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Monday, March 24, 2008
A departure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By now you’ll have noticed we are much reduced. Bob Kemper has departed the Political Insider blog and our AJC bureau in Washington to pursue other opportunities. Feel free to wish him Godspeed below, as his friends here do.
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China, Tibet, and two Georgia events
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue and some 60 tagalongs — state officials, business and academic types, and press — depart on Sunday for Shanghai and Beijing.
The trip marks the debut of Delta Airline’s non-stop Atlanta-to-Shanghai service, and the opening of a trade office in Beijing.
Both are big, much-anticipated events. Delta is in difficult straits, and Georgia’s economy is swooning. But diplomatically speaking, the trip couldn’t come at a worse time — in the midst of China’s largest spate of internal unrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Thousands of Chinese troops have been roughly injected into Tibet and neighboring provinces. The authoritarian nation, already made nervous by the prospect of uncontrollable visitors to the Beijing Olympics this summer, has shut down borders and barred the international press from its western reaches.
A Chinese team will make its North American debut in next month’s Tour de Georgia. Chris Hunt/AJC
Expect Perdue & Co. to adopt a business-as-usual attitude throughout the six-day trip. President Bush set the tone late last week when he announced the unrest in Tibet would not affect his plans to make an appearance at the Olympics.
“We defer to the federal government on all foreign policy matters. We go to effect economic development, and we will stay away from diplomatic issues,” said Chris Young, Perdue’s chief of protocol.
Gary Black, who’ll be making the trip as president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said the briefing he received last week made no mention of Tibet. “This was a briefing that we would have gotten six months or six weeks ago,” he said.
In case the topic didn’t come up, members of the Georgia delegation might want to take heed of this “Olympics Fact Sheet” just put out by the U.S. State Department, which notes:
“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.”
The governor’s most careful moments are likely to come during the speech he’s scheduled to give in Beijing, apparently on the topic of economic gains that China might expect this summer — if all goes well. The title of Perdue’s address is “Open for Business: The International Spotlight of the Olympic Games.”
But when it comes to China and Tibet, state officials may be less worried about a slip of the tongue during a business trip, and more worried about what happens in Georgia next month.
The Tour de Georgia, now with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle at its head, has snagged the first Chinese bicycle team ever to compete in North America. Like most modern bicycle squads, the make-up of the GE Marco Polo team is international, but it will be led by Olympic hopeful Li Fuyu of China.
The Chinese television network CCTV has committed to carrying the race, which runs April 21-27.
Bicycle races and protests have a long history, and it’s entirely possible that “Free Tibet” signs could pop up in the farthest reaches of rural Georgia. Attempting to shield a 600-mile event from demonstrators would be futile.
“The event is not a political event. That said, we can’t dictate to people where they can engage in demonstrations or messaging,” said Chris Aronhalt, the tour director. “But at this point, there’s no cause for alarm.”
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A U.S. Senate poll, and a not-so-mysterious YouTube clip
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dale Cardwell, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, called a couple times over the weekend — excited by a Rasmussen poll of 500 Georgia voters conducted on March 20 — and available by subscription only — that shows him doing better against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss than his other two Democratic rivals, Vernon Jones and Jim Martin.
You folks can debate whether the margin of error, probably at 4 to 5 percentage points, gives the following horse-race numbers any statistical significance:
— Chambliss vs. Cardwell, 52 to 36 percent;
— Chambliss vs. Jones, 56 to 30 percent;
— Chambliss vs. Martin, 51 to 33 percent.
Chambliss’ combined unfavorables were at 29 percent; Jones’ were at 58 percent; Martin’s at 33 percent; and Cardwell’s at 35 percent.
A Martin-Cardwell clip on YouTube
Cardwell, a former reporter for WSB-TV in Atlanta, is probably the Democratic candidate most overshadowed by last week’s entry of Jim Martin into the Senate race. Perhaps that’s why someone — we don’t know who — chose to post this WSB clip on YouTube on Saturday.
The undated video, labeled “Jim Martin’s Secret,” features Martin, while he was head of the state Department of Human Resources, trying to explain why many state workers were “twiddling their thumbs” because of a fractious computer system.
Oh, and the reporter was a fellow named Dale Cardwell.
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The slight upside to an examination of Obama and his pastor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Republican strategist in Georgia who was thinking deep thoughts on Sunday night came up with this:
Yes, last week’s tumult over Barack Obama was painful and messy for the Democratic presidential candidate.
But by debating Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, his controversial, now former pastor, voters were required to set aside as false all those Internet-based rumors and insinuations that the candidate is a secret follower of Islam.
“No one is going into the booth in November thinking the guy is a Muslim,” our deep thinker said.
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There are back-door increases that must be stopped, and then there are back-door increases that just make sense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The gods of irony are working overtime at your state Capitol.
On one hand, we’ve got a proposed constitutional amendment to put a cap on property taxes levied by local governments. Last week, a Senate committee moved the measure closer to a floor vote by the chamber, minus a provision eliminating the car tag tax approved by the House.
Why cap property taxes? Lawmakers say they want to do away with the back-door tax hikes that come with ever-rising appraisals — never mind the current housing slump. “If local officials want to raise taxes, they should have to do it openly and honestly,” Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter said.
On the other hand, back-door increases in the amount people with large wallets can give to candidates for state office are perfectly fine. Republicans have discovered a neglected cost-of-living trigger in a state campaign finance law written by Democrats.
Adjusted for inflation, the amount a single donor can contribute to a candidate for statewide office has increased from $13,000 in 2006 to $15,300 in 2008. The amount candidates for the state Legislature can accept has increased from $5,000 to $5,800.
Go figure.
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