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Monday, November 17, 2008
Judy Woodruff to moderate Senate runoff debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Press Club just announced that Judy Woodruff with PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” has agreed to moderate this Sunday’s televised U.S. Senate runoff debate between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin.
C-SPAN has expressed interest in broadcasting the confrontation as well.
Here’s the rub: While neither candidate has ruled out participation in the debate, neither has ruled it in, said Lauri Strauss, the press club’s executive director.
Right now, plans call for the debate to be taped at GPTV studios on Sunday afternoon, then aired at 7 p.m. A C-SPAN broadcast would come sometime afterwards, Strauss said.
Woodruff got her start in TV journalism in Atlanta — first as a “weather girl” for WQXI, then as a state Capitol reporter for WAGA. As with many Atlanta journalists, the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter served as her entree into Washington politics.
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Of glass houses built on marshland
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember just last week, when Gov. Sonny Perdue seized the moral high ground in the water war with Florida? He was in Miami for a meeting of the Republican Governors Association.
In Georgia, “you have a … pristine undeveloped coastline with marshes there that people love to look out on,” our governor said. “And then I come to Florida and I see the developed coastline all the way around from Jacksonville all the way up to Tallahassee, I really wonder how we can be preached at as Georgians over environmentalism and water.”
This is the problem with elaborate moral defenseworks. The ground can shift so easily from under.
On Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 5 to 2 in favor of a developer who has proposed building the largest marina complex on the Georgia coast near the Cumberland Island National Seashore.
Meanwhile, in the last 48 hours, Georgia Conservation Voters has issued an alert about a new project that has sprung up further north, in coastal Liberty County. Nearly 10,000 single-family homes are planned for a 10,000-acres swath. One Republican wag up this way called it the equivalent of moving east Cobb County to the Georgia coast.
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The 2009 session of Legislature just started. And election season isn’t over.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta) today “pre-filed” H.R. 1, which would cap the rate at which property taxes can rise.
State Rep. Kevin Levitas (D-Atlanta) was close on his heels, but took the issue one degree further with a proposal to freeze property taxes at the moment of purchase.
My AJC colleague James Salzer has the details.
Two significant things about the Lindsey bill.
First, there’s usually a race among legislators for that bill number. And it’s usually won by Bobby Franklin, a Cobb County Republican who sponsors anti-abortion legislation.
Secondly, Speaker Glenn Richardson and Majority Leader Jerry Keen are backing Lindsey’s measure — which could serve as cover for House members who vote in favor of repealing property tax rebates handed down by state government over the past few years.
The state Senate passed a similar measure this spring. The Legislature convenes on Jan. 12.
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The Georgia Supreme Court goes Oprah on us — and wants to talk relationships
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In what it claims as a first, the Georgia Supreme Court this week will co-host a two-day national summit on the institution of marriage.
According to the press release, “summit topics will range from helping marriages survive in our debt culture to turning around the crisis in the culture of African-American marriage.”
Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and Gov. Sonny Perdue will offer opening remarks on Wednesday.
Speakers include Linda Malone-Colon, an expert on marital relationships among African-Americans and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, the author of “The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitment to Marriage and Family” and “Why There Are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman.”
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Clinton event at Clark Atlanta University; Brazile to act as Martin advisor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We now know the place and the approximate time of the Wednesday visit by President Bill Clinton on behalf of Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate runoff.
The place is Vivian W. Henderson Gymnasium at Clark Atlanta University. That, and news that Democratic strategist Donna Brazile of Louisiana is headed this way to advise the Martin campaign, bespeaks a strategic emphasis on turning out African-American voters on Dec. 2, rather than trying to poach disaffected Republicans.
Doors for the Clinton event open at 4 p.m. No word yet on when the actual program starts. Last week, the Saxby Chambliss rally opened at the same time. But former Republican presidential nominee John McCain didn’t show until 5:30 p.m.
UPDATE: The state Democratic party has just put out a warning that, while the event is free, it “strongly recommends” that tickets should be obtained before hand. Locations for ticket distribution are on the jump.
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DeKalb County
2752 E. Ponce De Leon
Suite G
Decatur, GA 30030
Clayton County
2745 Mount Zion Road
Jonesboro, GA 30206
Fulton County
Morris Brown Office
643 Martin Luther King Drive
Atlanta, GA 30309
Fulton County
1020 Woodstock Road
Suite 2108
Roswell, GA 30075
Cobb County
1200 Cobb Parkway N.
Suite 700
Marietta, GA 30062
Gwinnett County
3245 Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
Those interested in attending may also RSVP at http://www.martinforsenate.com/rsvp_billclinton.html
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Stone throwing: Rocks pitched at the NRCC are pitched right back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Nov. 4, Republican John Stone picked up only 34 percent of the vote against U.S. Rep. John Barrow, the incumbent Democrat from Savannah.
Stone put the blame squarely on Washington and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
He accused the NRCC of continuing a “failed strategy” of favoring incumbents over challengers and “basing their support strictly on dollars raised, undermining dozens of competitive campaigns like ours across the country.”
As of Oct. 15, Stone had raised $297,000 to Barrow’s $2.1 million.
Said Stone on his campaign web site:
NRCC then spread the message to Washington conservative groups that the GA12 race was “not winnable,” leading to many formerly Republican-friendly organizations’ endorsement of liberal Democrat John Barrow, in an effort to curry favor from Democrats in the belief the endorsement was a cost-free political give-away.
Barrow ended his campaign with a week-long DCCC media blitz of ads featuring an endorsement by NRA President Chris Cox. NRCC provided no support for Stone, leading to the large loss margin that will continue to mislead donors as to whether the 12th District seat is winnable in the future.
Stone received something of a reply to his accusations this morning, in a Roll Call article by political strategist Stuart Rothenberg.
The title of the piece is “Even in a Wave, Some Get Just What They Deserve.”
Of Stone, Rothenberg writes:
Then there is Republican John Stone, a conservative activist and former Congressional staffer, who got slightly more than one-third of the vote in Georgia’s 12th district and blamed his loss to incumbent Rep. John Barrow (D) on the NRCC.
Stone’s own fund-raising stunk, and he had no chance in the current environment to win in a 45 percent African-American district that was carried by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) four years ago. But that didn’t stop him from trying to avoid responsibility for his own failure.
Stone has already announced his candidacy for 2010. No doubt he’ll have the complete and utter backing of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
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