Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > November > 11
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Paul Broun expresses “regret” for calling Obama a Marxist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens this afternoon expressed regret for calling President-elect Barack Obama a Marxist.
The comments were made during an interview on WGAC radio in Augusta, on “The Austin Rhodes Show.”
Broun said he didn’t mean to call Obama a Marxist, or a dictator. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. The Republican congressman said he was just concerned about some of the Democrat’s “Marxist positions.”
Listen here to the 10-minute sound clip posted by WGAC. But below is a rough, partial transcript of a friendly interview with the Athens congressman — Rhodes is well-known in conservative Republican circles in Georgia.
BROUN: The point that I tried to make when I talked to Ben Evans last night — the AP reporter — was that Barack Obama made this speech back in July. I didn’t even become aware of it until about a week ago.
And it just causes me concern. I know that [Obama] is extremely liberal, he has already had a position that has been pretty much an anti-Second Amendment — in my opinion — position. He says he’s for the Second Amendment, but he still wants to institute gun control. And then he made this speech in Colorado back in July where he said he wants to establish a civilian national security force that’s as strong and as well-funded as the U.S. military.
And the point I’ve made is that I don’t know what that means, and the press has totally given him a pass on this — has not questioned him at all about what his intent is, and that we have seen historically, in totalitarian regimes, we have seen whoever that individual is establish a civilian national security force that’s responsible to that individual….
[Broun again brings up his conversation Monday with Evans, the Associated press reporter.]
BROUN: The point that he was trying to make was that I was accusing Barack Obama of wanting to establish a dictatorship, but nothing could be further from the truth….
[Rhodes asks Broun if he regrets making the calling Obama a Marxist during a Rotary Club meeting over the weekend.]
BROUN: I regret saying it that way. Yes, I do. I apologize to anybody that’s taken offense at that.
The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal, he has promoted a lot of socialistic ideas, and it just makes me concerned.
I’m hoping he’s going to govern differently from the way he’s stating things as a candidate…I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude. I’m not throwing any stones.
RHODES: If you’ll take two-cents worth of free advice, if what you said was a mistake, you need to let the national media know that. I make slips of the tongue all the time — I just don’t want them to hang you out to dry for your heart being in the right place but your mouth going in the wrong direction.
BROUN: Sure. Well, I appreciate that advice.
RHODES: I mean, it’s on the Drudge Report, which means the world is seeing it.
BROUN: I would hope that the press release we sent out accomplishes that. You don’t think that it does?
RHODES: I don’t see where you said you misspoke, the way that you just said that you did.
BROUN: Well, okay.
RHODES: And you may want to be a little more specific about this…
BROUN: In fact, when the lady at the Rotary Club took me to task for saying that Obama was a Marxist, I tried to correct it at that point, and [the Augusta Chronicle reporter] didn’t ever make the point that I made — that I thought that he had a Marxist position on a lot of issues, and I’m just concerned about it.
[Broun and Rhodes both go on to criticize Republican John McCain and his “milktoast” campaign.]
Permalink | Comments (151) | Post your comment |
This time, Sarah Palin has to give Saxby Chambliss a pass
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta-based CNN just sent out a notice that Wolf Blitzer had snared an interview on Wednesday with Sarah Palin, who has resumed her duties as governor of Alaska.
That’s not news in and of itself, except for the locale — Miami, site of the Republican Governors Association.
In other words, on her first East Coast trip as a prospective 2012 presidential candidate, Palin won’t be stopping in Georgia to campaign for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in the U.S. Senate runoff.
After a 10-week absence from Juneau, Palin’s domestic schedule is too crammed — though visit on Chambliss’ behalf could happen closer to the Dec. 2 runoff vote, we’re told. Palin did drop into Atlanta today, by the way. But it was only a 20-minute layover at Hartsfield.
Palin’s former running mate, John McCain, will be in Cobb County on Thursday for Chambliss.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment |
Web-only ads in the Senate race: What campaigns say only to their best friends
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 2008 political season brought us many things, but one of its most enduring gifts may be the web-only campaign video.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee put out this one today, declaring that incumbent Saxby Chambliss’ re-election is required, if we are to escape the “radical social agenda” of Barack Obama and other Democrats.
Working title is “It All Comes Down to Georgia.” The primary function appears to be the generation of campaign contributions.
The audience for a web-only ad is different than one broadcast over TV. As you vegetate on your couch, TiVo-less, you have no control over the what commercials are thrown your way.
But the same can be said for the advertiser, who is not absolutely certain who sits on that couch. He must be careful so as not to offend.
The web-only audience is largely self-choosing and viral, spread by friend-to-friend, usually via e-mail, so there’s a certain guarantee of like-mindedness. Thus Web-only ads can be longer, and more complicated. The commitment of time and interest is assumed.
Two weeks ago, as the general election came to a close, the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Jim Martin launched a two-minute treatise on Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss’ treatment of a witness at a Senate hearing on the explosion of a sugar refinery near Savannah. Much background was required — too much, Democrats appeared to judge — for a 30-second spot.
Web ads can also be sharper in visuals and language because, again, you’re assumed to be speaking to a relatively closed circle of friends.
The NRSC ad above is a good example. Far from acknowledging any feeling of relief or uplift from last week’s election, it begins with the funereal tolling of a bell and a black-and-white Charlie Gibson announcing Obama’s victory. No live video of Obama, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets a few seconds of exposure.
Subtitles are key: “But the liberals aren’t done yet. They need Jim Martin to win Georgia’s runoff election. Higher taxes. Bigger government. Radical social agenda. It all comes down to Georgia. Don’t give Obama a rubberstamp Senate.”
Not a message likely to be aimed at a general audience. At least not right now.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment |
Obama volunteers headed to Georgia for Martin and Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press is reporting that aides who worked in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign are heading to Georgia to help Democrat Jim Martin in a hotly contested Senate runoff.
Quoting two Democrats close to Martin’s campaign, the Associated Press said:
The sources, speaking only on condition of anonymity on a matter of campaign strategy, said the Obama field operatives will help with Martin’s grass roots turnout in the three weeks left before a Dec. 2 runoff against incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. They stressed that the campaign is still staffed primarily with Georgia volunteers.
My AJC colleague Jim Tharpe had something in the same vein this morning:
Obama’s former campaign workers are now assisting Martin in his 25 offices across the state, Martin said. Those ground troops, he said, are more important than big-name politicians for getting voters back to the polls. Some prominent Democrats have volunteered to come down for his campaign, Martin said, without offering specifics.
Also this morning, Blog for Democracy posted a want-ad, seeking local housing for the new Martin volunteers:
We’re getting a large influx of staff from other states to help out with the Jim Martin campaign. If you can house a staffer for a couple of days, or a couple of weeks, please email Dwayne. I’m told the need is urgent. Please spread the word.
Republicans haven’t been idle. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has issued a web-only fund-raising ad, which declares that incumbent Saxby Chambliss’ re-election is required, if we are to escape the “radical social agenda” of Barack Obama and other Democrats.
Former presidential candidate John McCain, scheduled to be here on Thursday, has sent out a relatively non-ideological fund-raising letter to Georgia voters, inviting them to “go on one more mission with me.”
U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), in another fund-raising letter, was less temperate: “We need every resource we can muster to ensure liberals don’t steal the election in Minnesota, and to stop the MoveOn.org’s candidate in Georgia.”
Permalink | Comments (44) | Post your comment |
More on Gingrich and the race for chairman of the RNC
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Times weighs in today on the chairmanship race for the Republican National Committee:
A behind-the-scenes battle to take the reins of the Republican National Committee is taking off between former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele.
Neither man will acknowledge his interest in the post, but Republicans close to each are burning up the phone lines and firing off e-mails to fellow party members in an effort to oust RNC Chairman Mike Duncan in the wake of the second consecutive drubbing of Republican candidates at the polls.
A bevy of backers for each man, neither of whom is an RNC member, say the committee needs a leader who can formulate a counter-agenda to President-elect Barack Obama’s administration and articulate it on the national stage.
The article quotes Randy Evans, Gingrich’s close friend and legal counsel, who was the primary source for a similar piece in this space on Sunday.
On the web site of Human Events, an article authored by Gingrich included these lines:
A number of people have asked me to consider running for Republican National Committee Chair. They have been very flattering, and I am very honored by their support.
However, my job as an American first is to develop a “tri-partisan” approach to developing solutions for the challenges we face.
I use the word “tri-partisan” to designate the concept of attracting Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to solutions that unify most Americans.
Meanwhile, the New York Times includes the following paragraph from Gingrich on the future of the GOP, but doesn’t mention any interest he might have in the RNC chairmanship:
“We need to be honest about the level of failure for the past eight years and why Republican government didn’t succeed,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who has played an increasingly assertive role in the debate over the party’s future. “Otherwise, we’ll get back in power again and do the same things again.”
Permalink | Comments (17) | Post your comment |
A possible Chambliss ad, and weighing a visit from Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Saxby Chambliss campaign has posted a feel-good ad on YouTube that you’re likely to see on TV.
The ad opens with triumphal music and scenes of 9/11, when — though it doesn’t say so — Chambliss was a member of the U.S. House: “When our country was under attack, we trusted Saxby Chambliss.”
The video eventually segues to the current financial crisis: “Now, America faces its toughest challenge in decades, and Saxby Chambliss is fighting for Georgia families again, to get our economy back on track, with protections for taxpayers, relief for homeowners and an end to Wall Street abuses.”
(Update: Though the ad was posted on YouTube last Wednesday, a commenter below notes that it had at least a brief appearance in the Macon area in the general election.)
See it below:
Meanwhile, in the Democratic blogsphere, Jon Flack is wondering if whether a trip to Georgia, to match John McCain’s Thursday visit, would be smart for President-elect Barack Obama:
I would tell him not to come to Georgia. I know that makes me a very bad person, but really there is no upside for him to do so. I’d imagine he is a pretty busy guy right now, and sacrificing some political capital on a Senate race that looks uphill doesn’t strike me as wise. The path to 60 is rocky, if not impossible, and let’s face it folks, we don’t have a good track record lately in state-wide runoffs.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Post your comment |
On the end of ‘the Southern strategy’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sid Cottingham, a Democratic blogger down in Coffee County, points out today’s New York Times announcing the collapse of the South’s influence in presidential politics:
Less than a third of Southern whites voted for [Democrat Barack] Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally.
By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say.
That could spell the end of the so-called Southern strategy, the doctrine that took shape under President Richard M. Nixon in which national elections were won by co-opting Southern whites on racial issues. And the Southernization of American politics — which reached its apogee in the 1990s when many Congressional leaders and President Bill Clinton were from the South — appears to have ended.
“I think that’s absolutely over,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist who argued prophetically that the Democrats could win national elections without the South.
The Republicans, meanwhile, have “become a Southernized party,” said Mr. Schaller, who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party,” he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern.
Merle Black, an expert on the region’s politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said the Republican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere.
“They’ve maxed out on the South,” he said, which has “limited their appeal in the rest of the country.”
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment |
Going home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dad, soon to be 85, left high school early for the Army, five months before Pearl Harbor.
Four of the seven Galloway brothers would scatter themselves across the globe during World War II. But Dad, an airplane mechanic, was the only one to carry a sketchbook.
The cartoonist Bill Mauldin was something of a hero. Lined notebook paper would do in a pinch. Above is a rescued drawing from Dad’s return trip in ‘45. That mountainous lump in the background is the Rock of Gibraltar.
In the upper right hand corner are traces of a laundry list written on the other side —- a brief catalog of one young warrior’s requirements for conquering the world: Four undershirts, four shorts, two handkerchiefs, two dress shirts, four pairs of socks, and two coveralls.
Have a thoughtful Veterans Day.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
