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Friday, March 7, 2008
The Chick-fil-a question that prompted a McCain flash of temper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Revised at 1:50 p.m. Saturday: We said that somewhere around here was a student who was wondering how the small question he tossed at John McCain became an actual political incident.
Turns out he is 21-year-old George Argyris of Murrieta, Calif.
During the Republican presidential nominee’s appearance at the Buffington Road headquarters of Chick-fil-a, Argyris asked McCain if he might select Democrat John Kerry to share the ticket.
Kerry had talked to McCain about becoming his running mate in his ill-fated 2004 bid against Republican George Bush.
Shannon McCaffrey of the Associated Press picked it up from there:
“No,” McCain said immediately.
“John Kerry is a friend of mind and a close associate. We are fellow veterans but we have very vastly different philosophical, fundamental political views,” McCain said. “I respect those views. I just totally disagree with them.”
After the wheels went up out of Atlanta, a New York Times reporter sought more details of that conversation between McCain and Kerry. And McCain grew rather testy — making it clear this wasn’t a topic he wanted to explore just now.
Here’s the link to the video captured by MSNBC.
“I asked this question because of curiosity of what this issue back in ‘04. I had no idea it was going to turn out this way,” said Argyris, currently of Pine Mountain, Ga. He’s a student at Impact 360, a “gap year” Christian program.
National Journal: Three of the seven most conservative members of Congress are from Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three Georgia Republicans have been ranked by the National Journal among the seven most conservative members of the U.S. House: Phil Gingrey of Cobb County, John Linder of Gwinnett County, and Lynn Westmoreland of Coweta County.
In its annual rating by ideology, the National Journal gave identical scores to all seven Republicans.
U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon was named the most conservative Democrat in the annual rating. U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah was ranked the third most conservative Democrat.
Earlier, we wrote that John Lewis was the top-ranked liberal in the Georgia delegation — but we overlooked Hank Johnson of DeKalb County, who ranked 16th. Lewis was next at 65th.
Monsters, Hillary Clinton and the (gasp!) Atlanta connection
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So, in a Scottish newspaper, Barack Obama’s Harvard-educated foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, calls Hillary Clinton a “monster.” And she has just resigned.
What, you ask, is the Atlanta angle?
The Irish-born Power spent the summer of ’89 in Atlanta as an over-qualified sports intern for WAGA-TV. Former state senator Bill Stephens, who was press secretary to Gov. Zell Miller during that period, recognized the name and face.
Jeff Hullinger, who watched over Power, confirmed the fact. “She seemed to be a fish out of water. Oh, my God, was she bright,” remembered Hullinger, who now works at WSB radio. “Acerbic, lightning-witted, and the depth of the Mariana Trench.”
And to think, Hullinger said, that if she’d just learned to settle for a little less, she could be reading hockey scores in Tampa. This afternoon, that probably looks inviting.
Read Power’s bio here. Logging Pete Rose video and fetching coffee in Atlanta apparently didn’t rate a mention on her resume.
Not necessarily good news for Republican congressional candidates
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times has this today:
Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen from the chief fund-raising arm of House Republicans, according to party officials who described the findings of emergency internal audits.
The financial records of the group, the National Republican Congressional Committee, may also have been falsified for several years, Republican officials said. The campaign committees of several Republican lawmakers may also have been victims of a scam that is now under criminal investigation by the F.B.I.
The NRCC raises money for U.S. House races, and it’s already short on cash. No doubt this will make fund-raising even tougher.
If you’re Rick Goddard in Perry or John Stone in Augusta — the two are running against U.S. Reps. Jim Marshall and John Barrow, respectively — you hate to see this.
Stone just wrote us: “I’m looking at the bright side of this. At least I don’t have to keep checking the P.O. box for that NRCC check.”
