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DEL.ICIO.USLanier joins race against Chambliss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s another Democrat in the race to unseat Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss this fall.
Josh Lanier of Statesboro, a Vietnam vet and former staffer to Georgia political icon Sen. Herman Talmadge, said Friday that he’s joining the Democratic primary race in hopes of taking on Chambliss in the fall.
Lanier said in an interview that he wouldn’t formally announce his candidacy until after Georgia’s Feb. 5 presidential primary.
“I figured that if I don’t do this now, I’ll regret it,” said Lanier, who has had an exploratory out scouting the political terrain over the past three months.
Lanier spent about 30 years working in Washington, first for the Army, then Talmadge’s office. He worked for several associations and then as a private consultant before he helped found LightStream Technologies, which developed water and air cleaning technologies.
Lanier faces at least three other candidates in the July 15 Democratic primary: DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, former TV reporter Dale Cardwell and environmental scientist Rand Knight.
At a time when voters are expressing frustration bordering on contempt for Congress - and Washington in general - Lanier will bill his campaign as a referendum on the corrupting influence of money on politics, particularly campaign finance reform.
“We’re going to lead by example,” he said. “There’ll be some very unique and unusual things we’re going to be doing in this campaign.”
One of the key decisions Lanier made about his campaign is that, unlike any other contenders, he will raise money according to restrictive campaign-finance proposal that, because Congress hasn’t passed it yet, no other candidates will held to.
“What we want to do is make Georgia ground zero for campaign finance reform,” he said. I won’t play the money game. I have spent exactly zero hours dialing for dollars.”
The proposed law, the Fair Elections Now Act, would require Lanier to test his support by generating $5 contributions, first from 500 people and then 4,000 statewide. His largest contributions would limited to $100.
Meanwhile, Chambliss has $4 million in the bank as of last September, the latest campaign-finance documents available.
“I may have to have a sign on the back my car that says, ‘Will campaign for gas money,’” Lanier said.
Comments
By Craig
January 25, 2008 6:24 PM | Link to this
Sign me up, Josh. A chance to vote for a true war hero.
By snd
January 25, 2008 8:21 PM | Link to this
www.friendsofjoshlanier.com
By GiG
January 25, 2008 9:10 PM | Link to this
Sign me up too!! Josh Lanier is a true statesman and the best choice for US Senate.
And wouldn’t it be awesome to show the rest of the US that campaign finance reform can work!
Go Josh!!
By FrmrRepub
January 25, 2008 9:39 PM | Link to this
Thank heavens! I’ve been hoping this would happen. I am a happy camper. Yes indeed - Go Josh!!
By RJ
January 26, 2008 12:07 AM | Link to this
Some unsolicited advice. All candidates opposing Chambliss need to focus on his failed performance rather than what’s personally important to them, e.g., campaign finance reform. People in Georgia are hurting as a result of the policies he has pushed and supported. A good portion of the faith-based community is utterly disappointed and will do more picking and choosing this time around. The socio-religious motives that propelled the historical Republican upsets the last election are not present today because of the current state of things.
Candidates seek, hear, and shape your message to answer the cries and hopes of the people!
By Galoco_lee
January 26, 2008 10:15 AM | Link to this
Remember in 2003 Chambliss was the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Protection and in that position he was well positioned to be a major contributor to the illegal immigrant mess we find ourselves in today. He has to go!!
By Attorney Sherri Jefferson
January 26, 2008 2:11 PM | Link to this
From Attorney Sherri Jefferson @ 770-374-9591 or attysjjeff@aol.com
Subject: Is Alisha Morgan, Kasim Reed, Stephanie Stuckey-Benefield, and other Democrats Stephanie Stuckey-Benefield Playing Both Sides of Politics?
Is Alisha Morgan and Stephanie Stuckey Benefield and other Democrats playing both sides of politics? This is the question that Attorney Sherri Jefferson founder of the African-American Juvenile Justice Project is asking. They have refused to enact legislation for the passage of juvenile justice reform and is playing politics with the lives of the children of this state. Other democrats have purposely worked with local white organizations to prevent the passage of the AAJJP Juvenile Justice Reform Act until 2010 when they believe that the General Assembly will be under democratic control. In 2004/05 session the Republican lead assembly passed a resolution to overhaul the juvenile code of this state. Legislation was to pass in 2005, but when they lost they moved it to 2006. During that election year they did not gain additional seats, so they moved it til 2010. In the meantime, the children of this state suffer.
GEORGIA - From Attorney Sherri Jefferson, www.aajjp.org African-American Juvenile Justice Project
Local white-organizations vow not to allow the passage of African-American Juvenile Justice Project attempts to pass legislation for juvenile justice and reform.They are insistent upon delaying the passage until 2010. Jan 26 2008
Is Race a Factor in Passing Legislation for Juvenile Justice Reform? JustGa, Georgia Voices and Emory Barton Clinic has vowed to delay the passage of any legislation this 2008 session by the efforts of AAJJP. These organizations did not reach-out to the African-American community and now they are vowing to delay any progress for our children. We must prevent this from happening. Do they want justice for children or credit for code revision? Read what they have written under “Juvenile Justice”
http://www.georgiavoices.org/Repository/Files/2008 Legislative Priorities.pdf
See message that was sent two weeks ago.
Original Message——- From: attysjjeff@aol.com To: shill@gaappleseed.org; mgold@gaappleseed.org; info@ChildWelfare.net; pwillis@georgiavoices.org; lwaits@georgiavoices.org; mbinderman@georgiavoices.org; alisha@alishamorgan.com; stuckey@mindspring.com Sent: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:03 pm Subject: From Attorney Sherri Jefferson - AAJJP
Georgia Appleseed, Barton Clinic, and JustGA:
I am in receipt of your email dated January 14 2007 and your letter of December 18 2006. AAJJP finds it interesting that your organization began its slander and harassing campaign against our report two weeks before its well publicized review. Please cease and desist from making harassing calls and sending letters intending to intimidate us into waiting until 2009 or 2010 to comply with your desires to submit your report.
AAJJP and Attorney Sherri Jefferson will not collaborate with any of your organizations as follows:
Given these concerns, AAJJP and Attorney Sherri Jefferson will not collaborate with your organizations. AAJJP has finalized and submitted its report both nationally and locally in an effort to bring about change. If we can not get it from our local legislators, then we can make decision about each of them in November. Unlike Clinton, we do not believe that we merely have hope and that you have the sole ability to bring about change!
Your organization is welcomed to rely upon the YLD report (I am aware that it was completed a long time ago). Nevertheless, they have also failed to engage in outreach in the African-American community thus, our voices are not heard and our concerns are not voiced in their report. We are sure that you will use a lot of the information that I have researched and compiled. Nonetheless, you each should be ashamed of yourselves that you have waited since 2004 to produce a report while you milk organizations like Bank of America, Wachovia, Carnegie Corporation, the Annie Casey Foundation and others for financial support. Especially since AAJJP did not receive any federal, state, private or public funds.
Again, please cease and desist from harassing me and this includes responding to this letter.
Very truly,
Sherri Jefferson, Esq. AAJJP www.aajjp.org
770-374-9591
Sherri Jefferson Have a Blessed Day!
Sherri Jefferson Have a Blessed Day!
By Talon News
January 26, 2008 3:31 PM | Link to this
I just read in the ajc that Lanier is up 8 since January 1st.
Wow, he’s rising quickly.
By Political Foreskin
January 26, 2008 6:22 PM | Link to this
Sherri Jefferson. I have a unique perspective about juvenile crime. It’s not a new perspective, but I’m in a position to observe the how the why and the who. Can you dumb down, (way down), your goals concerning juvenile justice so that everyone can get involved? Pretend I’m a monkey and simplify your case. I think you are doing a great job, it’s just that few people actually understand what you’re saying.
By fulldawg
January 26, 2008 8:20 PM | Link to this
This a positive thing. Saxby, if nothing else has been arrogant toward the people of Georgia.
Time to move along Mr. Shameless….
By Will Jones
January 26, 2008 11:12 PM | Link to this
His willingness to serve during Vietnam gives him a leg up on any opponents without time in. Chambliss has to go…with the rest of the fakers and hypocrites who support the treason in the White House. If Lanier is a man of the people of Georgia he has my support.
P.S. Congressman Wexler (D-FL) is calling for hearings to impeach Cheney. The Nixon Tapes didn’t surface until the Watergate hearings. These traitors must be brought to justice and those without the grace or integrity to know them for what they are must go as well.
Let’s “get the ball rolling” and take back Our Country. Things don’t get better without some effort…and prayer.
By Churchill
January 26, 2008 11:20 PM | Link to this
HEY WILL, Pope, Bush, 911, Rome, booga, booga, booga
By Ron Paul Supporter
January 27, 2008 6:58 AM | Link to this
Does Chambliss support the NAU/CFR?
The challengers? Do they EVEN know about it? Does Chambliss?
Do you want your Senator helping to sell out America?
By Craig
January 27, 2008 6:59 AM | Link to this
Churchill - No.
By James
January 27, 2008 8:38 AM | Link to this
Yet another loser who needs something to waste his time on for the next ten months.
By Young Republican
January 27, 2008 9:39 AM | Link to this
Yes how dare he. We prefer one candidate elections. Why is he wasting time on something as trivial as democracy?
By Political Foreskin
January 27, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this
y-y-yeah! Why is he w-w-wasting time on something as tr-tr-trivial as d-d-democracy?
We d-d-dont want the v-v-vote!
Everybody shout it out your w-w-window: “WE D-D-DONT WANT THE V-V-VOTE!”
(we do want the veto, however)
notice how vote becomes veto in word play and in politics? It’s one of those amazing coincidences that define the irony that rules the universe of der verld. (z-z-zeig…h-h-heil)
By Will Jones
January 27, 2008 1:22 PM | Link to this
We have decent, right-minded people all over Georgia. With the best climate of the Original Thirteen why shouldn’t we have the best political environment as well?
George Bush has been found out: Not only is he a draft-dodging hypocrite who conned his way into office by telling us Jesus was his favorite political philosopher, he lied us into war defiling our nation’s honor, getting thousands of us dead in uniform, shedding much other innocent blood, breaking the Treasury, and regardless of whatever more proof is shown of his committing 9-11, his pals in Dubai, who thank G-d, as hard as Bush tried he couldn’t get away with giving six of our seaports, are the largest transhipment point for the Afghan heroin flowing into our streets, which was almost non-existent before Bush showed up.
Perhaps as important, he has been demonstrated to consort with a $200 an hour homosexual prostitute named Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, whose latter alias shows up numerous times on the Secret Service’s logbook for the Social Entrance of the White House for overnight “visits.” Combine this information with the almost weekly visits of Ted Haggard, the “outed” evangelical minister/closet-queen, and with Mark Foley, the pervert/pedophile, now-ex-Congressman from Florida, and Bush, whose Yale nickname was “Lips” when he engaged in homosexual rituals to enter the super-secret Skull & Bones/CIA network/fraternity, has to be seen by every single Citizen of Georgia as not only a liar and a hypocrite but a full-blown pervert as well.
Who really are his good-buddies who brought him to the “dance?”
So where does this leave draft-dodger, Bush-pal and rubberstamp Saxby Chambliss? Is Georgia being well-served by one more Mammon-worshipper turning a blind-eye toward, if not actually joining in with, the perversion and corruption in the Bush White House and on Capitol Hill? I look forward to named, fellow members of Georgia’s Electorate speaking of Josh Lanier’s family and integrity.
I’m voting for Barack Obama, a man of obvious grace and proven integrity, in the primary, and I hope, this November. We can lessen the trouble either way by putting someone other than a Republican lapdog - draft-dodger Chambiss - back into the Senate.
…and speaking of Republicon lapdogs, check out Karen Handel’s interview with Monica on WSB-TV. Seeded here by the Republicans, she hails from Roman Catholic-basecamp Maryland and includes none of her family information on the internet. Who is she? Who are her people? Dollars to doughnuts says she’s Roman Catholic, and with no kids, born or adopted, is just an operative of the fascist plutocracy’s political buffer caste, who “just can’t see a problem” with the proven corruption of Diebold counting, and can’t manage to come up with a paper trail to ensure vote integrity. She, Chambliss, and any Republican or Democrat failing to break from Bush/Cheney and the bi-partisn false-elite now killing our soldiers and Marines and bankrupting us in false war must be identified and flushed out of office…never to return. They are Tories and the Liberty Bell must return to its original purpose as a tocsin - an alarm bell for defense of, and war for Our Liberty by The People, for these ravening wolves have no other target in sight than the destruction of the eighty percent working class that Rockefeller and Rome can restore to power the “thousands upon thousands of years of despotism arrested for a time” by Our Founding Fathers and the Revolution.