars parked on company lots.
Except for the intramural budget battle among Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Richardson, the guns-in-parking lot bill came closest to provoking a fistfight during the past session of the Legislature.
The National Rifle Association has promised to come back with another version of the measure - which the organization has developed into a state-by-state, national campaign. In an e-mail to Republican state senators, chamber spokesman Joe Fleming on Monday promised to again oppose it:
“The NRA has regrettably placed the members of the majority caucus in a trap, asking senators to choose between the principles for which the members stand and - as one senator has said - ‘a solution in search of a problem.
“As amended, the bill would for forbid property owners and employers from establishing policies that prevent the introduction of guns into the workplace.
“The officers of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce met this past week, and strongly re-affirmed their complete, total opposition to the parts of HB 89 that were added to that bill in the Senate Rules Committee.
“I feel it is my duty to inform you of this action before the Republican caucus meets later this week.”
Perhaps more important, a similar measure in Oklahoma was struck down in federal court last week, when a judge determined that employers couldn’t comply with both a law permitting guns in corporate lots, and the federal Occupational Health and Safety Act.. You know - OSHA.
Legal arguments aside, such decisions are often used as opportunities to set troublesome disputes aside, until higher courts cast their eyes over the terrain. You can expect that argument to quickly become part of Georgia’s gun debate.
The Oklahoma decision is nearly 100 pages long. But because of Georgia’s history with similar legislation, we offer the entire decision here for some bedtime reading. For those who don’t suffer from insomnia, we offer this bottom-line assessment from the judge:
“Although it is a close question, the Court cannot conclude the [gun law’s provisions] are wholly arbitrary or irrational methods of promoting safety and deterring crime. It is not this Court’s province to invalidate state law because the Court disagrees with the Legislature’s chosen method of achieving its objectives.
“It is, however, this Court’s province to determine if a state law impermissibly conflicts with federal law. The Court concludes that the [provisions] conflict with and are preempted by the OSH Act, which requires employers to abate hazards in their workplaces that could lead to death or serious bodily harm and which encourages employers to prevent gun-related workplace injuries.
“The [provisions] criminally prohibit an effective method of reducing gun-related workplace injuries and cannot coexist with federal obligations and objectives. The [provisions] are therefore enjoined to the extend they are preempted by the OSH Act.”
Dear Abby: My best friend has taken sides in a bitter feud…..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So Dear Abby — daughter of the original, but still a mainstream connection to millions of women — has come out in favor of gay marriage.
Culture-warwise, this is worth pondering. You have to wonder if somewhere out there, some conservative strategist is muttering, LBJ-like, “That’s it. If I’ve lost Dear Abby, I’ve lost middle America.”
Marshall opponents forming long line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Jim Marshall, a Macon Democrat and one of the most vulnerable incumbent congressmen in the country, has for years successfully warded off all Republican challengers in a district that is nearly half Democrat, half Republican.
But Marshall’s problems continue to build for the 2008 contest as challengers from his own party begin lining up against him. Check his site here.
Macon Mayor Jack Ellis announced last week that he was forming an exploratory committee to determine his chances against Marshall. “We need a real Democrat to represent this district in office,” Ellis said.
Now Robert Nowak, a schoolteacher and Democrat from Macon, has joined the primary race against Marshall. It’s a first-time run for Nowak, 58, who, among other things, cited Marshall’s vote against additional funding for Georgia’s PeachCare as a reason to replace him.
Marshall was the only Georgia Democrat to vote against the PeachCare funding and has been heavily criticized in Georgia for it. Marshall echoed Republican arguments against the bill, saying that, on a national basis, programs like PeachCare were improperly using money intended to help poor children to instead insure adults and kids from middle-class homes. PeachCare does neither.
Should Marshall survive the primary - and right now he’s got the power of incumbency, support from the national party and a conservative track record largely in line with the district - he’ll still face Republican Richard Goddard in next year’s general election.
OK, everyone in the pool
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What’s better than having a Libertarian in a U.S. Senate race? Two Libertarians, that’s what.
Libertarian Jon J. Banks, 36, an information security manager from Powder Springs, has joined an already crowded field against Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the 2008 elections.
Allen Buckley, the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006, joined the race against Chambliss about a week ago. Here.
“Like so many Georgians, I came to realize the damage that was being done to Georgia and our nation at the hands of the Republicans and Democrats, and I decided I had finally had enough,” Banks said. See his site here.
In his campaign announcement, Banks tells voters he’s never been married, but “hopes one day soon to find that special young lady to start a family and share (my) life with.” Paging Dennis Kucinich! He’s also took two years of ballroom dance lessons. “His favorite dances are waltz and foxtrot.” No word on Chambliss’ dance style.
Three Democrats: DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, former TV reporter Dale Cardwell and environmental scientist Rand Knight. A fourth possible contender is Lt. Gen. David Poythress, a former state adjunct general.
For evangelicals, choppy waters lie off the coast of the island of Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday night was proof positive that, while a national punditry may foresee the declining influence of a splintered Religious Right in political affairs, few Republicans in Georgia are willing to test the theory.
The 50-plus tables at a Cobb County dinner for the Georgia Christian Alliance were snapped up by GOP officials at every level, even if a certain number didn’t feel the need to show up in person.
They sent substitutes who were willing, even eager, to escape the afternoon’s Georgia-Tennessee game. Despite the lack of any alcoholic anesthesia.
This was Sadie Fields’ opportunity to show she didn’t need the name of the Christian Coalition to preserve the clout of her group. She severed the relationship with the fading national organization last year, and adopted a new moniker.
To remind elected officials why they respect her — and perhaps fear her, too — Fields thoughtfully included on every seat in the house a brochure scoring the 2007 votes of 236 state lawmakers.
Yet the evening had something of an island mentality, a near-conscious effort to shut out developments occurring oceans away — in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and even nearby South Carolina.
We are three months from the rush of presidential nominating contests that will choose the nominees of both parties. But at this fall’s largest gathering of Republican core voters, the topic hardly merited mention.
Congressmen Tom Price and Lynn Westmoreland rose to speak of awful nature of Democrats in Congress, but gave nary a word to the fight for the White House. The featured speaker, syndicated radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, made jolly fun of Democrat Barack Obama for his lack of a flag lapel pin.
She tapped deepest Republican fears by raising the specter of another eight years of the Clintons. “We’re on the verge of returning the most powerful couple in our lifetime to the White House,” she said.
But Ingraham made no mention of the nine Republican candidates running for president. Instead, she slipped a lament into her speech: “Who is the next Reagan? Where is he?”
Few buttons endorsing this GOP candidate or that were on view. Brian Laurens dipped his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of Mitt Romney stickers — he brought them just in case the occasion should arise. It never did.
Fields said she nixed the idea of allowing the campaigns of GOP presidential candidates to set up tables in the hall of the Galleria convention center. She wanted the focus on the unity of her Georgia group — not the most divisive situation that evangelical voters have faced in their 30 years as a national political force.
Her instincts are sound, said Mike Bryan of DeKalb County, a retired Fulton County government worker. “Everybody is sitting back and holding their cards. Not many people are willing to talk about it,” Bryan said.
Lewis Stafford, a Marietta mortgage banker, was one of many torn between former U.S. senator Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee, the ex-governor of Arkansas. Anybody but the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani, he said.
John McCain is also unacceptable to many evangelicals. Huckabee satisfies the purity test, but his chances of catching on remain slim. Romney poses a theological problem for many Baptists. And Thompson — more on him in a bit.
Early last week, word spread of a threat by James Dobson, influential founder of Colorado-based Focus on the Family — and other evangelical leaders — to support a third party candidate, should Giuliani be the GOP victor.
In the world of evangelical politics, even that was topped Wednesday by a Sean Hannity interview with Thompson, whom many conservative Christians — particularly in the South — have latched onto.
Dobson, you see, is also soured on Thompson, citing sparse church attendance and a lack of support for a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. Last spring, Dobson cast doubt on Thompson’s Christian faith — a statement he quickly retracted.
On Fox News, Thompson said he didn’t feel the need to patch things up. “I don’t particularly care to have a conversation with him. If he wants to call up and apologize again, it’s okay with me,” Thompson said. “But I’m not going to dance to anyone’s tune.”
This was the talk of the island on Saturday. Just not out loud.
In certain areas of the country — Michigan, say — this would be a welcome distraction
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dozens of journalists in Atlanta just missed a full working weekend — only by the hairs of their unshaven chinny-chins.
Turns out the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton was ready to spring a Saturday appearance at this weekend’s meetings of the Legislative Black Caucus and the state NAACP in Atlanta.
But at the last minute, the New York senator’s plane was diverted to Iowa, where she has more pressing business.
This could become one of the more serious side effects of the early presidential schedule — a direct and unholy conflict with Saturday college football.
Richardson: If he can’t be president, he doesn’t want to be a senator
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When meeting with reporters on Friday, the first, most important message from Bill Richardson, the Democratic presidential candidate and governor of New Mexico, was for voters back home: He has no interest in running for the U.S. Senate.
Back home, the whole state is churning over Republican incumbent Pete Domenici’s announcement this week that he’ll be retiring next year — having been diagnosed with an incurable brain disease.
It’s yet another U.S. Senate seat that Republicans will have to fight hard to keep.
In Atlanta to speak to the Legislative Black Caucus and union leaders, Richardson said he had no interest in the Senate — even if he’s eventually forced out of the presidential contest.
“I’m a governor. Being a governor is better than being a senator,” Richardson said.
Richardson has moved up to fourth among Democratic contenders in Iowa, and reported raising $5.2 million in the last quarter — a number dwarfed by Hillary Clinton’s haul of $27 million, but enough to keep in the game for now.
That’s according to Sam Zamarripa, the former state senator from Atlanta, who’s co-chairman of Richardson’s Georgia campaign. Former U.S. Rep. Buddy Darden of Marietta is the other.
On the influence leaking away from the Religious Right
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Matt Towery’s InsiderAdvantage has produced a poll of five-states — ones that vote in early presidential primaries or caucuses — that he says charts the declining influence of conservative Christians in the Republican party.
Read the entire piece here. You’ll note that Towery has been opening more and more of his subscription operations to general viewing.
Says Towery:
Here are the percentages, by state, of those Republicans who said that their own political philosophy was “primarily religious based conservative”: Florida, 28 percent; South Carolina, 38 percent; Michigan, 27 percent; New Hampshire, 17 percent; Iowa; 35 percent.
Now, perhaps 35 and 38 percent are shrinking numbers, and perhaps they’re not. In this case, the better gauge of declining influence may be that threat from evangelical leaders — James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council — to back a third-party candidate if a pro-choicer like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.
That’s a statement born of frustration, not strength.
Towery didn’t poll Georgia on its political-religious nature. But you can measure the clout of the Religious Right yourself this weekend, if you’re willing to pay $65. The Georgia Christian Alliance, headed by Sadie Fields, has its annual fund-raiser at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Cobb Galleria convention center.
The speaker is syndicated radio talker Laura Ingraham.
This will be the first gathering of Fields’ group under its new moniker. She severed relations with the national Christian Coalition last year.
The Gingrich decision: There’s still meat to be picked off these bones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This afternoon, political consultant Phil Kent sent an e-mail to us — and the Wall Street Journal, National Review and Fox News — offering up an attorney in Washington to help explain the nuances of Newt Gingrich’s decision to give up his exploration of a White House bid.
In other words, the story is still galloping along — five days later. Not a good sign.
Lawyers are now joining the discussion. Here’s part of a posting from the Campaign Legal Center web site:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has now announced that he has abandoned a possible run for White House. What caused the former Speaker to take this reality check? That his poll numbers are hopelessly negative? That he is a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ into an already crowded political field? That much of the big money has been tapped by other Republican hopefuls?
All of these are likely reasons, of course, but not the one that old Newt conjures up. Instead, he lays blame for his demise on [McCain-Feingold]. The charge is ludicrous on its face.
At another site, Election Law, Stefan Passantino, Gingrich’s general counsel and head of the McKenna, Long, Aldridge political law group — he’s the one pitched by Kent — says this:
No election lawyer I know of would permit a candidate for federal office to in any way raise money for, assist, lead or even, goodness forbid, coordinate with an enterprise like American Solutions. It’s a mutually exclusive option — one can raise money as a federal candidate or one can raise issues in the public square — but never both.
For your Cynthia McKinney files
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve been neglectful in not passing along this Sept. 27 audit by the Federal Election Commission of two years’ worth of campaign disclosures filed by then-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
In 2005 and 2006 — the election cycle preceding her defeat — McKinney’s finance committee “accepted 14 contributions from individuals and political committees that exceeded the [$2,100 per individual federal] limit by $21,300,” the audit said.
The congresswoman from DeKalb County was able to explain away or redirect all but $9,700 of that cash, auditors said.
Fines are possible. “The commission may initiate an enforcement action, at a later time, with respect to any of the matters discussed in this report,” the paperwork says.
Chambliss lays claim to another million; Cardwell says it ain’t mirrors, but there’s plenty of smoke
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss this afternoon announced that he’s collected $1 million more in the last few months for his re-election campaign. That gives him $3.9 million in the bank. He wants to hit $5 million by New Years Day.
Other details will have to wait until the Republican incumbent files a proper campaign disclosure form on Oct. 15.
We have yet to hear from the three Democrats in the race, whose accountants are sure to be under much less pressure.
However, Dale Cardwell, the former TV journalist, wants to make sure that Chambliss pays as high a price for his cash as possible.
Republicans from Georgia, in both the U.S. House and the Senate, have defended their votes against the Bush-vetoed SCHIP legislation as opposition to “socialized medicine.”
In a press conference at the state Capitol, Cardwell on Thursday sought to redefine the redefinition. The Democrat accused Chambliss of being in the pocket of Big Tobacco. And Big Health Insurance — if there is such a thing.
Since 1993, when Chambliss was a mere House member, he’s accepted $145,000 from tobacco interests, Cardwell said.
“When he ran against [U.S. Sen.] Max Cleland in 2002, he was big tobacco’s favorite member of the House, collecting more money from tobacco than any other member,” Cardwell said. “Why’s that important? The health care bill that would have provided basic preventative health care for Georgia’s kids would have been partially funded by a tax on tobacco products.”
(The above quote is from his prepared remarks. We weren’t there to actually hear Cardwell deliver them.)
Cardwell also counted up $123,000 that Chambliss has collected — roughly over the same period — from health insurance companies.
“We don’t know how much special interest money Saxby will collect before this election is through, but we do know Washington lobbyists love him,” the Democrat said.
A spokesman for Chambliss said the senator would have no response.
Bill Richardson hits the ATL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, hits Atlanta Friday in search of Latino voters.
Richardson will address the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus’ annual labor luncheon at CNN Center about “Mi Familia con Richardson,” a campaign outreach program intended to generate votes and cash from the Latino community nationwide.
The program, which is opening Georgia chapters, is backed by Sam Zamarripa, an Atlanta Democrat who in 2002 became the first Hispanic elected to the state Senate; and Virgilio Perez Pascoe, state Democrats’ vice chairman for constituency groups and a fellow at Kennesaw State University in northwest Georgia.
Richardson will trumpet the program again at Georgia Tech’s Student Center around 4 p.m. before heading to The Varsity restaurant on North Avenue to meet with supporters.
There’s been an 11th hour addition to Richardson’s schedule that will make him available to rank-and-file Democrats. Mike Berlon, who heads a group of Democratic county chairmen, said Richardson agreed to make himself available between 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ auditorium at 501 Pulliam St.
Blogwatch: In Georgia, Dem web sites put the screws to Jim Marshall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you watched PBS last night, you saw U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the alleged mastermind behind the SCHIP fight, say this about the override vote:
“I already know about three or four votes that are going to switch on both sides of the aisle. And so I think the intensity and the pressure — because people know that it’s wrong to ask for $190 billion increase for the war in Iraq and yet deny 10 million children health care and call it excessive spending.”
So the question becomes, which of the eight Democrats who voted against SCHIP is Emanuel talking about?
This morning, three of Georgia’s top Democratic blogs want U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon to be one of them.
Georgia Women Vote, Blog for Democracy and Tondee’s Tavern are all carrying items with contact numbers for Marshall’s office.
We’ve got a call into Marshall’s office ourselves.
But don’t count on the Macon guy to be one of the switchers — though that could be subject to change, if Democrats get enough Republican switchers to make it close.
Here’s the Sept. 25 roll call vote.. You’ll see that the most likely Democrat to be pressured is Dennis Kucinich, the presidential candidate. Kucinich voted against the expansion because he thought it too small, not too large.
Jimmy Carter: I’ll tell President Bashir about this
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former President Jimmy Carter seems to be having problems with people all over the place. First it was a feud with the Bush administration over the 2000 election results. Then with the entire Middle East because of a book he wrote that offended Israel.
And now the Associated Press is reporting from Sudan Wednesday night that Carter had a run-in with security officials who blocked him from entering a town in Darfur where he was going to meet with African refugees.
Carter went to Kabkabiya, which the AP described as a “highly volatile pro-Sudanese government” burg. But the tribal leaders, many of whom were forced out of their homes by pro-government forces, were too frightened to see him. The former president met with just one representative then started walking into the town to find the others.
That’s when the camel fur hit the fan.
Here’s how AP put it:
“You can’t go. It’s not on the program!” the local national security chief, who only gave his first name as Omar, yelled at Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as “The Elders.”
“We’re going to anyway!” an angry Carter retorted, telling security officers they didn’t have the authority to stop him.
As a growing crowd gathered around the former president, Carter’s U.S. security detail and his African Union escort tried to ease tensions. Carter later agreed to a compromise by which tribal representatives would be brought to him at another location later Wednesday.
“I’ll tell President Bashir about this,” Carter said, referring to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Hmmmm. That didn’t sound pleasant.
The Elders, led by Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, were in Darfur to talk about ensuring the fairness of upcoming elections. Oh, and to press for one other thing in the ravaged region: Peace.
Vernon Jones on ice: He meant he was tightening his belt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Neither newspapers nor talk radio like to admit it, but the pair are often highly dependent upon each other.
No doubt you saw the AJC story of today that described the mountain of ice that officials at Stone Mountain Park were attempting to build — with more than a million gallons of DeKalb County water during a historic drought.
The article hit the streets Wednesday morning. Neal Boortz, the talk show guru on WSB (750AM), immediately made it part of his wake-up diatribe. Let’s interrupt the flow of this tale right now, to confess that this newspaper and that radio station are both Cox properties.
Anyway, early in the 9 a.m. hour, DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones — who happens to be running for the U.S. Senate — placed a call to Boortz’ program.
“We will find out today if they are getting county water, or they are getting well water, and how they got it, how many gallons of water they’re using a day. We’re going to find out in detail,” Jones said. ”I can tell you on the surface it doesn’t make sense.”
Within the hour, the concept of an ice mountain was a-melting away like sherbet on a hot sidewalk.
Jones displayed good instincts by quickly shutting down a potential embarrassment. But that was slightly offset by the bizarre opening of the Boortz-Jones interview.
The host offered the DeKalb CEO a greeting, and asked him why he was already chuckling.
“I’ve just been keeping my pants on. I’ve just been keeping my pants on,” Jones said.
“Well, that’s — good for you,” a flustered Boortz replied.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re in for a strange election year in 2008.
Now, the good gentleman from DeKalb County often accuses this institution of being factually challenged. So click here to listen to a significant chunk of the interview.
Blogwatch: Another Democratic name in the U.S. Senate race?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
James Williams, a.k.a. Griftdrift, one of Atlanta’s top political bloggers, has come up with another possible Democratic contender in the contest to unseat Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
His name is Josh Lanier, 55, a native of Statesboro.
“A Vietnam veteran, Lanier worked on the personal staff of Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, assisting the front line aides on the hottest issues of the day — including Watergate and Vietnam. He returned to his native state one year ago, and his name keeps popping up in interesting places,” Williams writes.
“Democratic Party of Georgia officials confirm that Lanier contacted the Atlanta headquarters expressing an interest in the contest but would comment no further, stating it was one of many calls speculating on candidates.”
SCHIP and the tobacco tax: How real life is better than the movie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Tuesday, before President Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill, his spokeswoman said this about the Democratic plan to finance the expansion of the children’s health insurance program with an increase in the cigarette tax:
“In a time when [Democrats] think that they want to increase funding for children’s health care, they’re actually wanting to pay for it with a cigarette tax, which includes — people who smoke are usually — the majority are in the low-income bracket. And so they’re raising taxes on something to pay for a middle-class entitlement.”
Little in Washington is spontaneous. As proof, let us remind you of a pair of Georgia polls that the Phillip Morris Legislative Action Center put out in July. The surveys were conducted in the 8th Congressional District, represented by Democrat Jim Marshall, and the 12th District, represented by Democrat John Barrow.
(Marshall voted against the SCHIP expansion. Barrow voted for it.)
The main purpose of the surveys — a total of 11 districts were polled nationwide — was to test arguments for opposition to the SCHIP plan. Real-life “Thank You for Smoking” stuff.
Just one example:
“The U.S. Congress, in Washington, is considering raising the federal government’s tax on a pack of cigarettes by 156 percent to $1 per pack. That would be an increase of 61 cents per pack over the current rate of 39 cents per pack to help pay for expansions of a federal program. Would you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose this tax?”
In Barrow’s district, 53 percent said they would support it.
Here’s another question from the survey:
“The money raised from this increase in the federal cigarette tax is supposed to pay for an expansion in a national health care program that provides health care to uninsured children whose families qualify based on their income level. First of all, do you believe that IF Congress raises the federal cigarette tax up to one dollar per pack that this money will actually be spent as promised to provide health care to uninsured children?”
In Barrow’s district, 72 percent said no. Which was the answer the question demanded.
Click on either of the two links above to read the entire poll. It’s fascinating.
Lost: One governor with GOP markings. Answers to the name of Sonny.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just finished an odd swap of e-mails with Heather Teilhet, the spokeswoman for Gov. Sonny Perdue.
We were checking out a rumor that the governor had quietly slipped overseas. There’s good hunting in Argentina, so we’re told. Teilhet says Perdue, in fact, is “on personal leave” and will be back tomorrow.
But she didn’t know where the governor was. Didn’t ask him as he walked out the door.
It is difficult to misplace something that big. Governors are usually bulky, hard to overlook, and often loud. Some people have said that, during legislative sessions, they can occasionally be mistaken for furniture. But that is an exaggeration, we think.
In any case, this is a prime example why we need an Amber Alert for chief executives. Whether you’re in Georgia or in a foreign land, if you see a governor wandering around today without a state, please secure him — a plate of barbecue will often hold such creatures in place — and call the state Capitol.
No doubt they’re worried.
Keep moving, people. No SCHIP news here. Nothing to look at.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To the surprise of no one, President Bush on Wednesday morning vetoed congressional Democrats’ plans to add $35 billion to a program — known in Georgia as PeachCare — designed to provide health insurance to the children of the working poor.
Bush killed the measure without fanfare, inside a closed room with no media in attendance. Bush wanted to add only $5 billion to the program over the next five years.
The president had repeatedly vowed over the past few months to veto the Democratic funding bill for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. But Democrats rammed the measure through Congress any way, hoping to score political points in next year’s election against Republicans who opposed the measure.
Democrats say the expanded funding would help provide insurance to millions of children from low-income families who make too much to enroll in Medicaid and too little to afford private insurance.
Bush and congressional Republicans who backed him — including all Georgia Republicans — say the expansion is a first step toward socialized medicine and would prompt people to drop private insurance they already have to enroll in the government program. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, a Macon Democrat, also voted against it.
Democrats have enough Republican votes in the Senate to override Bush’s veto, but not in the House. Democratic leaders said they’ll delay taking an override vote, possibly for weeks, hoping enough House Republicans feel pressured by constituents and governors to vote for the expansion of a widely popular, largely successful program.
Johnny will come marchin’ home?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Southern Political Report is reporting here that Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Marietta Republican, will run for governor rather than another U.S. Senate term in 2010.
Isakson enflamed speculation about his plans on Monday, when he announced that his chief of staff, Heath Garrett, was leaving to begin work on Isakson’s campaign — omitting the tiny bit about what office Isakson will seek.
The political web site pushes the story along a tad.
It quotes “a source extremely close to Isakson” as saying, “Basically, the entire leadership of state government and business has been bombarding Johnny to come home to Georgia and take the reins of state government. Johnny will continue to say that the gubernatorial race is not on his immediate radar screen, but Garrett would not be moving to Georgia three years out were it not for the fact that we’ve basically drafted Johnny and he can hardly say no.”
Small correction to the above quote — as chief of staff, Garrett has always worked out of the Isakson office off I-75 in Vinings. But the larger point remains.
Three years out, let the tea-leaf readings begin.
Required reading: Business class is drifting away from the GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Wall Street Journal has a must-read piece on the declining enthusiasm among fiscal conservatives for the national Republican party.
The gist:
New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party’s identity — what strategists call its “brand.” The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond….
Some well-known business leaders have openly changed allegiances. Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack, formerly a big Bush backer, now supports Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. John Canning Jr., chairman and chief executive of Madison Dearborn Partners, a large private-equity firm, now donates to Democrats after a lifetime as a Republican. Recently, he told one Democratic Party leader: “The Republican Party left me” — a twist on a line Ronald Reagan and his followers used when they abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago to protest its ’60s and ’70s-era liberalism.
…Polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.”
Iraqis blame, but Westmoreland hugs, Blackwater
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blackwater USA, the largest private security contractor in Iraq accused by the Iraqi government of killing 11 Iraqis and wounding a dozen others in a questionable firefight in early September, has found a Capitol Hill friend in Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Grantville Republican.
Before a Democrat-run House committee opened a hearing into the charges Tuesday with an interrogation of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, Westmoreland and six other Republicans on the House Oversight Committee asked that it be postponed.
That didn’t work. So Westmoreland used his allotted time with Prince to praise the company, which has Republican ties, and slap Democrats upside the head with a two-by-four.
Westmoreland told Prince that Democrats were going after Blackwater because their party “does not like companies who show a profit.” The investigation of Blackwater, he said, is a step toward Democrats’ “ultimate goal of redistribution of wealth or other successes for the takers of this world.”
The hearing, he said, was intended to “to bias lawsuits (against Blackwater) that their crony lawyer friends may be handling.”
Just to make sure he was clear, Westmoreland told Prince, “I think you do a very good job.”
A tribute to Charlie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Senate on Tuesday voted to rename the Augusta VA facility after the late Charlie Norwood, a seven-term congressman who represented the area until his death earlier this year.
Georgia’s two Republican senators - Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson - proposed the name change to the “Charlie Norwood Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.”
Norwood, a Republican, died in February after a lengthy fight with an incurable lung disease and cancer.
“It is only fitting that we dedicate the Augusta VA Center to a man who was so diligent in his efforts to ensure that the treatment and services we give our veterans are equal to the sacrifice they have made for our country,” Isakson said.
Added Chambliss: “Even as he faced personal adversity, Charlie worked tirelessly on behalf of our country’s veterans.”
The Speaker loses a lawyer, and gains a lobbyist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s never too early to talk about the next session of the Georgia Legislature, or the clout that’s being built to push this or that through.
Sam Choate, lawyer to House Speaker Glenn Richardson, has joined the lobbying firm of ConnectSouth Public Affairs.
The principals are Tony Simon and Clint Austin, who were put in charge of House Republican races in 2006.
They were up to their necks last year in the private cities legislation, and counted the Georgia Hospital Association among their clients.
Wait ‘til Ken Burns does the documentary on this
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston is joining the Limbaugh War.
Think of it as the flipside to the MoveOn.org War of last month.
The Savannah Republican is about to drop a resolution that would commend “broadcaster Rush Limbaugh for his relentless efforts to build and maintain troop morale through worldwide radio broadcasts and personal visits to conflict regions.”
Kingston’s action is a House Republican response to the brouhaha in the U.S. Senate between Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Limbaugh. On Monday, the senator took exception to remarks the broadcaster made on his syndicated show, condemning “phony soldiers” who criticize Iraq policy.
“During his show last Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh was engaged in one of his typical rants. This rant was unremarkable and indistinguishable from his usual drivel, which has been steadily losing listeners for years, until he crossed [the] line by calling our men and women in uniform who oppose the war in Iraq ‘phony soldiers.’ This comment was so beyond the pale of decency that it cannot be left alone,” Reid said.
“Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in civil war. Yet he thinks that his opinion on the war is worth more than those who are on the front lines,” the Nevada senator said.
Limbaugh says his “phony soldiers” comment was aimed at a specific fellow who claimed to be an Army Ranger in Iraq, but was revealed as a fraud.
Old news of some significance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of our more alert Catholic readers has properly berated us for missing the real story from last week’s Red Mass, a Catholic service for judicial types of all partisan stripes.
After the ceremony, the independent St. Thomas More Society, a collection of Catholic lawyers, held a luncheon. Former governor Roy Barnes — who attends a Methodist church, though raised Southern Baptist — was one of the honorees, specifically for removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Georgia state flag. As you might remember, it was an act that went down quite well with African-Americans in Georgia.
But Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory — who by happenstance is black — declared, quite loudly, that he would not attend the luncheon because of Barnes’ stand on abortion.
“While I recognize and applaud Governor Barnes’ efforts surrounding the controversy of the Georgia State flag, his support of abortion is contrary to the Church’s teaching. The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the very foundation of a moral vision for society,” said the archbishop’s written statement, published in the Georgia Bulletin.
All things Newtish, only a click away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
— Click here for the day’s news story, in which Gingrich attorney Randy Evans says it was the message of change advanced by American Solutions — which would have been duplicated by Gingrich the presidential candidate — that forced the plug to be pulled.
— Click here for the Matt Towery webcast that blisters Gingrich. Sometimes you can’t be a friend unless you speak plainly.
— Click here to read today’s editorial in the Marietta Daily Journal. “Gingrich’s change of heart is another blow to his credibility, which was already shaky,” it says.
— And go to the jump to read the entire bulletin that Gingrich sent to his followers last night, explaining his reasoning and condemning the McCain-Feingold restrictions that he says forced his hand.
Winning the Future Newsletter
Human Events
October 1, 2007
Why I Decided Not to Run For President
Newt Gingrich
Last Saturday, my family and I faced a big decision about how we can best serve America.
Before the opening of Solutions Day on Thursday, the success of Solutions Day and the American Solutions movement to create real change with real solutions was unknowable. But by Saturday morning the verdict on the American people’s desire to actively participate in creating the next generation of solutions to the daunting challenges America faces was in.
American Solutions had resonated with and had captured the imagination of the American public and it became clear on Saturday that American Solutions would be an active and successful voice in the American dialogue going forward.
That left us with a choice on how best to serve: Move forward with assessing a Gingrich candidacy for President of the United States with its uncertain outcome; or remain the citizen leader of American Solutions for Winning the Future which has now proven to be an organization that will play a major role in shaping the 2008 election debate and beyond by offering solutions and one that represents millions of Americans who want real change.
Some have asked why couldn’t I have explored the possibility of running and remain the Chairman of American Solutions.
The fact is, because of the current, misguided and destructive campaign finance laws, as well as the willingness of some to make misguided allegations without knowing all the facts, if I had decided to explore being a candidate, it would have become necessary to sever my relationship with American Solutions to protect it from false allegations of being used as a devise to promote the feasibility of my candidacy, which is not permissible under the law.
Moreover, under those same destructive campaign finance laws, I would have had to absolutely sever all ties with American Solutions to guard against allegations that I was “coordinating” with the group I had help found. This would have left American Solutions which is less than a year old, without a leader and therefore extremely vulnerable to failure.
As of Saturday, thousands of people from all across the nation came together to make Solutions Day the incredible success that it was. That would not have happened without the untold number of volunteer hours spent, the talent of the board, the millions of dollars donors invested, and the incredible professionalism of the American Solutions staff led by Dave Ryan and Pat Saks.
I was not willing to sacrifice American Solutions and its future potential to change American for the better for what would have been an uncertain run to be president. I have said all along that the agent of change was not the presidency but the more than 513,000 elected officials and millions of citizen activists.
I still believe that change will not come from Washington but from the American people and we proved it over the weekend. Let me just share with you what would have been sacrificed if I had abandoned leadership of the American Solutions movement.
The Inaugural Solutions Day begins a National Movement to Win the Future Last week, almost 200,000 Americans visited our website, AmericanSolutions.com, to learn about the inaugural Solutions Day which had over 35 workshops from six different locations in different parts of the country and over 2,000 gathering sites around the nation and that did not including any of the individuals watching independently either online or via satellite television.
To give you an idea of how operationally big the challenge was, it was the equivalent of producing 35 television shows with substantive content to be broadcast live within five hours and we did it without a technical glitch that led to an interruption of any workshop.
It all began on Thursday night with a nationally televised opening at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia. So great was the response that we had to expand the ballroom we were in by removing a wall and setting up more chairs, but even so, it was standing room only.
Over 1200 people came to the Cobb Galleria for Solutions Day. Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams emceed with great enthusiasm which he said came from the audience. Republican Governor Sonny Perdue and Senator Saxby Chambliss and Democratic Mayor of Atlanta Shirley Franklin and former Governor Roy Romer and Kellyanne Conway all joined me in helping launch American Solutions as a positive idea and solution oriented movement to change America.
On Saturday, the bipartisan American Solutions effort featured former Democratic Governor Roy Romer (the head of Edin08) leading an education workshop in Denver and Elaine Kamarck, the former head of Vice President Al Gore’s Reinventing Government project, leading a workshop on how to replace bureaucracy with 21st century approaches to governance.
Adding to the solution-oriented series of programs were two income tax replacement models. Former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey discussed the optional flat tax and in another workshop, Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder discussed the Fair Tax.
Students for Saving Social Security led a workshop for optional personal Social Security Retirement Savings Accounts. Former Congressman Bob Walker discussed the impact of a hydrogen economy as part of our energy future as well as the future of space exploration. Conservationist and former ZooAtlanta director Terry Maple led a workshop on “green conservatism”.
Congressman Brian Bilbray led a workshop from San Diego on immigration and protecting the border. David Barton of Wallbuilders presented a workshop from Des Moines, Iowa on Rediscovering God in America. Governor Mike Huckabee taught his workshop from New Hampshire.
The Center for Health Transformation (healthtransformation.net) developed the health materials for the workshops and by last Saturday presented 28 different topics on health transformation including ideas from former Governor Jeb Bush discussing Medicaid reform in Florida and Governor Tim Pawlenty doing the same thing in Minnesota.
The Center had also recruited national figures such as Dr Mark McClellan, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration and of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Center for Disease Control Director Dr. Julie Gerberding to outline specific areas of health progress.
All 35 workshops are available for viewing at www.AmericanSolutions.com. Also, be sure to check out the lists of “go-dos” which workshop moderators included to bring about real change in our communities.
The Choice and Making the Right Decision
On Saturday morning as Callista and I were on our way to the University of West Georgia in Carrollton where I was speaking and where many of the workshops preparing to get underway, we were confronted with a choice:
I could continue to lead what I believe will be the most successful movement for change in a generation or I could abandon that effort to pursue the uncertain road of running for president.
As you know, an effort to assess a Gingrich candidacy was to have begun today, Monday, October 01, two days after the completion of Solutions Day. That assessment was to discern whether there was sufficient support for a candidacy.
My decision not to seek the presidency preempted that effort. Because it never began, the outcome of such an assessment can never be fully known, but I was humbled by the messages of support, and the people who said they would be willing to make a pledge to raise resources had I elected to run.
We do know that we could have met Federal Election Commission requirements and that there would have been sufficient resources to start filing for primaries on October 15 (the Utah deadline, the earliest in the country).
We also knew from recent trips to the Republican Conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan and the conservative dinner for the Nevada Policy Research Institute that there was and still is a hunger for new ideas and new energy in the race.
I had said publicly for months that I was committed to focusing on American Solutions and the success of Solutions Day and would not begin to assess a candidacy until after the completion of the workshops on Saturday, September 29. And that is what I did. I did not and would not take a single step toward running before Saturday.
Late last week, I outlined a process by which an assessment headed by my friend and advisor Randy Evans could begin, but my directions were clear: no activity could take place before Monday, October 1.
Randy was prepared to take leave, if necessary, from his law firm to complete the assessment.
I had suspended my relationship as a contributor with Fox News until the results of the assessment were known.
As of yesterday a website, NewtNow.org, was preparing to launch.
On Saturday morning, Callista and I fully expected to see Randy hold a press conference on Monday to announce the website and explain why we had established $30 million in pledges as the threshold for running.
I will tell you that like most middle class Americans, I cannot afford to match someone like Governor Romney’s ability to write a $100 million personal check which is permissible under the law to support his campaign. I reasoned, therefore, that if we could find enough pledges to mount a serious effort, I would consider a campaign focused on solutions using new communications approaches in order to have a genuinely solutions oriented dialogue with the American people.
The Most Open and Non-Partisan 527 to Date
The still open question was whether we could do both. As American Solutions emerged on September 27 & 29, our legal advisers fully assessed the McCain-Feingold censorship law on the simultaneous activities of the newly conceived candidacy assessment and my desire to continue leading American Solutions and what implications, legal and otherwise, that would have on American Solutions were I to become a candidate.
American Solutions is technically organized as a 527. That means it can raise unlimited personal and corporate after tax dollars. However, it cannot engage in federal campaign activities. American Solutions had been designed as a unique non-partisan institution - the only 527 of its kind.
Every aspect of American Solutions and how it operates is well within the law - even though I disagree strongly with the law.
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and independents were invited to present Solutions Day workshops.
Similarly, anyone could join in the program as a viewer by signing up without regard to party affiliation.
Over the next few weeks, American Solutions plans to release the results of six national polls and $250,000 plus worth of research to the candidates of both parties and will post it on the internet for everyone to see and use.
I am proud to say that American Solutions for Winning the Future is the most open, transparent, and non-partisan 527 in existence.
Under the McCain-Feingold Censorship Law, We Could Raise Money or Raise Ideas - Not Both.
I became all too familiar with political attempts to censor citizens when I taught a class called Renewing American Civilization at Kennesaw College in Georgia when I was Speaker of the House. Even though I had been a college teacher for eight years and had a PhD in Modern European History, some did not like the fact that I was teaching a course on a college campus.
A full scale attack was launched on me and ethics charges in the House soon followed. Ultimately, the bipartisan ethics committee, a Federal Judge and the IRS reached the same conclusion which should have be obvious all along: There is nothing unethical or unlawful about a former college teacher with a PhD teaching a non-partisan class to college students.
That was more than a decade ago and McCain-Feingold has only made it worse by what I can only describe as criminalizing citizenship participation in civic affairs and the right to free speech.
But the law is the law whether I agree with it or not. With the success of American Solutions and the recognition that it will be a viable enterprise going forward, it became clear Saturday that I could not under the McCain-Feingold censorship law, the current law governing campaign finance, participate in leading American Solutions while exploring a candidacy because quite simply, under McCain Feingold, it would have been illegal.
Moreover, I would have put American Solutions at risk for politically motivated attacks and endless investigations not based upon facts but based upon the desired political outcomes of those who seek to protect the status quo from citizen activists who desire real change.
The whole purpose of a presidential race for me would be to bring new solutions and new ideas into the political arena.
But under McCain-Feingold, I had to choose between being creative and being a candidate. I could raise money or raise ideas, but not both.
I am not willing to subject the American Solutions team to wither under endless attacks and politically charged investigations with criminal penalties including jail time. Moreover, I am not willing to abandon our supporters, donors, volunteers, and staff who have made American Solutions the success that it is.
For me, it was impossible to imagine walking into this extraordinarily successful gathering with its amazing number of workshops and remarkable nationwide participation (all 50 states) in its very first outing, only to announce we were going to shut it down.
We Need 3 or 4 Years to Develop a New Generation of Solutions
Once we fully understood the legal and other implications that running would have on American Solutions and what I expect it will become, Callista and I had to make a choice between these mutually exclusive opportunities. We immediately decided that our authentic path was to keep growing and developing American Solutions. The decision was immediate, unequivocal and without regret.
We need three or four years to build the American Solutions movement into the kind of broad non-partisan movement for real change that America so desperately needs. We need three or four years to develop a new generation of solutions for the poorest Americans and the worst neighborhoods in our biggest cities.
We need time to flesh out and develop in-depth the Green Conservatism Terry Maple and I write about in Contract with the Earth which will come out later this month. We need time to expand on the work which the Center for Health Transformation has been doing to develop a science and technology based and entrepreneurially led 21st Century Intelligent Health System.
Our decision last Saturday not to run was not a step away from active citizenship. It was a positive decision that, for now, our best efforts should be as solutions oriented and idea oriented citizen activists working with all Americans who want to develop real change for America. I am entirely optimistic about the future. It was the right decision.
A Final Note on McCain-Feingold
You’ve heard me say it before: The McCain Feingold censorship law should be repealed.
It has actually made politics more focused on money.
One presidential candidate told me Saturday that I was right about the focus on money and that he had done 68 fund raisers in the last month.
And the very idea of limiting free speech is not only unconstitutional, it’s un-American.
I have no problem with wealthy Americans spending millions of their own money if their middle class opponents can raise the same size contributions from their supporters.
I object deeply, however, to a system which makes it almost impossible for middle class candidates to raise money and which is rapidly moving us towards a plutocracy in which only the rich can compete for office.
This cycle’s presidential campaign is a year longer than it should be because of the terrible burdens on fund raising created by McCain Feingold.
We need a simple system that says Americans can spend any amount of their after tax income they want as long as campaigns reports each night every check that was deposited that day on the internet so the country knows where the money is coming from.
That would be transparent, simple, and fair.
It would shorten campaigns.
It would level the playing field between the rich and the middle class.
It would allow candidates to return to studying issues and thinking deeply about policies instead of exhausting themselves begging for money three or four times a day, seven days a week.
The simple act of repealing McCain Feingold and replacing it with that straightforward transparent system of reporting would make our politics healthier and more idea oriented in a matter of weeks.
In that world, it would be possible to both work with a solutions based organization seeking solutions AND be a candidate for public office.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich
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Big news. Romney says he wants on Georgia presidential ballot
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, will formally petition to add his name to Georgia’s Feb. 5 primary ballot on Tuesday. As if you thought otherwise.
Actually, he’s sending his son, Ben, who will arrive with the paperwork at the Atlanta headquarters of the Georgia Republican Party at 4 p.m.
Don’t show up expecting a rally-the-troops speech. The poor young fellow has had a gag slapped on him. The event is “Photo Op Only,” the campaign said.
A Libertarian jumps into the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Allen Buckley, who carried the Libertarian banner in the ‘06 race for lieutenant governor, has announced he’ll join the U.S. Senate contest as yet another opponent for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
“I will offer the voters a candidate who, unlike Saxby Chambliss, will provide and fight for solutions to the financial, illegal immigration, health care, foreign involvement and environmental problems, and will stand up to people like Dick Cheney when a deception such as the Iraq deception is conducted,” says Buckley, an Smyrna attorney and certified public accountant.
In last year’s general election, Buckley received 75,673 votes, or 3.6 percent. Casey Cagle, by comparison, won 1.1 million. That said, you can’t help but wonder if Buckley might outperform some of the Democrats.
Here’s the link to Buckley’s web site.
Heath Garrett leaving to run ‘the campaign’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Heath Garrett, right hand to Johnny Isakson, is leaving as chief of staff for the U.S. Senator. That’s interesting, but not exactly news to rattle any foundations.
More significantly, Garrett is leaving to become “chairman of Isakson’s campaign” in 2010, according to the news release. Not his campaign for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Just “Isakson’s campaign.”
Yet another missed opportunity to discourage talk that the Republican is considering a return trip to Georgia in 2010, to run for governor.
On the money-making end of things, Garrett will also serve as a Southeast agent for the Stevens & Schriefer Group, a Washington, DC-based political consulting and strategic communications firm whose clients include Isakson, President Bush (until late next year, anyway), Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.
Chris Carr will become Isakson’s chief of staff, with Joan Kirchner as deputy.
A few clues about the Gingrich abdication
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Saturday afternoon, a few hours after Newt Gingrich decided he wouldn’t make a run for the White House, we put a call into Merle Black, the Emory University political hound.
He was one of the least surprised people around. Black said Gingrich effectively bowed out of the race long before, when he set that $30 million benchmark — the amount in pledges it would take to get him into the race.
“That’s a lot of money for someone who was a long shot to win the nomination, and couldn’t have won the general election anyway,” Black said.
No polls showed him scratching, and Gingrich’s comments about the other Republican candidates were “very unhelpful,” said the academic/author.
To that, let us add this scene: On Friday, the Gingrich entourage went to Carrollton for something of a reunion. At one point, Gingrich went to the Sunset Hills Country Club, for a Kiwanis Club meeting. He was once a member of the group.
While Gingrich spoke, Randy Evans remained outside. The Atlanta attorney is a former student body president at West Georgia College, when it was still called that. Then Evans went to intern for Gingrich during his first term in Congress.
Evans stuck with Gingrich through the next 30 years. He’s chairman of the Gingrich company that handles the former U.S. House speaker’s publication and TV contracts and “other consulting arrangements.”
He was assigned the task of finding that $30 million for Gingrich in a matter of weeks. Yet on Friday, he was sitting on a wrought-iron bench in view of country clubbers knocking practice drives. Evans had a cell phone glued to his ear, of course. But it was an odd locale for someone under that kind of deadline.
When we pointed this out, Evans said, “We don’t want there to be any suggestion that any part of the [American] Solutions Day or the Solutions [organization] have anything to do with it. So we have deliberately not taken steps until after tomorrow, Sept. 29.”
Roughly 18 hours later, Gingrich announced that it was just that concern that led to his decision to cancel his presidential plans. They feared being accused of using American Solutions, which can accept donations of unlimited amounts, to fuel his bid for the White House.
Gingrich denied the connection, but remember that, while serving as Speaker in 1997, he was hit with an extraordinarily large $300,000 fine by the House Ethics Committee — only after admitting that he provided false information about the role one of his political fund-raising organizations, called GOPAC, had in the creation of a course he taught and Kennesaw State University.
Even earlier last week, Gingrich repeatedly cited his middle-class status as a candidate. We don’t know what Gingrich’s situation is, but concede us the point that to be middle-class these days is to be insecure. It’s not a financial statement, but a state of mind.
Gingrich may have been worried that a 2008 presidential run would have been a personal money loser, and short term to boot — while his American Solutions project is a means of keeping his name in lights in near perpetuity.
Isakson, Chambliss endorse a three-way split in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In case you missed it, U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss last week took sides with Democrats to endorse a non-binding resolution that would have Iraq divided among three semi-autonomous regions for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
The Georgia tandem made up two of 26 Republican votes for the measure offered by Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate and foreign relations committee chairman.
The Washington Post take can be found here.
The resolution, which calls for retaining a central government in Bahgdad, is already causing a ruckus among Iraqi politicians, and the U.S. State Department has disavowed it — which makes the endorsement by the two Georgia senators all the more interesting.
“It really acknowledged that the continuing violence in part is a product of the lack of reconciliation, which is the reality of making that government work,” Isakson said. “I didn’t see anything in that that was inconsistent with what we ought to all want, and that is a reconciled Iraq with a functioning government. If you have reconciliation, the odds are you won’t have the violence or you won’t have as much of it.”
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Marshall and Barrow may benefit from GOP cash shortage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They ran two of the closest re-election campaigns in the nation last year, and Democratic Reps. Jim Marshall of Macon and John Barrow of Savannah already are gearing up for tough fights next year.
But some Democrats in Washington and Georgia are starting to express hope that the next time around might be much easier for both lawmakers because national Republicans are so far behind Democrats in fund-raising that it’s doubtful they’ll be able to invest as heavily in the Georgia races as they have in the past.
National Democrats have about $22 million in the bank one year out from the election. Republicans, who had to pay off a $16 million debt from last year, have about $3 million.
“The national [Republican] party does not have the money to put into [the districts],” said Kyra Jennings, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “That will mean that, in the end, this is something the national party can say they want to be involved in but it won’t have the money.”
Republicans acknowledge the significant disadvantage, but say that as the election draws closer and the GOP base gets more energized the money will start to roll in.
“We’re confident that we’re going to have the resources next year to compete and win,” Ken Spain, spokesman for the Republican National Campaign Committee, said. “Jim Marshall and John Barrow are in seats that perform for Republicans.”
In 2006, both had their districts redrawn and were strangers to many of the people who were voting. They were both running against ex-congressmen with name recognition and a ready campaign organization.
This year, Marshall and Barrow have been traveling their new districts extensively, introducing themselves. And they’ve both been aggressively raising money.
“We can’t proceed on the assumption that the NRCC won’t have the money,” said Doug Moore, Marshall’s spokesman.
Marty Klein, executive director of the state Republican Party, said he expects significant help from the national party regardless of its current circumstances. “These are targeted races,” he said. “We fully expect to have tough campaigns run against both.”
Facing tough election battles in 2008, Georgia Republicans and Democrats appear to be turning most often to military men to save them from defeat.
Republicans already have drafted Gen. Richard Goddard, a former base commander at Robins Air Force Base, to run against Marshall, a member of the Army Rangers Hall of Fame.
And there’s speculation that at least two more soldiers may join the election fight. Lt. Gen. David Poythress, Georgia’s state adjunct general who will retire in November, has been mentioned as a possible opponent of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) Poythress, former secretary of state and labor commission, has experience running statewide.
He’s stepping down from his current post to become CEO of American United Bancorp Inc. in Gwinnett County.
Poythress would be the second military man to face Chambliss. Former incumbent Sen. Max Cleland was defeated by Chambliss in 2002.
Army Maj. Wayne Mosley, a doctor and reservist who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, also being is talked about as a contender against John Barrow.
