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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Clinton at Clark: He finishes with a defense of Max Cleland
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
6:20 p.m. Former President Bill Clinton just gave a blistering defense of former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, who’s in the crowd.
Cleland was defeated by Republican Saxby Chambliss in 2002.
Clinton made a direct reference to the TV ad campaign run by Chambliss six years ago.
“When I saw someone wanting a Senate seat so bad that he accused Max of endangering the national security of this county,” Clinton said. “But people were afraid. They stopped thinking.”
“Now you’re supposed to be afraid of what you just voted for,” he said.
And with that, Clinton ended his speech, heading to a fund-raiser. And the rest of us are headed for someplace warm.
6:10 p.m. Former President Bill Clinton continued: “This election is essential for the things that you want out of this administration.
“Martin’s the bridge. Chambliss is the firewall. It’s not rocket science,” he said. “I will give his opponent this — he has honestly stated his case.”
6:02 p.m. Former President Bill Clinton and Democrat Jim Martin, the U.S. Senate candidate, just walked out into the chilly sunset on the Clark Atlanta University quad.
Former U.S. senator Max Cleland, who was defeated by Republican Saxby Chambliss in 2002, is also here.
“Saxby Chambliss believes he ought to be the firewall,” Martin said. “Georgia deserves better than that.”
The wind is picking up, and it’s cold. Shouts of “We love you, Bill” are coming from the crowd.
Said Clinton:
“I have an enormous affection for Georgia. Because I like Jim Martin a lot. Because I think his opponent was running on a false premises when he run, and is running on false premises again.
“This country doesn’t need a firewall against the future. It needs a bridge to the future.\
“You can win this thing if you want it bad enough. You just have to decide how bad you want it. Two weeks ago the American people voted for change…”
5:52 p.m.Former President Bill Clinton’s in the building in front, where it’s nice and warm. Three thousand or so very cold people await outside.
5:22 p.m. Here’s a generational difference between Democrats and Republicans right now.
A speaker just asked the crowd at the Jim Martin for U.S. Senate rally to pull out their cell phones. “Everyone put their cell phones in the air. Now dial somebody,” he said. A friend, a co-worker. Tell them about the election. He emphasized the Dec. 2 date.
And, looking around, people were actually doing it.
Still no Bill Clinton. Soon, they say. Local TV is getting very antsy. The six o’clock window is approaching very fast.
Spectator point: There’s a sign in the crowd. “Kurds for Obama,” it says.
5:01 p.m. Former President Bill Clinton just landed, and is on his way, promised state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, the first official to greet the crowd and try to get them warm and active.
“Finish the drill. Close the deal,” Thurmond shouted.
Thurmond, a vice chairman in the state Democratic party, boosted U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin and Public Service Commission candidate Jim Powell. Both are in statewide runoffs.
“The only way that Jim and Jim don’t win is if we don’t vote,” he said. “They are hoping, they are praying that we don’t go back to the polls.”
Thurmond is the party’s most reliably effective speaker, and did a good job. But he also tried to lead the crowd in a song. He’s a good speaker.
4:47 p.m. The program has started with a volunteer is confessin’ to being raised Republican.
She’s talking against deficits, noting John McCain’s victory here on Nov. 4. “This is our do-over. We didn’t get it right the first time,” the speaker just said.
She’s also stalling.
Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate for whom this event is to benefit, is here, but hasn’t been seen. Former President Bill Clinton isn’t here. But he’ll be at a fund-raiser afterwards. Don’t know where, or the dollar amount.
The press is working on a crowd estimate. The warm gymnasium, where this was originally scheduled, held 1,200. Crowd is perhaps three times that.
4:32 p.m. This gathering at Clark Atlanta University just became a larger part of a quickly shrinking political season. In Alaska, Republican incumbent Ted Stevens, convicted on seven felony counts, just conceded his loss to a Democrat.
Democrats are now up to 58 seats in the U.S. Senate, with a Minnesota recount and a Georgia runoff to go.
This from National Public Radio:
“Given the number of ballots that remain to be counted, it is apparent the election has been decided and Mayor Begich has been elected,” Stevens said.
4:20 p.m. Greetings from a cold quadrangle at Clark Atlanta University.
Program is to begin in 20 minutes. But former President Bill Clinton doesn’t have the best reputation for punctuality, so we could be in for a wait.
A long, long line of several thousand people, stretched over hundred yards, is wrapped around the quad. So the audience hasn’t been allowed in close yet. But this looks to be at least a slightly larger event than the Saxby Chambliss rally last week that headlined former Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
This event was originally scheduled for a nice, warm gymnasium inside. The Jim Martin campaign pushed it outside for a reason.
Scratch that stuff about lines. The crowd was just unleashed, and is now running toward the barricades behind the press section.
The Morris Brown drum line is banging away…..
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African-American ballots down in early voting for Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After two days of early voting for the Dec. 2 runoffs in Georgia, African-American turnout is down significantly from the heady days leading up to the election of Barack Obama as president.
According to Secretary of State Karen Handel, black voters have cast 8,113 of 33,555 ballots, or 24 percent.
In the 45-day period of early voting prior to the general election, African-Americans cast 34.5 percent of advanced ballots. Maintaining enthusiasm in the U.S. Senate runoff has been viewed as the chief hurdle for Democrat Jim Martin, who faces Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
Hence today’s rally headlining former President Bill Clinton, on the campus of Clark Atlanta University.
Rasmussen Reports, in a poll published today, shows Chambliss in the lead with 50 percent to Martin’s 46 percent.
But the polling firm notes: “Runoff elections typically have lower voter turnout than general elections and can be impacted in either direction by organized get-out-the-vote efforts.”
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RNC forks over $2 million to save Chambliss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This was posted a few minutes ago on The Hill, a D.C. newspaper:
Sen. John Ensign said Wednesday that the Republican National Committee (RNC) has transferred $2 million earmarked for the Senate runoff in Georgia to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which was $4 million in debt after Election Day.
The Nevada Republican said the NRSC ended the cycle in twice as much debt as he would have liked, but that the decision to press further was made after consulting his potential successors.
…. The committee has already launched a $700,000 ad buy in the Georgia race, which pits Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) against former state Rep. Jim Martin.
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Buckley: Martin better on liberty than Chambliss, but ‘could be worse’ fiscally
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To earn his endorsement, Libertarian Allen Buckley is requiring the surviving two candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff to sign a lengthy statement of principles.
You can read the entire thing here. It includes a demand for a balanced federal budget, a less expansive military, rethinking the war on drugs, ballot access for third parties, and this promise:
“Given that judges can be on call 24/7, I will never vote for any legislation that allows spying on American citizens without a warrant issued by a federal judge.”
Don’t expect a signature from either Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss or Democrat Jim Martin. Even so, both parties have aggressively pursued the 128,002 votes that Buckley won on Nov. 4.
Public Policy Polling of North Carolina said this week that the result is likely to be a wash in the Dec. 2 runoff.
According to the firm’s final poll before the election, Buckley voters were all over the map when it came to the presidential election:
36% of Buckley’s supporters were for John McCain, 32% were for Barack Obama, and 30% were supporting the Libertarian ‘ticket’ and also supporting Bob Barr.
That could be important, now that Chambliss and Martin have turned the Senate contest into a remorse-or-no-remorse vote on the incoming Barack Obama administration.
Further, PPP noted that Buckley voters were much younger than others. Thirty percent were under the age of 30, compared to 17 percent in the overall population of voters.
That could mean that Buckley voters are less likely to show up for a low-profile runoff held five days after Thanksgiving.
Still, that hasn’t stopped the Chambliss and Martin from trying. On Saturday, Chambliss took his campaign to North Georgia, which gave Buckley his strongest support.
The Martin campaign this week has passed around comments made by Buckley to a Democratic web site called Senate Guru:
Senate Guru: Do you believe that Saxby Chambliss’ position on the Wall Street bailout has been fiscally responsible?
Allen Buckley: Something needed to be done, but I wouldn’t have voted for the bail-out bill. No, I don’t think his position was fiscally responsible.
Senate Guru: Speaking as a Libertarian, which remaining candidate do you think would be more proactive in restoring the civil liberties of Georgians and acting appropriately in response to the Bush Administration’s practice of wiretapping Americans’ phones without warrants?
Allen Buckley: Jim Martin.
Now, Buckley confirmed making the comments above. But the Smyrna attorney and CPA also said this in an e-mail:
“Those are my answers. I believe Martin would be better with respect to civil liberties. It’s hard to believe he could be worse than Chambliss on fiscal matters, but he could be so.”
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Call him D’Artagnan: Giuliani completes a GOP parade of presidential ex’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney.
Somebody’s missing. Ron Paul? No, not Ron Paul.
Giuliani. Yes. Rudy Giuliani.
The fourth former GOP presidential candidate will make his way to Atlanta on Monday — that’s three days before Thanksgiving — to help Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss gather cash for the final week of his U.S. Senate runoff.
UPDATED: The event has now been shifted to Tuesday, Nov. 25.
The price of the evening fund-raiser at the Linstrum + Matre Artworks is $500 per couple. They will take more if you insist.
The former mayor of New York, you’ll recall, took .7 percent of the vote in Georgia’s Republican presidential primary.
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