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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Obama cuts an ad to help John Barrow in his primary fight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has taped a radio commercial on behalf of U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, who faces a July 15 primary challenge.
It’s the first case of Obama involving himself in a local race in Georgia.
Details of when the ad will start airing and where it will be broadcast — the 12th District covers much of east Georgia, including portions of Augusta and Savannah — were not immediately available Wednesday.
But the Obama campaign made clear to my colleague Aaron Sheinin that it sees Barrow, a two-term Democrat, as an important ally. We’ve got calls into the Barrow campaign, but haven’t heard from them yet.
“Senator Obama believes that Congressman Barrow has worked hard to bring change that families in his district deserve, and we’ll work hard to help John Barrow win in November,” Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.
In the ad, Obama asks voters to join him in supporting Barrow. “We’re going to need John Barrow back in Congress to help change Washington and get our country back on track,” Obama says in the 60-second ad.
Barrow beat a Republican incumbent in 2004 and had tough GOP opposition in 2006. But this April, Barrow picked up unexpected opposition from Regina Thomas, a well-known African-American state senator based in Savannah. Barrow is white, and In past primaries in the 12th District, black voters have cast nearly 70 percent of the ballots.
Barrow had endorsed Obama in late February, a few weeks after the Illinois senator won the Georgia primary. And within weeks of Thomas joining the race, Barrow, a conservative Democrat, was placed at the top of a list of 14 national co-chairs for Obama’s massive, 50-state voter registration drive — along with the likes of singer Melissa Etheridge and the Rev. Joe Lowery.
Barrow has plenty of cash to make use of the Obama ad. He reported $1.3 million in cash on hand this spring.
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Obama meets with his ‘working group on national security’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential presumptive Barack Obama held his first “senior working group on national security” at the Liaison Hotel in Washington D.C. this afternoon.
Attendees included Madeleine Albright, secretary of state to Bill Clinton; David Boren, the former senator from Oklahoma; Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who co-chaired the Sept. 11 investigative committee; and Richard Danzig, the former secretary of the Navy.
Two experts participated via phone. One was former secretary of state Warren Christopher. The other was former U.S. senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.
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Marshall targeted by Freedom Watch robo-calls on energy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The pro-Republican group Freedom’s Watch is taking aim at U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon and 15 other Democratic members of Congress with a series of robo-calls blaming them for sky-rocketing gasoline prices.
“Shockingly, since gas prices began spinning out of control, Congressman Jim Marshall voted three times against environmentally safe energy production and lower prices,” says the mass message left on answering machines in the 8th Congressional District.
Freedom’s Watch is a non-profit that played in special elections for Congress this spring in both Louisiana and Mississippi. Republicans lost both seats.
This round of robo-calls is the first significant expense the group has incurred here. But Freedom’s Watch could prove an important (but legally distant) ally to Republican Rick Goddard, Marshall’s challenger — because the Republican congressional campaign arm in Washington is extremely short on cash.
In addition to Georgia, districts targeted by the robo-calls are Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It’s worth nothing that, in Georgia, Marshall’s was the only district targeted.
Democrat John Barrow in the 12th District got a pass.
Read the script on the jump.
Photo credit: Rich Addicks/AJC
Hello, this is a GAS PRICE alert from Freedom’s Watch.
Gas prices are up 75% since last year, causing the cost of everything from bread and milk to diapers and airline tickets to skyrocket.
Shockingly, since gas prices began spinning out of control, Congressman Jim Marshall voted three times against environmentally safe energy production and lower prices.
We have enough untapped oil in the U.S. to fuel more than 60 million cars for the next 60 years.
But Jim Marshall keeps standing in the way, and we’re all paying for it.
Call him at 480-946-2411 and tell him to support H.R.3089…
…for more American-made energy and lower gas prices.
Paid for by Freedom’s Watch, 202-379-3742
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The appearance, then disappearance, of Red Chinese oil platforms on the Florida coast
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Politics Unfiltered and Daily Kos have touched on this, but the blogosphere has erupted lately with talk about China erecting oil derrick platforms off the coast of Miami and elsewhere in Florida.
Here’s a brief rundown of the rumor — how it started, and what should be its end this week. If these things ever really end. To wit:
— On May 9, the New York Times published an article on the fact that Cuba had signed lease agreements with several companies, including China — but also including Canada, India and Spain — to drill for oil in its territorial waters.
U.S. companies were invited to bid on the Cuban leases, but could not because of the U.S. trade embargo on the island nation. Read the article here. Also useful is an NYT map showing how U.S. and Cuban waters were divvied up in a 1977 treaty.
— On June 5, a George Will column in the Washington Post, focusing on the need to expand the search for oil in U.S. territories, had this paragraph:
“Drilling is underway 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are.”
— That column, which confused lease agreements with the actual boring of holes on the ocean floor, began much talk. On June 12, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Mel Martinez of Florida, a Republican, placed himself in front of the whirlwind. Martinez saw the rumor as an attempt at an end-run around opposition by Florida’s congressional delegation.
This is from the Miami Herald:
”Reports to the contrary are simply false,” Martinez said…“They are akin to urban legends. China drilling off the coast of Cuba only 60 miles from the Keys, that is not taking place… Any talk of using some fabricated Cuba-China connection as an argument to change U.S. policy has no merit.”
But only minutes later, in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Vice President Dick Cheney jumped in with more gasoline for the fire, or at least unrefined light crude:
“Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. But we’re not doing it. The Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply.”
Several other Republicans immediately picked up the vice president’s message, including U.S. Rep. John Linder, who wrote this for Tuesday’s editions of the Gwinnett Post:
”Floridians oppose drilling 125 miles off shore for fear of a spill harming their beaches. However, China is drilling 50 miles from Key West on behalf of Cuba, which will then sell the oil to China. Why do we want them to have oil we could have?”
— But also on Tuesday, the following correction appeared at the tail end of a George Will column:
In a previous column, I stated that China, in partnership with Cuba, is drilling for oil 60 miles from the Florida coast. While Cuba has partnered with Chinese companies to drill in the Florida Straits, no Chinese company has been involved in Cuba’s oil exploration that close to the United States.
Cheney’s office, citing the error in the Wills column, had already issued a retraction of the vice president’s statement late last week. “It is our understanding that, although Cuba has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is drilling there,” Cheney’s office told the AP.
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A propaganda check-up: Georgia Republicans warn of Jimmy Carter and Obama’s ‘Chicago machine,’ and Max Cleland says Dems need money to stop ‘vile lies’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Within minutes of each other, two fund-raising letters arrived in the Lotus Notes box this morning.
The first was from Sue Everhart, chairman of the state Republican party, waving the stated intentions of the Barack Obama campaign to put Georgia in play this fall.
Wrote Everhart:
The Obama campaign has made it clear that they will do everything in their power to gain Georgia’s 15 electoral votes to secure the presidency.
Jimmy Carter and other Georgia Democrats are doing everything they can to make sure Barack Obama picks up the Peach State.
Jimmy Carter still makes people angry enough to write checks? But not just Carter:
And the out-of-staters will make sure the Georgia Democrats have all the money they need. Obama’s Chicago Machine, Howard Dean’s DNC, MoveOn.org, the Kennedy Juggernaut, and the Hollywood Elites will stop at nothing…
Then came the pitch from former U.S. senator Max Cleland, who has kept a relatively low profile this election cycle, on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:
You and I know better than most what Republicans will do to win elections.
We saw those Swift Boat Veterans impugn the patriotism of John Kerry. And we’ve watched our opponents spread vile lies about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Interesting that by including Clinton, Cleland attempts to keep himself above the current schism between victor and vanquished. And why this work for the DSCC?
[E]very important decision about getting out of Iraq and doing better in Afghanistan goes through the United States Senate.
I know that I want Democrats making those decisions, and I don’t want Republicans getting in the way with another one of their filibusters.
Cleland addresses his 2002 defeat only indirectly:
I’ve seen first hand the worst of what our opponents are capable of. I am committed to never letting it happen again.
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The GOP battle for the 10th District: Shots fired in a cemetery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 10th District congressional primary has gotten more than slightly ghoulish. And brutal.
Republican challenger Barry Fleming of Harlem, in his attempt to oust incumbent U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens, has mailed a flyer to voters dominated by a young girl on her knees in a military cemetery.
Click here for a more detailed image.
Here’s the headline: “When he had the chance to support the families of those killed in Osama bin Laden’s first attack on American soil, Paul Broun said NO.”
The vote referenced has nothing to do with 9/11, but is about compensation for those killed in the attack on U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998.
First, a briefing on the facts. Neutral data on the amendment to the Foreign Service Victims Act, otherwise known as HR 2828, can be found here.
According to Thomas:
— For local employees of the embassies, the measure would provide a “death gratuity” equal to a year’s salary.
— Relatives of U.S. citizens killed in the terrorist attacks would be eligible for $940,000 in compensation.
In his response, Broun said this:
— “ The term ‘on American soil’ stirs up images of New York City and the World Trade Center. But HR 2828 is about the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya - ‘technically’ American soil, although in foreign countries.
— “ HR 2828 requires American taxpayers to pay a ‘death benefit’ of almost $1,000,000 to the survivors of each foreign employee killed in the attacks. Should U.S. citizens be forced to act as insurers for the families of foreigners? Should we establish the precedent of making American taxpayers responsible for the dastardly deeds of terrorists? My opponent obviously thinks so.”
— “Since HR 2828 has zero to do with America military deaths, you can see just how sneaky it was for my opponent to use the photo of a military cemetery!”
Broun also points out that the bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), though he doesn’t explain why this is important.
In rebuttal, the Fleming campaign said this:
— “To claim that this bill does not benefit American families or that America should not help the families of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom is just plain wrong.”
— “Paul Broun claims this ‘has zero to do with America military deaths.’ He could not be more wrong. Three American military personnel — Sgt. Jesse Aliganga with the U.S. Marine Corp[s], Sgt. Kenneth Hobson II with the U.S. Army, and Senior Master Sgt. Sherry Lynn Olds with the U.S. Air Force — were killed in the attack in Kenya. Paul Broun should be ashamed of any comments he or his staff has made to claim that their sacrifice did not matter.”
While the bill was passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House, it has not moved in the Senate, presumably because of questions over issuing nearly $1 million in compensation on behalf of some government employees killed by terrorists, while not offering the same death benefits to personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, who are doing daily battle in a conflict officially called the the War on Terror.
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