Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > August > 29
Friday, August 29, 2008
Cagle and Handel make what could be opening moves in the 2010 race for governor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know that when the unofficial campaign spots begin to appear, the real TV ads can’t be far behind.
Not by coincidence, two Republicans kicking the tires on a race for governor in 2010 — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Karen Handel — launched good-government programs this week.
Let’s first take Cagle, who is expected to file the paperwork for his campaign next week. His new pet program is intended to sniff out waste in state government.
The lieutenant governor has created a web site, www.cutwaste.org, that promises confidentiality to those who report bosses who don’t show up until 11 a.m., or workers who use state cars to conduct personal business.
The campaign comes with its own public service ad, which features Cagle. Excellent for name recognition purposes. See it below.
Now, you’ll remember that back in 2004, Secretary of State Cathy Cox was prepping for a Democratic run for governor. And she just happened to make herself the star of a $3 million prime-time TV advertising campaign that warned Georgia’s elderly about scamsters after their retirement money.
The money came from a court settlement of a lawsuit against investment firms, but Cox was roundly criticized for using public money to increase her presence in the minds of voters.
Interestingly, the announcement of Cagle’s effort contained this:
“These advertisements are funded exclusively by voluntary donations from private citizens and businesses. They will continue running for the remainder of this year, in an effort to identify new ways for state and local governments to save funds in the face of severe budget shortfalls. “
Handel’s efforts are more modest. She, too, has a web site. But no television presence.
She has launched a “transparency in government” program on the Internet, which she says will permit citizens to track every dollar spent by her department, and every dollar in campaign contributions she accepts.
“Responsible fiscal management begins with a commitment to transparency and accountability,” Handel said. “Georgia taxpayers deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent, and I am pleased to provide them with that information.”
But one can also look at this web site and see a future candidate for governor. Again, Cathy Cox, Handel’s Democratic predecessor, is the reason.
Cox entered the 2006 Democratic primary at a financial disadvantage, in part because she took her duties as supervisor of state elections seriously, and curtailed her fund-raising until she fell seriously behind Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.
Handel’s web site may be serving notice that she doesn’t intend to follow Cox’s example, but also knows that, as guardian of the state’s voting process, she’ll need to keep everything above board.
Photo credit: Kimberly Smith/AJC
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment |
Blogwatch: ‘Dan Quayle was more qualified’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amy Morton, the Democratic blogger from Macon, just called from Denver, where she’s still kicking around.
Morton said she polled Democratic women in the lobby as they were checking out about Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.
Morton said McCain’s mistaken if he thinks he can lure Hillary Clinton supporters and satisfy his Christian conservative base with a single choice.
The title of her post : “Dan Quayle was more qualified.”
With this choice, McCain stuck a pacifier in the mouth of his party’s most radical factions and demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of what female voters value.
Women I have spoken to in Denver, many who were Clintonites, have said McCain’s choice is flatly insulting to women. It’s the first thing out of their mouth.
The second thing they say is what poor judgment McCain has shown with this pick. In her speech, Palin was giving her resume, highlighting her run for city council and Mayor of a city of 8,500. So, that’s like Gray or Forsyth.
That said, another prominent Georgia Democrat called close on the heels of Morton. Republicans, he noted, go for unusual vice presidential picks every generation or so.
Twenty years ago it was Quayle. Twenty years before that it was Spiro Agnew.
And while one became the butt of jokes and the other barely escaped prison, they do have one thing in common, he noted. Both Quayle and Agnew were on winning tickets.
Here’s one other thought. You know that Republicans in the Senate are nervous about their prospects, and there’s genuine worry that Democrats could reach the critical 60-senator threshold.
One of the races where Republicans are in trouble is right there in Alaska. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who is under indictment for failing to report some sizeable gifts, easily won his primary this week, but faces a tough November in the form of Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.
Now, as governor, Palin has proven to be no friend of Stevens. She killed the famous “Bridge to Nowhere,” which the senator backed, and has urged him to come clean about his conflicts of interest.
That said, Palin on the ticket could goose GOP turnout in Alaska, and possibly pull Stevens’ chestnuts out of the fire. And the much-feared, anti-GOP avalanche would be one senator lighter.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Post your comment |
Behind a vice-presidential rumor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the end, the Georgia feint toward Mitt Romney didn’t cost John McCain a dime.
The calls started flying first thing Thursday morning. A Georgia printer had received an order for 10,000 bumper-stickers to be shipped immediately to Minnesota, with the message “McCain-Romney.”
Now, here’s the tricky part. The McCain campaign obviously wanted the word out. Yet political printers operate under a code of silence. No candidate wants an opponent to find out how many yard signs he’s just ordered.
But Republicans talk, as Democrats do. So word leaked, and the GOP rumor mill churned through the day, as was intended.
The McCain campaign, we’re told, canceled the order last night. No money ever changed hands, and the bumper-stickers were never printed. But if they had been, the cost would have — say, at 18 cents per — amounted under $2,000 plus shipping.
That’s not too high a price for keeping the lid on your real vice presidential choice.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment |
McCain confirms: He’ll run with Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain has just formally confirmed that he’s picked Sarah Palin, the gun-totin’ first-term governor of Alaska, as his running mate.
So McCain has bet the farm on wooing Hillary Clinton voters away from Democratic rival Barack Obama. And, in a way, the New York senator will get her wish. This November election will be all about her.
Here’s Palin’s official biography from the Alaska state web site.
Five kids, one headed for Iraq. Fervently pro-life, but there’s this Wikipedia paragraph:
Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.
You have to wonder what the base will think of that. But here’s one answer:
Sadie Fields, head of the Georgia Christian Alliance, just called to say she’s excited about Palin.
“I really do think this sends a ripple of excitement through conservative grassroots, who have been pretty disengaged and not energized,” Fields said.
“I’m excited. I think that she is not only a wonderful asset to the ticket, in as much as she’s not afraid to be pretty strong. She’s pro-life, pro-family, likes the freemarket in health care. There’s not much to say about her that isn’t good.
“It also begs the question of why Obama didn’t put Hillary Clinton on the ticket,” Fields said.
Then there’s the fact that Palin played basketball and so did Fields. Palin was a beauty contestant, and so was Fields….
Palin’s got a reputation as something of a reformer in her state, but one focus of Democrats is likely to be a small scandal that broke earlier this month. This from the Anchorage Daily News:
Gov. Sarah Palin has placed one of her aides on paid leave until an investigator finishes looking into accusations her team broke ethics or personnel rules.
The investigation stems from Palin’s July firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan later said he felt pressured by the governor’s office to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, a trooper who had been locked in a child-custody battle with Palin’s sister.
Palin last Wednesday revealed a phone call made by her boards and commissions director, Frank Bailey, to a trooper lieutenant.
In the call, Bailey lists various complaints about Wooten and says the governor and her husband couldn’t understand why he still had a job. The governor admitted the call could be perceived as her office pressuring the Public Safety Department, but says that’s not what actually happened.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Post your comment |
Burkhalter on the GOP platform: When disaster hits, Americans shouldn’t feel abandoned by their government
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Burkhalter got back from Minnesota on Thursday, having helped to hammer out the GOP platform that will be approved during next week’s national convention.
Burkhalter, who is House speaker pro tem in the state Legislature, was chairman of the platform subcommittee that handled fiscal issues and government reform.
The platform is notable for the several instances in which it differs from the positions of Republican nominee John McCain — on civil unions for gay couples, stem cell research, climate change and such.
But the GOP platform, according to Burkhalter, also acknowledges that the Bush Administration botched the handling of Hurricane Katrina, which came ashore three years ago.
Another hurricane, this one called Gustav, is likely to overshadow the first days of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Here’s what Burkhalter had to say about it all:
Insider: Is it significant that the GOP platform and its presidential candidate don’t always line up together?
Burkhalter: The idea of a platform is that it should come from the bottom up, and not the top down. I think the lion’s share of what we came up with is very consistent with John McCain and his positions.
John McCain is Republican, this is a Republican platform report that we came out with. It’s healthy to have a cross section of Republicans who have a lot of ideas to come together. It’s healthy for the party. It’s healthy for John McCain.
Nobody has any apologies for the work product. I’m very proud of it, actually. It’s the most forward-looking, principled platform — and concise platform — we’ve had in a long time. We went from 40,000-plus words down to 20,000. We cut it in half.
Our party changes. It’s not always the same. We’re not the same party we were four years ago, or eight years ago. It changes based on Republicans in all 50 states.
Insider: Do you agree with all of it?
Burkhalter: I certainly voted for it. I don’t think anybody walked out of the room saying I’m 100 percent. But that’s the process. It’s like a budget in the Legislature. You end up voting for something that may not include everything you think is right.
Insider: One of your sections was on disaster response. What does it say? Hurricane Katrina is a big issue, even now.
Burkhalter: We wanted to make it abundantly clear that Americans who become subject to natural disasters should never feel abandoned by their government. Ever again. That’s very important.
We encouraged the federal, state and local governments to coordinate and cooperate better. We also felt like government, in the aftermath of Katrina, was really a hindrance to allowing businesses, non-profits from coming in and facilitating the relief efforts.
Because they had tremendous resources, and they wanted to spend them, but there was a bureaucracy that had a wall around the relief effort.
Insider: Did Americans down there feel abandoned by their government?
Burkhalter: And I think that’s the beauty of our platform. We took areas, I think for the first time ever, as Republicans, and said, ‘We’re not perfect. We’ve made mistakes.’ But we acknowledged those mistakes. And we’re going to get back to our core principles. And we’re going to do better.
Part of my section, front and center, was government reform and spending. I came right out of the gate, and we said, ‘Washington is a failure. The budget process is a fraud.’ But we turned right around and said there is no other issue that this party is more known for than controlling government growth and government spending.
And there’s no issue we should reaffirm our position more on than shrinking the size of government. I think it’s a great, healthy admission that maybe Congress lost its way. And as a result lost the majority.
You can’t fix problems until you acknowledge there was one. …I thought it was beautiful. A lot of people live in this world of denial. They say, ‘Well, you can’t say we made a mistake.’
Absolutely, say it. You poll the average guy on the street. If you know nothing else about Republicans, you know they’re the ones for less taxes. You can’t lose the mainstay of your party. And we’re not going to do that.
Services »
