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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Georgia gives Obama 82 and Clinton 18
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — Georgia’s delegation cast 82 votes for Barack Obama and 18 for Hillary Clinton, Jane Kidd and Shirley Franklin announced from the floor of the Pepsi Center.
Georgia actually had 102 votes to give, meaning two delegates did not cast ballots.
The delegation came into the convention with 27 pledged votes for Clinton meaning nine delegates didn’t follow through.
Georgia was called on by Alice Travis Germond, the secretary of the Democratic Party, who is leading the roll call.
“Georgia, the state where I was born,” Germond said, “you have 102 votes, how do you cast them?”
Kidd went first:
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Democrats and friends, we bring you greetings from the great state of Georgia, the 13th state in our Union, birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., home today of those who carry on his great and endearing legacy. Leaders like the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Congressman John Lewis. Where we acclaim and cherish our statesmen who have led our nation with wise and steady hands. Statesmen like President Jimmy Carter and Sam Nunn.”
Then, Franklin drove it home:
“And where we look to the future and optimistic days because Georgia knows that hope is on the horizon and our future is bright, indeed. Madam chairman, we, the Empire State of the South, the Jewel of the South, the great state of Georgia, is proud to cast 18 votes for Senator Hillary Clinton and 82 votes for the next president of the United States, Senator Barack Obama!”
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Kidd, Franklin to cast Ga. votes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — When — or if — Georgia’s delegation announces where its 102 votes go, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and state Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kidd will do the honors.
Like all of the delegations, Georgia’s has been casting ballots for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton today. While it’s a fact that Obama will be the nominee, the most recent plan has the convention going to a roll call vote this evening to officially settle the matter.
As this is written, Clinton’s been nominated and seconded from the floor, and Obama is getting his now.
There’s some speculation that Clinton herself will move to close the voting and nominate Obama by acclimation. But if that doesn’t happen, the roll call starts soon. It goes in alphabetical order by state and territory.
When it’s their turn, Kidd and Franklin will give the tally. It’s that classic convention moment, you know, when someone from each state says, “The great state of Georgia, blah, blah blah.”
That’s how Kidd described it earlier today.
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An ex-POW from east Cobb to open the GOP convention with a prayer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Attorney Craig Dowdy, who was the money man for Mike Huckabee in Georgia, says that the pastor of St. Peter and St. Paul Episcopal Church in east Cobb County will deliver the Tuesday night prayer to start the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
The Rev. Robert Certain was formerly rector for Gerald Ford’s church in California, and was the presiding minister at the former president’s several funerals.
Certain is a retired Air Force colonel, and was a B-52 navigator when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. He, like Republican presidential candidate John McCain, is a former POW and occupant of the Hanoi Hilton.
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Speaking of rappers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — Big Boi, one half of the Grammy winning hip hop duo Outkast, is here for the Democratic National Convention.
Big Boi is anchoring a series of webisodes for Interactive One, an online platform for African-Americans. You can check out his interviews at the NewsOne.com site.
In a brief interview, Big Boi said he’s been going into different neighborhoods, talking to celebrities and public figures about the convention and Barack Obama.
As for his own thoughts, Big Boi said Denver this week is one big smorgasboard of the American experience.
“The convention is great, so many people out there, different colors and religions,” he said. “Everyone has a good spirit of it. (Obama) take it all the way, really. From the many supporters out here who back him and believe in his message — he’s a powerful speaker and he’s not the same old Washington.”
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Porter gets his Nelly on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — When Stephen Porter scored tickets to a benefit concert by rap-pop artist Nelly at the Democratic National Convention, he took along an unlikely fan of the genre: His father Georgia House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin).
The elder Porter did not embarrass the younger, Stephen Porter, 23, said.
“He could maybe work on his dance moves, though,” he said.
The concert was part of the MySpace IMPACT and Impact Film Festival event, which included a tribute to the Screen Actors Guild.
DuBose Porter said today that the show was terrific and, with a straight face, said an important economic development mission.
“With the impact hip-hop and R&B have on the Georgia economy, it was good to learn more about it,” he said.
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Voting under way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — Voting for the Democratic presidential nomination has begun.
Georgia delegates, along with delegations from around the country, received a ballot this morning that asks them to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The outcome is not in doubt. Obama will accept the nomination Thursday night. But because Clinton has not released her pledged delegates, the vote is necessary. By Georgia state law, delegates were reminded this morning, if they are pledged to Clinton they must vote for her on this first ballot.
Gregg Bossen, working as a page for the Georgia delegation, said at the state’s breakfast meeting that Clinton has a meeting at 1:15 p.m. today with her delegates. It’s possible, he said, that she will release her people to back Obama. Until then, however, the rules are the rules.
This morning’s ballots will be tallied and the results read at roll call when the convention itself resumes at 3 p.m. Clinton, however, could pre-empt that by releasing her delegates and having Obama nominated by acclimation.
With all the talk about needing to unite the party, today will almost be as important to that as Thursday, when Obama gives his acceptance address.
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Carter: Party will unite
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin — asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — Former President Jimmy Carter told Georgia’s delegation this morning that while the Democratic Party has been divided, that will all change Thursday night.
“Our party has been divided now because we had two formidable, equally balanced and equally attractive candidates,” Carter told a joint breakfast meeting of the Georgia and Alabama delegations. “I would predict to you that by tomorrow night we will have a totally united party.”
Tomorrow night, of course, is when Barack Obama accepts the party’s presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton, the runner-up, did much to help unite the party with her speech to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Carter said.
Carter also challenged Georgia to get to work.
“Above all I want Obama to be the next president,” he said. “But my next hope is that Barack Obama will carry Georgia. And that’s up to you.”
Carter said he knows the danger of a divided party. He called himself “the world’s foremost expert on divided parties. One time to my advantage.”
That time was 1976 when Republicans left their convention split, even though Gerald Ford secured the nomination. A sizable faction backing Ronald Reagan remained to the side and Carter won the presidency that fall.
In 1980, he said, division worked against him.
“Some of you were at that convention when I got the nomination and in front of all the nation’s tv cameras Teddy Kennedy refused to shake my hand,” Carter said. “And from then until November that group of Democrats never gave me their support. Reagan got less than 51 percent but I lost because Democrats didn’t support me from that wing of the party.”
Still, Carter said, “I’m not complaining about that. I have had a good life since then. But I believe that shows I’m the world’s foremost expert on divided parties.”
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Martin makes appearance in Denver
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Aaron Gould Sheinin asheinin@ajc.com
Denver — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin arrived here Tuesday afternoon, saw Hillary Clinton’s speech to Denver and will head back to Georgia this afternoon.
In his 24 hours in the Mile High City, Martin said he wants to show support for the Georgia delegation, but said his focus remains at home.
His campaign, he said in a brief interview before the delegation breakfast, is “about our reaching out to Georgians about our message of standing up for middle class Americans and the impact of the Saxby Chambliss support of President Bush’s policies on working Georgians.”
Martin, who backed former U.S. Sen. John Edwards in the primary, also said he wants to show his support for nominee-to-be Barack Obama, although Martin will not be here for Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday.
When asked if he was also going to try and raise some money from the thousands of Democratic donors here, he said he is “talking to people about our message, principally talking to the Georgia delegation and showing support for the good work they’ve done.”
But, he will also meet today with leaders of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the national party’s campaign arm for Senate candidates. Other Senate candidates from around the country will be there, too, he said.
“There is interest in this campaign across the country,” he said, before adding, “but that’s not the focus of coming up here.”
The DSCC is targeting certain races across the country where they see a chance for Democratic gains. Thus far, the national party has not included Martin’s campaign to unseat Chambliss, the incumbent Republican, as one of those targeted races.
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GOP platform planks carry a few splinters for McCain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While Democrats close in on the apex of their convention this week, Republicans in Minneapolis are still hammering out their platform — which in many ways will be at odds with their presidential candidate.
This from Bloomberg News, via the Denver Post:
Like the 2004 document, this year’s text opposes the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research. McCain supports such research and has said he would reverse Bush’s ban on federal funding to develop treatments using embryonic stem cells.
The 2008 text supports a constitutional amendment “that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it.”
Earlier this month McCain, 71, said that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Still, he supports same-sex civil unions and would let states decide the marriage question.
One prominent Georgian is involved in the GOP process. House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter of north Fulton County, a former Mitt Romney supporter, is chairman of a platform subcommittee responsible for “government reform and spending, including fiscal responsibility and the federal budget, limited government, entitlement reform, domestic disaster response, and related issues.”
So he’ll have the easy stuff. Like the official Republican party position on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
Photo credit: John Spink/AJC
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Barr on ‘Colbert:’ So close to a discussion about global warming, but no cigar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr just finished up on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”
If and when the segment is parsed, we’ll add a video link in this space.
It’s clear that Barr is having an impact in a number of states — including New Hampshire and Colorado, where Zogby polls show him over 10 percent — and could make a difference in others, including Florida.
The problem at Comedy Central is that stuff is always about to get interesting, then veers off. Here’s one exchange:
Colbert: Do you guys believe in global warming?
Barr: Global warming is a fact, but we believe that the market ought to take care of it, not the government.
Colbert: I agree. I say let the market decide what is and isn’t a glacier.
Barr: And if people want to make ice cubes out of it, that’s up to them.
Colbert: Now, you at one point said global warming was not a fact. And then, this summer, you went to one of Al Gore’s …events in Washington, and you came out of it and said that global warming is a reality, as most every organization who has studied the matter has concluded.
What changed your mind about what happened, that weekend?
Barr: Actually, I had a very nice session at Al Gore’s house a few days before that. But that didn’t really change anything. We did have a good cigar, by the way, at his house.
Colbert: You and Al had a good cigar?
Barr: Actually, we did.
Colbert: A different cigar. Not one cigar.
Barr: No…
Colbert: You weren’t working your way toward the center.
Barr: That would be difficult.
Colbert: That would be difficult, but fun to watch…..
Barr did get a plug in about the polling, and concluded with another Zogby stat indicating that 55 percent of Americans think that Barr (and Ralph Nader) should be included in the presidential debates.
