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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Nunn: ‘Not interested’ in a spot in an Obama cabinet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn held a press conference in the downtown Atlanta law offices of King & Spalding on Wednesday. The obvious question was whether he would be serving in a Barack Obama administration, should it come to pass next week.
Nunn was in Virginia with the Democratic presidential candidate last week, and said Obama had made clear that he wouldn’t make any early decisions that presumed victory.
But for himself, Nunn gave an unsurprising answer:
“I’m not interested in going back into government. I’m happy in the private sector, and I’m confident this is where I’m going to stay. But I will be happy to help him, if he asks me, in some sort of advisory capacity. But I have no interest in going back into government.”
But Nunn’s other stray thoughts were more compelling. First, the 70-year-old former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the next president’s first priority would be the economic crisis — which he said defies any strict ideological approach:
”Nobody knows precisely what the answer is today. There’s not any magic formula sitting there waiting. There’s not any magic philosophical position that addresses these financial problems we have. We haven’t been in this territory before.”
It was, he reminded all, the current Republican administration that has introduced the nationalization of banks into the rescue formula.
Nunn said he thought Obama, whom he endorsed this spring, had a chance to carry Georgia, which he said was being transformed from a red to a “purple” state. He said this about the Obama strategy:
”This is one of the most confident campaigns that we have seen in the history of this country. From a financial point of view and from an organizational point of view.
“The Internet has sent us back to the future. When I was campaigning, we had to have headquarters in counties all over Georgia. Guess what? We’re back to that day now. We went through a whole period of time when we said everything was on television or radio. No longer. They’ve have organized campaign headquarters all over Georgia.”
Finally, Nunn got into his decision to back Obama over Republican John McCain. He came within a hair of the territory that retired general Wesley Clark entered earlier this year:
“Senator McCain’s got a lot of experience. And as I’ve said, he’s a strong and courageous individual. I think it comes down to judgment. I’ve seen people that have had tremendous military experience that I really wouldn’t want to be president of the United States. But they deserve all sorts of medals for their military service.
“So Senator McCain has got a lot of experience, but when you look at the two of them on debate[s], when you are basically around them a good bit, and you see which one would have the better judgment, which one would be calmer and cooler and more collected when there’s a real crisis, I come down on Senator Obama’s side on that.”
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David Scott on his black GOP opponent: Honeycutt ‘doesn’t even seem to like us’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Scott is suggesting that Deborah Honeycutt doesn’t like black people.
The Democratic congressman on Wednesday released a blistering radio ad highlighting Honeycutt’s Republican party label and her opposition to Barack Obama.
“Worst of all, Republican Honeycutt doesn’t even seem to like us. And she certainly doesn’t want to be around us,” states a narrator in the ad.
Scott and Honeycutt are both African-American. So are a majority of 13th District voters. The district is also overwhelmingly Democratic.
But Scott supporters worry that many voters aren’t aware of Honeycut’s GOP party affiliation, according to my AJC colleague Ben Smith, who’s been covering the race. They accuse Honeycutt of trying to dupe them into casting ballots for her by veiling her true political leanings in campaign mailers and cable TV ads.
The Scott campaign has already filed a formal complaint against Honeycutt for paying for a flier distributed by a group called “Democrats for Good Government,” instead of putting the flier in her own name.
The radio ad contains remarks Honeycutt made at a recent press conference, when the candidate told reporters she supports John McCain for president, even though most voters in the 13th District probably don’t.
“I would rather be with someone who shares my same values and principles than be with people who might look like me that I have nothing in common with,” says Honeycutt in the ad.
The Honeycutt campaign plans to hold a press conference on Thursday to respond to the ad.
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Allen Buckley and the ‘mysterious memo’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Across the border in the AJC editorial department, columnist Jay Bookman has an item on a “mysterious memo” that could prove interesting.
He writes:
It is the fate of most Libertarian candidates to be ignored. That may not be the fate of Allen Buckley, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate here in Georgia. In fact, if you believe a leaked memo attributed to …. a national Republican polling and research firm with offices in Virgnia and New York, Buckley may be about to hit the big time, drawing the kind of attention that only the big boys get.
He’s got a PDF of the document in question posted on his site.
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CNN/Time: Georgia’s on a razor’s edge — Barr, first-time voters could make the difference
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The latest version of a Georgia-oriented CNN/ Time/ Opinion Research Corporation poll, released just minutes ago, says the presidential contest is balanced on a razor’s edge, and will depend on the very basic question of who will cast a ballot by Tuesday.
Among “likely” Georgia voters — presumably those who are both registered and have a proven track record of participating in elections, the race breaks down as follows:
Republican John McCain: 50%
Democrat Barack Obama: 46%
Libertarian Bob Barr: 3%
However, if the pool of voters is widened to include simply registered voters — which would include first-time voters or those who rarely participate in general elections — then the Georgia vote shifts in Obama’s favor:
McCain: 46%
Obama: 49%
Barr: 4%
In the first scenario, the former Georgia congressman could make the difference in Georgia. Take Barr out of the picture, and McCain jumps up 2 percent among likely voters, giving the Republican a 5-point edge overall. The Barr effect becomes less evident as the pool of voters widens.
The above statistics are based on a poll of 907 voters, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percent.
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The straying of Catholics from the GOP and the abortion issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Los Angeles Times has an excellent op-ed piece on the apparent return of Catholics, who make up a quarter of the U.S. population, to the Democratic fold.
Here’s a taste:
[A]ccording to a recent New York Times/CBS poll, Obama holds a commanding 59% to 31% edge over McCain among Catholics nationwide. What’s significant about that is that at least 50 of the country’s 197 Catholic bishops recently have published articles or given interviews in which they argued that abortion, more than any other issue, ought to determine how members of their flock cast their votes.
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and St. Louis Bishop Robert Hermann have been two of the most forceful voices in this regard, but polls now put Colorado in Obama’s column and have him slightly ahead in Missouri.
What we’re seeing in these three swing states [including Pennsylvania] is the end of the Catholic vote, as conventional political strategists traditionally have expected it to behave — in part because it’s now so large it pretty much looks like the rest of America; in part because of its own internal changes.
National polls have shown for some time that, although Catholics are personally opposed to abortion, they believe it ought to be legal in nearly identical percentages to the rest of America. Moreover, as a survey by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found earlier this year, only 18% of Catholics “strongly” agree with the statement: “In deciding what is morally acceptable, I look to the church teachings and statements by the pope and bishops to form my conscience.”
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Marietta as headquarters for U.S. military’s African Command?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s something completely different: U.S. Reps. Phil Gingrey and Tom Price say that the Pentagon is considering shifting the headquarters for its African Command from Stuttgart, Germany, to the United States, and that Marietta is one of the cities under consideration.
The two Republican congressmen, of course, are pushing Marietta.
This is a portion of a letter they’ve sent Robert Gates, the secretary of defense:
The base in Marietta has a substantial runway network, as well as rail infrastructure that connects it with the Port of Savannah — already a point of shipment for a significant amount of cargo bound for Africa.
Further, given that the facilities in Marietta are presently shared by Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Naval Air Station Atlanta, the Georgia National Guard, and Lockheed Martin, they have long been a model for joint-ness within the Department of Defense, an important and unique characteristic given that AFRICOM will be a joint command and require coordination with many international partners and across numerous government agencies.
With 52 acres of available property adjoining the base, any needed expansion of the facilities would also be possible.
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Robo-calls: Not what they’re saying, but what they should be saying
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Steve Rose, who writes the AJC’s View from the Cop, is annoyed at the robo-calls he’s received. And, because he carries a loaded sidearm, he’s allowed to be funny.
Here’s a taste below. Laugh, or he’ll write you up:
5:58 p.m.
Hi, this is Jim Martin. Saxby Chambliss voted to fund the war in Iraq. He took your money and spent it on the war to appease the war monger George W. Bush. He also re-broadcast the Falcons game without the expressed, written consent of the NFL.
Vote for Jim Martin.
5:58 p.m.
“Hi, this is Saxby Chambliss. Jim Martin voted the largest tax increase in the history of the world and then voted to increase his salary. I’m pretty sure he went wee-wee on the governor’s bushes after that.”
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The technological gap between Republican and Democrat in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Evidence at the house on Tuesday night revealed a huge technological gap between the Republican and Democratic campaign here.
In olden days, Republicans were the first to grasp new thinking — the blending of direct mail and computers, the analysis of voter returns and performance.
What a difference a few presidential cycles can make.
At the house yesterday, the mail carrier brought a flyer paid for by the state Republican party and the U.S. Senate campaign of Saxby Chambliss.
The mailer featured John McCain and Sarah Palin. But basically it was — just seven days before Election Day — an invitation to apply for an absentee ballot that would be mailed to the house. A perforated form was attached. A stamp was required.
With effort, and a great deal of luck, the request and an absentee ballot might make the three-course trip before Nov. 4: The request from the house to the Cobb County voter registrar, a ballot back to the house, which would then have to scurry from the house to the Board of Elections by Tuesday.
So there’s that.
By comparison, at 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, an e-mail came over the BlackBerry from Antwaun Griffin, head of the Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama in Georgia.
Griffin’s message announced that the second stage of early voting had commenced, and that numerous polling stations — not just one — were now open.
The e-mail, which mentioned me by name, gave the address of the nearest polling station, only two miles away, and suggested that I head that way.
The wholesale yet personalized message cost virtually nothing, though the program to match e-mail to address no doubt required much work. No postage required, no dependence on the U.S. Postal Service.
That’s a generational difference.
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