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Monday, February 4, 2008
Romney launches last-minute, robo-call assaults on McCain, Huckabee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of us lives in Cobb County, and is thus able to listen to much of the automated traffic that travels over Republican phone lines.
In Monday evening’s collection of answering machine messages are a pair of attacks on both John McCain and Mike Huckabee, paid for by the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.
John McCain began the string over the weekend. We’ll go through the rest — who called Monday — one by one:
— Cindy McCain, wife of the candidate, called to reaffirm her husband’s earlier promise “to lead our nation and our party as a Ronald Reagan conservative.”
Her message: “As you may know, we have two children serving in the active duty military….”
— Then came the first Romney call. “Hello, James. This is Governor Mitt Romney.” We don’t know how he knew, but it got our attention.
The candidate said the White House needed “someone with the vision and the values and the experience to bring real conservative change to Washington.”
— Then came a call from Georgia Right to Life endorsing Mike Huckabee, who — the voice said — “has the strongest position on all the life issues of any of the remaining candidates for president.”
— Which was followed by a Romney attack on his principle rival:
“John McCain and Ted Kennedy wrote an amnesty bill. And McCain teamed with another liberal Democrat to write campaign finance reform.
“John McCain also joined with Democrats to vote against the Bush tax cuts. And listen to what Bill Clinton says about John McCain: ‘She and John McCain are very close. They always laugh that if they wind up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history.’
“No wonder former Senate Republican leader Rick Santorum said — quote — John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side.”
— But then Johnny Isakson called to reassure the family that McCain “will limit spending in Washington and eliminate pork in our federal budget.”
— The second attack by Romney followed, this time on Huckabee:
“Mike Huckabee raised taxes by $500 million and increased the sales tax by 37 percent. Huckabee pushed state-funded scholarships and tuition for illegal immigrants.
Mike Huckabee even criticized President Bush’s policies on the war on terror. That’s why conservative leaders [and radio talk show hosts] like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are supporting Mitt Romney for president.”
This is the heart of the message:
“Don’t split the conservative vote. Let’s stop the McCain moderates, and take back our party with a viable conservative candidate for president.”
— As we transcribed this, a Democrat in Atlanta called with a misplaced robo-call from Huckabee, who declared himself the candidate “for authenticity, conviction and proven leadership”
Said Huckabee: “I’ll never sacrifice our principles for anybody’s politics.” That, in case you have no ear for politics, was a clear shout-back at Romney.
Ga. Republicans to Bush: ‘That ain’t pork’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Bush released a record $3 trillion budget proposal for 2009 on Monday and he’s left at least three Georgia Republicans stomping their feet, and shouting at him.
Bush included in that budget no construction money for the expansion of Savannah Harbor, upsetting both of Georgia’s Republican senators - Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss - along with Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican and member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Kingston called Bush’s action a “shock and disappointment.”
The expansion project includes deepening the harbor from its current 42 feet to 48 feet to allow for larger cargo ships to dock there. Bush is providing $700,000 for planning and design work but nothing for construction.
The three lawmakers vowed to add construction money to the budget as it moves through Congress. They didn’t say how much they’d seek, but Kingston said that with the public down on “pork barrel” spending, it’s going to be harder than ever to get the additional money.
“This is the type of investment that would put Georgians back to work at a time when we need to revive the economy,” Kingston said. “We will work hard but, with the backlash against earmarks, getting funding will be an uphill battle.”
Sadie Fields says she’s for Mitt Romney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After remaining on the sidelines for months, Sadie Fields, the chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance, on Monday took the stage with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a Georgia Tech rally.
Fields stood right behind Rick Santorum, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, and gave her personal endorsement of Romney in an interview afterwards.
“I believe that Governor Romney is the best man to run the country for the next eight years. He’s the only candidate running who has created jobs,” said Fields, whose Christian Alliance — formerly the Georgia Christian Coalition — is the most active religious conservative political group in the state.
Since early last year, Fields had refused to make an endorsement in the Republican presidential contest, declaring that none of them appealed to her.
But on Monday she said that she found McCain to be unacceptable because of his sponsorship of compromise bills on immigration and the environment, and because of his backing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill — which Fields described as an attack on free speech.
On Saturday, Fields had declared an endorsement of McCain by U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss to be “disappointing.”
When asked about Mike Huckabee, Fields simply said, “I believe Romney is the best qualified to handle our economic problems.”
With 24 hours to go, a Huckabee message to Romney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the final 24 hours of the Georgia presidential primary, it’s notable that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee continues to take aim at Mitt Romney — not John McCain.
He’s decided it’s easier to pry votes away from Romney than from the candidate who’s getting more and more support from the GOP establishment.
Huckabee doesn’t have the resources of the Romney campaign. But he set up an e-mail tree to spread a video addressed to his supporters, made during his Sunday visit to Macon.
The video employs what’s become his trademark sense of humor:
“Don’t let anyone who’s going to vote for us stay home. And if there’s somebody you know who’s not going to vote for us, don’t let them out of their house,” Huckabee says. “You let the air out of their tires and keep them from getting out. Tell them the primary’s been moved to March. But don’t let them near a voting booth until after Tuesday.”
But all of Huckabee’s invective is saved for Romney:
“Mr. Romney has spent about $100 million to have basically the same number of delegates that I have, and I’ve spent about $7 million. You know with the business background he has you’d think at this point he’d come to the conclusion that he’s not selling his soap very well….
“I’ve got a suggestion, Mr. Romney. Rather than me drop out, why don’t you give it up and go back to Boston?”
That’s a rather Southern thing to say, if you think about it. And we’re sure Huckabee has.
Putting a stake through the heart of an already dead gun bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah on Monday threw a few more handfuls of dirt on H.B. 89, the guns-in-parking-lots bill that was loaded up by the House with new rules on where concealed weapons could be carried.
The Senate deep-sixed the bill on Friday by rejecting the changes.
“The Senate disagreed with the floor amendments that the House passed. It sends a confusing message to the public when we say you can’t smoke in a restaurant but you can carry a concealed weapon,” Johnson said.
Also, the Republican leader said he was troubled by the provisions that allowed those with concealed weapons permits to bring their weapons to church and other public places.
“Those amendments did not go through a committee process. They did not really go through a good floor debate, because the House had just been dealing with charter schools for a long time,” he said.
The Senate leader said that when the chamber goes back into session on Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle will name three senators to a House-Senate conference committee to determine the bill’s future: Don Balfour of Snellville, Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, and Joseph Carter of Tifton.
Balfour, the Senate Rules chairman, has sided with the Georgia Chamber of Commerce every step of the way in the group’s opposition to the bill. Chance and Carter are floor leaders for Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Chip Rogers of Woodstock was the original sponsor of the guns-in-parking-lots bill, and it’s customary for the originating lawmaker to be part of a conference committee.
“I think you all know the significance of those appointments,” Johnson told reporters.
Two GOP polls, an evangelical push for Huckabee, and thinking about the next vote — in 2012
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Insider Advantage has a poll today that shows Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney with a statistically insignificant lead over John McCain in Georgia.
The IA survey puts Romney at 30 percent; McCain at 29 percent, and Mike Huckabee at 28 percent. Margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.
But a second firm, Public Policy Polling of North Carolina, also issued some survey results this afternoon that showed McCain at 31 percent; Romney at 29 percent; and Huckabee at 27 percent.
And we’ve talked to two evangelical leaders, separately and in the space of 30 minutes, who predict that when the dust settles on Tuesday, the ranking will be McCain, Huckabee and Romney.
We’re told of an e-mail that’s being passed among religious conservative voters, urging them to line up behind Huckabee — not with victory in mind, but to give the former Arkansas governor a strong showing so that he might serve as a watchdog when the topic of abortion comes up before the platform committee of the Republican National Convention this summer.
We’ll try to get you a copy of it.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that the top three Republican presidential candidates have shown up in Georgia in the past three days, Senate president pro tem Eric Johnson says he’s disappointed by the lack of attention the state has received by moving up its presidential primary to Feb. 5.
Perhaps, he said, Georgia ought to look at delaying its 2012 vote by a week.
“We might be better off as a single stand instead of a group of states,” he said.
McCain working the phones as Romney comes to town
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to arrive at Georgia Tech at noon. Meanwhile, John McCain is making the most use of robo-calls to establish his presence, at least in one section of Cobb County.
McCain put up this one on Saturday. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss recorded one for him that was sent out to Republican voters on Sunday. Unfortunately, we don’t have a recording of it. And Monday morning, McCain’s wife Cindy was the featured speaker on this robo-call.
That’s three McCain calls to one issued by Mitt Romney over the weekend. Couldn’t locate any sound on it, though.
Fallout from the DOT race: A grave matter with two meanings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Because the vote on members of the state transportation board occurred so late on Friday, reverberations are only hitting the state Capitol today.
Most people know that state Rep. Tom Grave (R-Ranger) was stripped of his leadership positions and evicted from his state Capitol office for his refusal to support House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s failed attempt to oust Mike Evans from his spot as DOT board chairman.
But only now are they coming to realize that Graves had been running the House Ways and Means subcommittee in which Richardson’s GREAT plan now resides. And the bill to eliminate school property taxes hasn’t generated a great deal of traction.
Also, the Gainesville Times is reporting this morning that state Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) has been stripped of his Health and Human Services subcommittee chairmanship for the same reason.
“This is something I knew could possibly happen if I voted for Mike Evans,” Collins told the Times. “It’s very frustrating, but I felt the need to vote my conscience and my constituency. I made those decision based on what I felt was best for this community.”
