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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
That third-party opportunity has vanished, but Hamilton Jordan has not
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For Hamilton Jordan, the 63-year-old, one-time boy wonder of Georgia politics, who gave us Jimmy Carter and Ross Perot, this is the ninth inning.
That was the phrasing used by one close friend. And yet there was Jordan this afternoon, frail, bewigged and with an oxygen tube that dripped from his nostrils, holding forth before the Atlanta Press Club on the topic that he loves best — the chess game of presidential politics.
Some of his best friends crowded the event, as well as his family. Tom Johnson, the former president of CNN, made sure the room was filled. Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn and his wife Colleen were there. So was Howard “Bo” Callaway, anchoring the Republican contingent.
If you closed your eyes, Jordan was brimming with health. His voice was full and strong, except for the few times it cracked with emotion.
Jordan took his audience through his 20-year battle with six different kinds of cancer. Beginning with lymphoma, followed by another and another. Cancers have piled up like the Georgia defense on a loose ball. And Jordan has been the ball.
We saw flashes of the funny, ribald South Georgian who, as a president’s chief of staff, scandalized an uptight Washington in the 1970s when he glanced at the wife of the Egyptian ambassador — and marveled that he’d always wanted to see the Pyramids.
Jordan took his Press Club friends into the doctor’s office where the physician warned him, and his wife Dorothy, that surgery for prostate cancer could result in sexual impotence. “That would not be a change from his current condition,” replied Dorothy, according to her dead-panning husband.
Jordan also confessed that he had fibbed when he chose the title on the book he wrote about his first encounter with cancer: “No Such Thing As a Bad Day.”
He’s battled depression and hopelessness. He’s worried about his family and his finances. He has had not bad just days, but bad years. One hundred and fifty documented trips to Piedmont Hospital will do that.
“I’ve been to the edge of life. I’ve had to face my own mortality,” Jordan said — that strong voice breaking. “But I’m here to tell you today I’m not through yet.”
Fortunately, the topic could shift to Tuesday’s presidential primary votes — and to Jordan’s role, this year and last, in fomenting a third-party revolution, perhaps with Michael Bloomberg at the top of the ticket.
Said Jordan:
“I thought there was going to be the opportunity this year for a third-party candidate. I saw a perfect storm of events — both parties preoccupied with discussions of social issues, not the real issues, and the prospect that both parties were going to nominate people from both extremes, and leave a huge territory in the middle for a third party.
“Instead, what happened in both parties, particularly with [Barack] Obama in the Democratic party and [John] McCain in the Republican party, this sense of frustration with the establishment and this focus on these narrow issues, gave expression….
“So I think the oxygen for an independent candidacy or third-party movement basically is gone now.”
“If the nominees of the two parties today were…[Rudy] Giuliani and [Hillary] Clinton, I believe that [New York Mayor] Mike Bloomberg would be running — and I think he’d have a helluva chance.”
Perot and his curious running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, got 20 percent of the vote in 1992, Jordan pointed out.
He continued:
“Suppose a guy like Mike Bloomberg had been smart enough to run against Giuliani and Clinton, and had been smart enough to have Sam Nunn or Chuck Hagel on the ticket with him. I believe, with his resources, with a team like that, with the frustration of the American people at both parties — which I feel myself — I believe there was really the possibility.
“But I think that possibility is gone now that McCain and Obama are on the playing field.”
No doubt, you’ve noticed that the 2008 presidential race has brought true suspense back into politics. But to hear Jordan speak, you can’t miss the sense that the contest is more important than a never-ending plot line. It has given this particular man one more reason to get up each morning, when reasons might be in short supply.
Sleeper clause on school property tax moves House speaker’s tax plan back to the shop for adjustments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s attempt to quietly add a provision in his latest, greatest GREAT plan — to make it easier to eliminate school property taxes in the future — is holding up passage of the measure today.
Richardson’s provision would allow the General Assembly to eliminate school property taxes next year by passing a bill. In other words, by majority vote.
Currently, it would take a constitutional amendment, or a two-thirds of both chambers. And that can be blocked by the minority party.
School officials freaked over the provision and began putting out the word on it last night.
This morning, our AJC colleague James Salzer was told Richardson’s bill would be heading back to the House Rules Committee to remove that provision, delaying a House vote on the plan formerly known as GREAT.
Christian Coalition: Supports guns-in-churches bill, neutral on Sunday stadium sales of beer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At one and the same time, Jim Beck has been a busy — and not so busy fellow.
Beck is leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition. (Not the Georgia Christian Alliance — that’s Sadie Fields.)
Beck’s group has taken two intriguing positions on legislation making its way through the state Capitol. The Christian Coalition supports H.B. 89, the gun bill that would expand the places where you can carry concealed. Churches, for instance.
At the same time, Beck has declared his group’s neutrality on S.B. 454, the measure to permit the Sunday sales of beer and such at a new Braves minor league stadium in Gwinnett County.
Let’s take the gun bill first. Beck points out that the legislation has an opt-out provision — churches, like other private property owners, can still ban firearms from their premises if they want.
But the Christian Coalition leader also said that many of the state’s megachurches would like the option of using their congregants as an informal security force.
“The limit, frankly, on a lot of this will be the church’s insurance policy,” Beck said.
The legislation could also have a deterrent effect. Houses of worship — synagogues in particular — have been targeted in part, he said, because ne’er-do-wells conceive of them as unarmed havens of passivity.
“We think the good [in H.B. 89] outweighs the bad,” Beck said.
What the Christian Coalition leader thinks on that particular bill may be moot. The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica), is locked in a House-Senate conference committee, as a result of an ongoing feud between the state Senate and the National Rifle Association.
But S.B. 454 is guaranteed to move — given that it carries the signature of Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour (R-Snellville).
Beck’s logic for not opposing the Sunday sales bill in Gwinnett is twofold. First, it’s a matter of realpolitik.
As Clint Eastwood once said, a lobbyist has got to know his limitations. And Beck realizes he’s got no chance of stopping this one.
The Senate has passed the bill. The House is likely to send it back with a provision that permits grocery and convenience stores to sell beer and wine on the Christian Sabbath. Which means the final version will be the result of a deal cut by Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
“I’m realistic about the weight the Christian Coalition has when it comes to influencing the three most powerful people in the state,” Beck said.
Secondly, while admitting that drinking on Sunday is “problematic” from a religious viewpoint, Beck draws a public policy distinction between Sunday alcohol consumption in a stadium and buying a case of wine or beer from a grocery store.
Public operations such as stadiums or restaurants have an legal interest in making sure their customers don’t get drunk, Beck said.
“The Braves will be very interested in your behavior. They’re going to be interested in not overserving you,” he noted.
All that said, Beck said the Christian Coalition would have to rethink its position if a broader Sunday sales provision were included in the final version.
Join the Clinton press corps and see the world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a CNN shot of Tuesday’s working quarters for the press traveling with Hillary Clinton in Austin, Texas.
The Clintons have always had a complicated relationship with members of the Fourth Estate.
Hat tip to Blog for Democracy for searching this one out.
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