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Thursday, August 14, 2008
On the timing of Chambliss’ video on the Fair Tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss has just posted a YouTube video in which he backs the Fair Tax.
The timing is a tad curious, and could mesh neatly with the politics of local talk radio. On Monday, Chambliss found himself skewered on WSB (750AM) by syndicated host Neal Boortz, for his leadership on a bipartisan energy bill in the Senate.
Chambliss endorsed the Fair Tax well over a year ago, so his support isn’t exactly news. But Boortz is the high priest of the national sales tax in Georgia, and has co-authored books on the topic with U.S. Rep. John Linder.
You have to wonder if this YouTube video might be intended to remind Boortz’ followers that he’s not against them — or their hero — on every issue.
Click on the image below to watch:
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How much would you have paid to learn about John Edwards? And to whom?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before you judge the mainstream media too harshly for its reluctance to tackle the John Edwards story, listen to what Sharon Waxman says.
In the MSM world, Waxman was most recently a Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times.
She’s also written for the Washington Post, and even — during some foot-loose years in Paris — for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Waxman still writes out of Los Angeles and posted this observation about the John Edwards story on her blog:
Here’s what I’ve learned over the years about tabloid journalism: it is usually the principals involved who provide the crucial details, for money. That’s why the information is so often on the nose.
How does the News of the World manage to be there just when Michael Jackson or Elizabeth Taylor leaves their plastic surgery appointment? It’s not by chance. Usually the doctor tips them off. Sometimes they even have the celebrity’s agreement.
My guess is that there is a simple reason why the mainstream media is unable to confirm the Edwards-Hunter affair during these past weeks. Because very few people knew what had been going on. Edwards’ staff didn’t know. Elizabeth Edwards didn’t know. The group may have been as small as three: Edwards, Hunter and her pal Bob McGovern.
One of those, in my view (and not Edwards), sold the information….
Last week I spoke to a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer who said he spent five days in Los Angeles trying to confirm any aspect of the Beverly Hilton story. He came up with nothing. Zero. Zilch.
Not because he wasn’t trying. Because without a checkbook, the Raleigh News & Observer was not going to be let into the world of Rielle Hunter.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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On the Obama blueprint for winning Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The people behind Barack Obama’s Georgia campaign on Thursday laid out what they called the broad outlines of their plan for winning Georgia.
The conference call with reporters was advertised as a discussion of the “blueprint” for winning a state that participants insisted was “very, very, very” much at play.
Alas, when it came to details, the telephone press conference produced no blueprint. Only something like a sketch on a paper napkin. No measurable word about TV advertising or benchmarks or resources invested — whether in the form of cash or bodies.
The Obama campaign has shown great talent for message discipline. No stray facts escaped.
National political director Patrick Gaspard, Georgia campaign director Antwaun Griffin and state Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) all touted their goal of mobilizing thousands of volunteers into a synchronized system of “neighborhood teams” that they believe can deliver the state’s 15 electoral votes to a Democrat for the first time since 1992.
The Insider listened in. My AJC colleague Aaron Sheinin performed the hopeless task of asking questions.
“This is a campaign that’s driven by grass-roots and community activism,” Griffin said. “Folks are used to statewide campaigns here. I hear from people on the ground to get outside metro Atlanta. We’re building volunteer capacity across the state.”
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A footnote from the religious wars of the Republican primary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since religion and politics is likely to be the popular topic this weekend, what with John McCain and Barack Obama having a joint appearance at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California, it might be worth your while to click to this roundtable discussion on the topic offered by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
One of the participants was Mark DeMoss, the Christian publicist from Gwinnett County who acted as the liaison to Southern evangelicals for Mitt Romney during the GOP primary contest. DeMoss identifies former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist, as a key factor in Romney’s defeat, which still stings.
Says DeMoss:
”I agree with those who say, your faith is important and it defines you. But I don’t think faith should be a calling card in political races. For example, [former] Gov. [Mike] Huckabee ran an ad in South Carolina before the primary there that identified him as a Christian leader. And he said, my faith defines me, it’s who I am, and so on. I agree with that as a Christian.
“He didn’t run that ad in Michigan; he didn’t run that ad in Florida. If your faith defines you, it defines you in all 50 states or it doesn’t define you at all, in my view. That’s what I’m troubled by - that faith becomes a political football or a calling card in whose faith is better.”
Photo credit: Nick Arroyo/AJC
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Of Ralph Reed, inside and outside Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When it comes to Ralph Reed, Georgia is somewhat different from the rest of the nation.
Outside the state, Reed is a caricature of the Christian Right and all the phases of its relationship with the national Republican party, from the 1994 revolution to the 2006 conviction of Jack Abramoff.
But in Georgia, despite his fall from grace in Washington, Reed retains a significant following — 44 percent of all state GOP voters, as of two summers ago — that still can make a difference in local politics.
Remember that Reed served as chairman of the state Republican party. That counts for much. It adds a reality-based, third dimension to any cartoonish portraits.
Which is why Jamie Reynolds III, chairman of John McCain’s Georgia finance committee, probably did ask Reed to raise cash for the Republican nominee’s fund-raiser in Atlanta on Monday.
This is, in fact, evidence that McCain and his campaign organizers have seen — or should have seen — this coming, this convergence of McCain’s ambition and Reed’s need to reassert his place in the GOP. One does not ask for the help of Reynolds, a long-time supporter and friend to George W. Bush, without knowing that Reed will be involved as well.
Republicans in Georgia have few qualms about having Reed in their midst. In today’s Savannah Morning News, Larry Peterson reports that Reed will be a featured speaker at the upcoming GOP fund-raiser in Savannah on Sept. 27. Organizers are looking for 1,000 attendees at $80 a pop.
According to Peterson, local GOP chairman Frank Murray says this about Reed:
“He was never convicted of anything,” Murray said. “He was never even charged. We try to invite people who will draw a crowd, who are good speakers and are good Republicans.”
Murray said he briefly reviewed the [Senate Indian Affairs] committee report and was not convinced that Reed did anything wrong.
When paired with political necessity, memories are darned perishable things. The expiration date is always two weeks ago.
The same Morning News article includes Steve Croy, a heavyweight Republican fund-raiser down Savannah way. Croy, a part of the Georgia team for McCain, told Peterson he was “only vaguely aware of the Reed-Abramoff link.”
Croy was the chief fund-raiser for Casey Cagle in the state senator’s successful Republican campaign for lieutenant governor in 2006.
That means Croy raised the money that Cagle used to successfully bury Reed in an avalanche of mailers and TV spots built around the former Christian Coalition leader’s association with a corrupt Washington lobbyist.
Photo credit: The Associated Press
