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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Senate Republicans elect new leaders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Can’t walk out the door without mentioning that Republicans in the state Senate elected a new slate of leaders on Tuesday. State Sen. Tommie Williams of Lyons was nominated as Senate president pro tem, the ranking member of the chamber — a position now held by Eric Johnson of Savannah.
The position must be approved by a vote of the entire Senate. Johnson is bowing out to make a 2010 run for lieutenant governor.
Chip Rogers of Woodstock replaces Williams as Senate majority leader. Mitch Seabaugh of Sharpsburg remains majority whip and Dan Moody of Alpharetta was re-elected caucus chairman.
Senate Democrats gather to elect their leaders on Wednesday.
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Shirley Franklin joins the ranks of the Great Mentionables
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amid pressure on the incoming president to begin naming women to his Cabinet, the Washington Post’s “In The Loop” column on Tuesday rolled out a half-dozen names, not counting Hillary Clinton. Among the mentioned: Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin as a possible secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
U.S. News & World Report had her in the same box last week. Literally.
We’ve been told Franklin has no interest in Washington — but if she left before her term runs out, she’d throw the ’09 race for mayor of Atlanta into a cocked hat.
On the day after the election of Barack Obama, Eric Stirgus, the AJC’s City Hall reporter, asked Franklin whether she intended to shift her abode to D.C. She reminded him of how, in her 2001 campaign, she compared herself to late-innings pitcher (now and again, anyway) John Smoltz.
“I’m going to be here to close this deal on my term,” she said.
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Burkhalter, Cagle say homestead grants to be restored — this year
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A ranking House member and the lieutenant governor on Tuesday told a group of metro Atlanta mayors that they intend to restore $429 million in state-paid property tax grants that are supposed to be passed down to homeowners.
At least this year.
Gov. Sonny Perdue this summer suspended the grants to cope with sharp budget shortfalls and a foundering state economy.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter (R-John’s Creek) were featured speakers at a gathering of the Metro Atlanta Mayors Association at East Lake Golf Club in DeKalb County.
Burkhalter called the grants “tempting, low-hanging fruit,” but said the House would abide by its commitment to the tax breaks, made last session. Cities, counties and school boards have complained that the suspension will force them to raise taxes in their communities.
The House leader conceded that the grants aren’t particularly popular in the Legislature. “Politicians like to get credit for things they do. And this is one of those tax cuts that was passed through Roy Barnes’ administration, and many in the General Assembly feel like we don’t get any credit for it,” Burkhalter said. But he also called the tax breaks “well-deserved.”
Otherwise, the No. 2 ranking House member said, Georgians should expect no tax cuts. “We don’t have the money for that,” he said.
Burkhalter told the mayors that the House leadership will try and revive failed 2007 legislation that would allow local governments to approve a new 1 percent sales tax to pay for transportation projects.
When asked by one mayor if that’s the same as a tax increase, Burkhalter replied: “We’re not going to raise taxes. Voters decide on their own if they want to invest — not spend, but invest — money in the infrastructure. Politically there’s not the will — and there shouldn’t be the will — to raise taxes.”
The Georgia Municipal Association was the organization that walked point when battling House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s effort to abolish property taxes last year. Interestingly, Burkhalter urged mayors at the meeting to come lobby the Legislature as individuals.
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Why Romney and Huckabee won’t be in Georgia at the same time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mitt Romney has confirmed what you read here this morning — that he’ll be down here to campaign for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
This from the Boston Globe:
Romney — the former Massachusetts governor who sought the Republican presidential nomination this year and could well do so again in 2012 — plans to appear at rallies on Friday in Atlanta and Savannah, as well as at a series of private event fundraisers.
His political action committee, Free and Strong America, has already given Chambliss $5,000 to aid his runoff campaign against Democrat Jim Martin after giving him $2,300 during the fall campaign.
Politico uses the same canned quotes:
“This is a critical election whose outcome will be important to maintaining a balance of power in the Senate,” Romney said in a statement. “It is critical that Republicans safely retain the ability to filibuster in order to prevent the worst abuses of single party rule.”
Romney will be the third former GOP presidential candidate to make the trip to Georgia. The first was John McCain. Mike Huckabee appeared over the weekend.
There’s a reason that at least two of them didn’t appear together. Huckabee has a new book, Politico points out, that says this about his primary opponent:
Romney, Huckabee, writes, was “anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president.” At another point, Huckabee portrays a Romney proposal to encourage more investment in the market as, “Let them eat stocks!”
…. Asked to respond, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Huckabee was acting small. “This type of pettiness is beneath Mike Huckabee,” Fehrnstrom [said]. “If we’re going to move the party forward, we need to offer more than personal recriminations. Unfortunately, in this book, Mike Huckabee is consumed with presumed slights, and he seems more interested in settling scores than in bringing people together.”
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A guide to the prevention of nuclear terrorism
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This afternoon, the Nuclear Threat Initiative published a thick to-do list for the Barack Obama administration — a guide, if you will, to avoiding the holocaust of nuclear terrorism.
NTI is the group co-chaired by CNN founder Ted Turner and former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, who is now an informal advisor to the Obama transition team. Which means Nunn’s priorities could reflect those of the new president. Or vice versa.
You can click here to read an 18-page executive summary of “Securing the Bomb 2008.” Or read the entire report on the NTI web site. But don’t read either in bed. You’ll never sleep again.
Mundane things first: The report notes the failure of the Bush administration to assign a specific individual in the White House to address nuclear terrorism.
“The president who takes office in January 2009 should appoint a senior White House official who has the president’s ear — probably a deputy national security advisor, though the title would depend on the person and the structure of the [National Security Council],” the report recommends.
That person would not be Nunn, we’re assured.
Now for the stuff of night sweats. These are just a few excerpts:
— [The next president] “should intensify programs to work with countries around the world to build strong security cultures, putting an end to staff propping open security doors for convenience or guards patrolling with no ammunition in their guns.” Who knew that nuclear sites and shopping malls used the same security service?
— “The best chances to stop [a nuclear terrorist plot against the U.S.] lie not in exotic new detection technologies but in a broad counter-terrorist effort, ranging from intelligence and other operations to target high-capability terrorist groups to addressing the anti-American hatred that makes recruiting and fund-raising easier, and makes it more difficult for other governments to cooperate with the United States.
“In particular, the United States should work with governments and non-government institutions in the Islamic world to build a consensus that slaughter on a nuclear scale is profoundly wrong under Islamic laws and traditions (and those of other faiths)….”
— “The United States should also put in place the best practicable means for identifying the source of any nuclear attack — including not just nuclear forensics but also traditional intelligence and law enforcement means — and announce that the United States will treat any terrorist nuclear attack using material consciously provided by a state as an attack by that state, and will respond accordingly…..Policymakers should understand, however, that nuclear material has no DNA that can provide an absolute match.”
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Both candidates balk at U.S. Senate runoff debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know that U.S. Senate debate planned for this Sunday — the one with PBS’ Judy Woodruff as moderator?
It just got very iffy.
The Democratic campaign of Jim Martin just announced that former Vice President Al Gore will be campaigning with Martin that day.
“That scheduling conflict will likely prevent Jim from participating in the debate,” spokesman Matt Canter said a few minutes ago.
The Republican campaign of incumbent Saxby Chambliss was also pointing to other commitments this morning, citing a fund-raiser aimed for Sunday. “At this point, the dates and times that have been offered — we have scheduling conflicts,” said spokeswoman Michelle Grasso.
Grasso said the 14 days remaining before the runoff have become doubly valuable for Chambliss, since a lame-duck session of Congress has required his presence in Washington.
Lauri Strauss is executive director of the Atlanta Press Club, which is sponsoring the Senate runoff debate and two others. Strauss said the organization isn’t giving up on Martin and Chambliss, although this Sunday is the only day the event can be taped at GPTV studios on 14th Street.
Neither campaign appear exceptionally eager to engage in Sunday’s confrontation.
And avoidance is to be expected from a front-runner. Usually, demands for a one-on-one appearance come from the fellow who’s behind.
The absence of that insistence could be a sign that both Martin and Chambliss think the game’s within reach — and that a Sunday debate, hours before voters shut down for a long Thanksgiving holiday, isn’t worth the risk.
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Of Vernon Jones and his opinion of former opponent Jim Martin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know that the transition of CEOs in DeKalb County has become a rather noisy thing.
But Vernon Jones, the outgoing head of DeKalb government, is also pulling a Dylan Thomas when it comes to the U.S. Senate race.
Jones, defeated by Jim Martin in the Democratic runoff in August, has declined to endorse his former opponent in a close contest against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Jones has labeled Martin a hypocrite for inviting President-elect Barack Obama to come to Georgia to boost his Senate campaign — because Martin didn’t vote for Obama in the presidential primary. Martin opted instead for Democrat John Edwards, who had already dropped out of the race.
“Jim Martin did not want Obama to be president, but now wants he wants Obama to come down and help him get into the U.S. Senate,” Jones told my AJC colleague Jim Tharpe in an interview on Monday. “He wouldn’t vote for the man, and now he wants the man to come down and get him out of trouble.
“He [Martin] could not come to grips with voting for an African-American for president,” Jones said. “And he couldn’t come to grips with voting for a woman [Hillary Clinton]. So he voted for a man who was not even running for president.
“He voted for a man who had an affair and not an African-American who is married with two beautiful children,” Jones said.
The DeKalb County CEO himself got into hot water with the Obama campaign during the Democratic primary, with a campaign mailer bearing an altered image of himself standing next to Obama in front of a campaign crowd. Jones said no deception was intended.
But Obama called Jones out on the flyer during a visit to Atlanta, and declared that he only knew the DeKalb CEO as someone who voted twice for George W. Bush.
The Martin campaign refused to be drawn into any post-primary debate with Jones — not 14 days before a general election runoff.
“We wish Mr. Jones well,” Martin spokesman Matt Canter said Monday. “If he wants six more years of Georgia jobs getting shipped overseas, higher health care costs, and higher taxes for working families, that’s his prerogative. Jim Martin will work with President Obama to fix the economy for middle-class Georgia families, Saxby Chambliss has pledged to obstruct Obama’s economic recovery efforts.”
Jones said he has not endorsed anyone in the race and was evasive when asked who would get his vote.
“My vote will be cast when I get to the ballot box,” Jones said.
Martin’s other Democratic primary opponents have endorsed Martin’s candidacy with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Josh Lanier of Statesboro has hosted two campaign events for Martin. Rand Knight and Dale Cardwell have endorsed Martin, but have not been actively involved in his campaign.
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They call it counter-programming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know how, during the Super Bowl, a network like TBS will usually put up a chick flick? Saxby Chambliss is doing something like that.
Late Wednesday afternoon, most TV cameras will be at Clark Atlanta University, watching former President Bill Clinton try to stir up voters for Jim Martin, the Democrat in the U.S. Senate runoff.
In that same time slot, Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, has scheduled his own rally down in Perry. It will feature Wayne LaPierre, top executive for the National Rifle Association. The NRA has endorsed the senator’s re-election.
The Chambliss campaign also announced this morning that former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will be featured at two events on Friday — one in Atlanta, and another in Savannah.
Also heard that Fred Thompson is featured on a round of robo-calls that started last night for Chambliss, but it’s unclear who’s footing the bill for that.
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The devilish runoff comes down to Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clearly a victim of campaign withdrawal, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” skipped through the three remaining U.S. Senate races in Minnesota, Alaska — and Georgia.
It’s worth listening to if you can turn the sound low enough in your cubicle. The good news: U.S. Rep. Paul Broun doesn’t rate a mention.
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