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November 2008
Chris Wallace to Saxby Chambliss: ‘Greenspan said we were headed for recession back in April’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent in Tuesday’s runoff for U.S. Senate, appeared in a 10-minute segment this morning on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.”
Democrat Jim Martin was invited but declined, Wallace said.
No major news was committed. YouTube segments are available, but we’re waiting on the sanctioned Fox clip before we embed any video.
Wallace noted that the enthusiasm of African-American voters seems to have cooled here, and posited that this could be an advantage for Chambliss, who finished first on Nov. 4.
The senator predicted that “if voters turn out again in the same ratios….then, obviously, we’ll win again.”
But the more interesting exchange came on the topic of economics, in which Wallace took up many of the Democratic arguments. Wallace showed a Martin TV ad in which Chambliss — quoted in July — disputes that the U.S. was in recession:
Wallace: Your opponent, Jim Martin, says that you voted for the Bush policies that got us into this mess and he notes that you voted for the $700 billion bailout in September. He voted against it.
Chambliss: Well, he says he would have voted against it. Of course, the guy that he’s joined at the hip with, President-elect Obama, voted for it. You know, that clip is interesting. That was about four seconds out of a 40-minute speech I gave that morning — and which, incidentally, when I made that statement, I was quoting Alan Greenspan, who I have a lot more confidence in than I do Mr. Martin’s judgment on the economy.
Wallace: Senator, may I just bring you up on that? Because that quote, when you said, “I don’t know if we’re in a recession, I don’t know what that means,” you said that in July of this year. And in fact, in April of this year, several months before, Alan Greenspan had said we’re headed into a recession.
Chambliss: Yes, well, you know, there was a real question about what is the definition of a recession. A recession, Chris, if you’ll remember, it was supposed to be two consecutive months of negative [Gross Domestic Product], and at that point in time we hadn’t seen that.
But you know, economists disagree on the technical definition of recession, and obviously that’s what I was talking about…
Wallace: But Senator Chambliss, the Martin camp says that you have been far too trusting of Treasury Secretary Paulson and the bailout, which you voted for. And they point out to what you said… a couple of weeks ago.
You said, “If the smart people in the financial community think this is the best way to go, I think we have to respect that. I do trust folks who deal with these issues on a daily basis like folks in the financial community.”
Senator, after everything we’ve seen in the last month or so, do you still trust Wall Street and would you still vote for the financial bailout?
Chambliss: Well, I didn’t say I trust Wall Street. I said people in the financial community. And I think Hank Paulson is a smart guy. And I listen to what he says. But he’s not the only one I listen to. Listen, I talk to dozens and dozens of bankers in Georgia, both from small community banks to big banks.
I talk to business people who were seeing their lines of credit pulled and were starting to have to — or having to lay people off. Those are the kinds people that I listen to, to make sure that we put policies in place that are going to free up this credit market, going to ease this crunch that we find ourselves in.
And you know, there comes a point in time from a military standpoint, you trust your military leadership. From a business standpoint, you have to trust business leaders. And, sure, I listen to those folks and, sure, I’ve based my opinions on what they’ve said….
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The reason behind Tuesday’s runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Tuesday, it’s highly likely that only a fraction of Georgia voters will trek yet again to the polls. They will refine, and perhaps override, decisions made by a robust majority on Nov. 4.
This strikes some as unfair. “Georgia is a total aberration,” Wyche Fowler, 68, said the other day. “I think it’s unconstitutional. But whether it’s unconstitutional or not, it’s extremely unwise.”
Sixteen years ago, Fowler was a first-term U.S. senator up for re-election — a Democrat facing a Republican challenger, Paul Coverdell. The Libertarian in the race gathered a few crucial votes, and Fowler found himself with only 49.23 percent of 2.25 million ballots cast.
Georgia is the only state that requires the winner of a general election contest to win by 50 percent — plus one vote. Three weeks later, the 635,114 votes that Coverdell earned in a pre-Thanksgiving runoff overruled the 1.1 million votes that Fowler received in the general election.
“That’s disenfranchisement,” Fowler said.
Regardless, Fowler was ousted. Democrats in control of the Legislature changed the state’s 50-percent-plus-one law so that the winner needed to win only a plurality — so long as that plurality exceeded 45 percent.
Shortly after Republicans took over the state Capitol, they restored the 50-percent-plus-one provision, on the theory that any act perpetrated by Democrats was designed to short-change the GOP.
And indeed, this act probably was. White and older voters, who tend to vote Republican, are more likely to show up for a runoff than African-American voters, who tend toward the Democratic ticket.
But tinkering with election laws always seems to backfire.
Four weeks ago, thanks again to a Libertarian candidate in the race, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss won only 49.8 percent of 3.7 million cast in the U.S. Senate race. Democrat Jim Martin came in second with 46.8 percent.
It was deja vu all over again.
And you won an extra month’s worth of venom spewed through your TV set.
The 50-percent-plus-one trap also snared one of two contests for seats on the Public Service Commission. Democrat Jim Powell came away with a leading 47.9 percent of the vote on the first Tuesday of November. He faces Republican Lauren McDonald in tomorrow’s runoff.
How many voters will show up Tuesday to render final judgments? In 1992, 39 percent of registered voters returned for the U.S. Senate runoff. But in 1998, 2004, and 2006, turnout for statewide runoffs averaged 4 percent.
Local governments, which shoulder most of the cost of runoff elections, are likely to ask the Legislature to take a look at repealing the 50-percent-plus-one provision come January. “In a time of financial stress, these elections are very expensive,” said Jerry Griffin, executive director of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
Don’t look for anything to happen quickly. State Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) is chairman of the House committee that screens changes to state election law.
He acknowledges a certain mathematical strangeness to runoffs. “There is the question of should 51 percent of 10 percent of the voters trump 49 percent of five times that number,” Scott said.
But with an Obama Administration soon to be in charge of the U.S. Justice Department, and Georgia subject to its oversight on voter issues, the Legislature is likely to move cautiously on changes to election law, Scott said.
The House chairman said he would look at the 50-percent rule — if asked. But he’s more amenable to shortening the 45-day early voting period, off-setting any reduction in that window by allowing counties to open more than one polling station. That’s more likely to result in a financial savings for counties, Scott said.
Victories by Republicans in the U.S. Senate and PSC runoffs on Tuesday are also likely to restore any lost GOP confidence in the state’s 50-percent-plus-one law.
That might be bad news for you and your TV set. But if you’re a Libertarian with ambition, it means you can make a difference in Georgia politics for some time to come.
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An Alaskan, a judge and a general walk into a bar….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin finally agree on something — the importance of women in Tuesday’s runoff for the U.S. Senate.
In the final hours, both candidates are relying heavily on female surrogates who appeal to the most reliable element of the Georgia electorate.
Today, former Fulton County judge Glenda Hatchett, who now dispenses justice on television, is stumping on a wet and dreary afternoon for Democrat Jim Martin down in Clayton County.
On Monday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the former GOP nominee for vice president, will make a string of appearances in Georgia on Monday for Chambliss, the Republican incumbent. A list of locations and addresses can be found on the jump, but the final rally is at 4 p.m. in Gwinnett County.
In Savannah, at roughly the same time that Palin holds forth in the same city, the Martin campaign will feature retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, at a pair of rallies, one on Johnson Square in the downtown area.
Women voters are far more important to the fortunes of Martin than of Chambliss. In advance voting, as of Wednesday, women had cast 61 percent of the vote among African-Americans. Among white voters, women had only a slight 50.8 percent edge over men.
Palin appearances on Monday:
8:30 AM AUGUSTA
James Brown Arena
601 Seventh Street
Augusta, GA 30901
11 AM SAVANNAH
Savannah Civic Center
301 West Oglethorpe Avenue
Savannah, GA 31401
1:30 PM PERRY
Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter
Miller-Murphy-Howard Building
401 Larry Walker Parkway
Perry, GA 31069
4 PM METRO ATLANTA
Gwinnett Arena
6400 Sugarloaf Parkway
Duluth, GA 30097
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Early, early poll: 2010 governor’s race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By JAMES SALZER jsalzer@ajc.com
Former Gov. Roy Barnes has said he’s not running for governor in 2010 when Gov. Sonny Perdue ends his second and final term, but pollsters apparently don’t believe him.
Public Policy Polling of North Carolina came out with a poll this week matching up the Democrat Barnes with two Republicans who have started raising money for the race, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine. It also matched the two with another Democrat who is occasionally mentioned as a potential candidate, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Middle Georgia.
The poll put Cagle up on Barnes 44-43, and Oxendine up 43-42. Against Marshall, the margin was greater for the Republicans: Cagle 44-39, and Oxendine 44-38.
“It’s hard to decide whether this data provides good news for Barnes or not,” the polling firm’s analysis said. “On the one hand, any time a Democrat is polling close in this Republican state, it’s a good thing for that individual.
“At the same time, numbers at this stage are a function of name recognition more than anything else and you might expect Barnes to have the lead in these hypothetical match ups by virtue of his higher profile from his previous tenure in the governor’s office.
“The other preliminary conclusion you can make from this data is that there is no difference in general election viability between Cagle and Oxendine on the Republican side.”
Barnes doesn’t have the same name identification he had six years ago, when he lost to Perdue. Plus Cagle and Oxendine have been working double-time to boost their name recognition among voters. For instance, thousands of runners who ran the Atlanta marathon and half-marathon Thanksgiving morning ran by a new billboard featuring Cagle on Peachtree Street. And the lieutenant governor ran TV ads touting a web site he set up on wasteful spending in state government. Oxendine, meanwhile, has been showing up on local TV for years any time there is a major fire.
The poll also doesn’t include several Democrats and Republicans likely to make the race. Former Adjutant General David Poythress has already started raising money for the contest as a Democrat. Another Democrat, Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond is thinking about the race. Secretary of State Karen Handel, Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens and U.S. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland and Jack Kingston have also been mentioned as potential candidates on the Republican side.
—Jim Galloway will be back next week.
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Lessons for aspiring judges
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By David Simpson dsimpson@ajc.com
How hard is it to unseat an incumbent Superior Court judge?
Two failed attempts from 2004 and this year in DeKalb offer a sobering comparison for any future challenger.
In 2004, Celeste Brewer ran against Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker. Brewer declined to criticize Becker in the typically gentle judicial campaign. She drew 22 percent of the vote.
In 2008, Tom Stubbs ran against Superior Court Judge Linda Hunter. He launched his campaign with an endorsement from former Gov. Roy Barnes, raised more than twice as much money as Hunter as of Sept. 30 and attacked Hunter’s courtroom demeanor and decisions. Near the end, Hunter apologized for ordering her husband released from jail in 2005 after his arrest on a minor trespassing charge. (The charge was later dropped.) The result: Stubbs got 30 percent of the vote.
DeKalb pols likely would point out that Stubbs is white and Hunter is an African-American woman in a county where blacks outnumber whites and female voters outnumber males.
But Brewer is African-American, and Becker is white. Strictly by the numbers, incumbency was more powerful than race and gender.
Challengers might take heart from Harris County, Texas, where 22 incumbent civil and criminal judges were unseated in the general election, according to the Houston Chronicle.
But the biggest factor in the Texas revolution won’t apply in Georgia’s nonpartisan judicial elections. The successful Harris County challengers all ran as Democrats and defeated incumbent Republicans.
Only four Republicans survived the onslaught. What was their secret? According to the Chronicle, “The most common theory is that voters were wary of Democrats with uncommon names.” The losers’ names were Ashish Mahendru, Mekisha Murray, Andres Pereira and Goodwille Pierre.
So two quick lessons for would-be judges. When you see an incumbent judge, talk about the joys of retirement. And if you have a funny name, start telling your friends to call you “Mack.”
Jim Galloway is taking a few days off.
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Exit notes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Getting ready to shut down for a long (as possible) Thanksgiving weekend. Friends will fill in as needed, so don’t stop checking in.
But before I go:
— Looking ahead, Public Policy Polling of North Carolina says U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson may have some shoring up to do before he runs for re-election in 2010.
The survey firm found:
…a high level of ambivalence toward first term Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia voters. Only 30% of voters approve of his job performance but there isn’t a large mass that disapproves either- a plurality have no opinion of him one way or the other.
Isakson has not done much to appeal across party lines during his first term. His approval among Democrats is just 8%. The problems with the economy may be hurting his appeal as well. Among voters who name it as their top issue just 27% approve of him with 29% disapproving.
The firm conducted two hypothetical match-ups with two Democrats: Isakson (45 percent) vs. state Attorney General Thurbert Baker (39 percent); and Isakson (47 percent) vs. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon (38 percent).
Stats are from the same PPP survey that showed, earlier this week, a widening of Saxby Chambliss’ lead in the U.S. Senate runoff.
Says PPP:
The question of course is whether Democrats will strongly contest the seat. They don’t have the deepest bench in Georgia, but Jim Martin’s success has shown that even a relative obscure candidate can compete in the state under the right circumstances.
— As of Tuesday, after a full week of advance voting in all counties, 236,992 Georgia voters have cast early ballots for the Dec. 2 runoff. Of those, 53,374 have been African-American.
That’s 22.5 percent of the total vote, which lags about 14 points behind advance voting in the general election. Not great for Democrat Jim Martin in the U.S. Senate race. White males, who form a huge bloc of support for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, have cast nearly 38 percent of advance ballots.
— Republican interests have poured millions into direct mail for this runoff — a sign of how important they consider a 41st seat in the U.S. Senate. Proof was in the mailbox on Tuesday evening. Five multi-color mailers, all from the GOP or their surrogates.
It’s all anti-Martin. None of the pieces emphasize Chambliss’ positives:
— The Georgia Republican Party, which places Martin’s mug next to a screaming Howard Dean;
— Something called the Employee Freedom Action Committee, which accuses the Democrat of supporting “big labor boss legislation that will throw more Georgians out of work.”
— The National Republican Senate Committee, which (incorrectly) accuses Martin of opposing making solicitation of child prostitution a felony;
— Another NRSC piece that says Martin “supports tax hikes on those making less than $75,000 a year”;
— and Americans for Job Security, whose mailer includes a cigar-smoking fellow (the stogie is presumably a short-hand reference to a labor boss) noting Martin’s willingness to let President Bush’s tax cuts expire.
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You can find out who paid for your runoff candidate — but only hours before the vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A quirk in state law — no, “quirk” is the wrong word. An advantageous aspect of campaign finance law allows runoff candidates for state positions to hold back the identities of their campaign donors until midnight before the Tuesday election.
It does not affect federal contests, such as the U.S. Senate race, my AJC colleague James Salzer says. But it does affect the Public Service Commission runoff between Republican Lauren McDonald, formerly known as “Bubba,” and Democrat Jim Powell.
Both have been raising and spending money. But under the law, candidates in runoffs have to file their only pre-election disclosure for the extra month of fund-raising six days before the vote. However, the state allows a five-day grace period. Most candidates take it.
So McDonald and Powell can wait until 11:59 p.m. on the Monday night before the election to file their reports, and let you know who’s paying for their campaigns.
As of the last report Oct. 25, McDonald had raised about $146,250, much of it from people in utility businesses that are regulated by the Public Service Commission. Powell had collected about $61,000, with unions being major donors.
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Should Obama come to Georgia? No, says Brazile
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani stumped for Republican Saxby Chambliss, Democratic strategist and commentator Donna Brazile made the rounds in Atlanta for Democrat Jim Martin.
Here’s what Brazile — who managed Al Gore’s 2000 presidential bid — said an hour or so ago when asked if President-elect Barack Obama should head to Georgia to close out the U.S. Senate race:
”No. I think President-elect Obama is doing what he must do and what he needs to do — it’s to focus on his transition. He has 56 days. He has many challenges.
“While I know and understand and appreciate the desire to see President-elect Obama down in Georgia, I think strategically, he should focus on the transition.
“I’ve not gotten word from his campaign about his plans, but what I do know is that with the robo-calls, the recorded calls, with the radio spots, with former President Clinton, who came down, Vice President Gore, members of Congress and everyone else — the machine is here. He left a staff in place. This is not a skeletal operation. There’s some meat and bones on this operation.
“So I’m confident we will get the vote out.”
Two things: Brazile is pretty plugged in, so take her claim of ignorance on Obama’s itinerary with a grain of salt. Also, note that Brazile mentioned the robo-calls and the radio ads that Obama had cut for Martin. But she didn’t mention TV ads.
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A Martin response ad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Below is a new response ad just unveiled by Jim Martin, the Democrat in the U.S. Senate runoff.
The TV spot disputes accusations by Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss that Martin voted against returning a $100 million surplus to taxpayers while a state lawmaker.
Martin also reiterates his plan to assist President-elect Barack Obama rather than act as the “firewall” that Chambliss has promised. “We need a senator who’s going to improve the economy — not stand in the way,” he says in the ad.
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More on the Southern (and Republican) bloc building against Detroit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Wall Street Journal makes further inroads into the topic of political and economic conflict building between the South and Detroit over the salvation of the auto industry:
Toyota, Honda, Kia, Mitsubishi, BMW and Daimler AG — all have established auto assembly plants in the U.S. in recent years, and those plants are disproportionately situated in the low-cost, little-unionized states of the South.
That means many of those auto plants now are enriching states dominated by Republicans. Of the 11 states that have or are planning foreign-owned auto assembly plants, seven were carried by Republican Sen. John McCain in this year’s presidential campaign. An eighth state, Indiana, was carried by Mr. Obama, but has traditionally been Republican-leaning as well.
That has built a natural bond between the foreign auto makers with their highly competitive plans and pro-business Republican leaders. “The foreign auto companies are very wise in how they deal with lawmakers,” says Ron Bonjean, a Republican political consultant who was a top aide to former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
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Sarah Palin to cap off Saxby Chambliss’ campaign
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss this morning announced that Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and the former GOP vice presidential nominee, will cap off his U.S. Senate runoff campaign with a series of Monday appearances.
Four rallies have been scheduled for Dec. 1: 8:30 a.m. in Augusta, 11 a.m. in Savannah, 1:30 p.m. in Perry, and 4 p.m. in north metro Atlanta. Details to come.
While the selection of Sarah Palin for the GOP ticket may have been poor strategy in September, it works in a runoff — when turnout of one’s base is the paramount concern.
Political analyst Charlie Cook has posted the following, via MSNBC:
Among the broad American electorate, Alaskan governor and recent Republican nominee for vice president Sarah Palin certainly seems to be damaged merchandise.
In a Nov. 7-9 Gallup Poll of 1,010 adults (margin of error +/- 3 percent), 45 percent of Americans agreed they would “personally like to see Sarah Palin be a major national political figure for many years to come” — but 52 percent said they would not like to see that happen. In the pre-Election Day Gallup poll testing Palin, she had a 42 percent favorable rating but a 49 percent unfavorable. In the newer, post-election study, her favorable was 48 percent and unfavorable 47 percent among all Americans.
But, and there is usually a but to such things, 76 percent of Republicans would like to see her a major figure in the future, and she had a whopping 83 percent favorable among them, compared with just a 13 percent unfavorable rating.
Cook goes on the tackle the topic of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and race, which is worth reading. But he but adds this about Palin:
But the Palin question is a different one. Even since some of these surveys were conducted, the Alaskan chief executive has begun a concerted effort to repair image problems from the campaign. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but Republicans have to wonder whether they are going to start off with a frontrunner for the GOP nomination who, at least at first blush, looks unbeatable for the nomination and unelectable in a general election.
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A Chambliss strategist on Martin: ‘My dog could have been on the ballot’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know how a coach will scour the sports page for trash talk by the opposition, something he can post on the locker room bulletin board to get his squad riled up?
As a kind of Thanksgiving gift, the Republican campaign of Saxby Chambliss has thoughtfully provided the following assessment of the U.S. Senate runoff and the Democratic opposition, courtesy of Politico:
But what keeps Chambliss operatives up at night is that the runoff — with its emphasis on turnout — has little to do with either candidate’s performance and more to do with their own efforts to rally the base.
“My dog could have been on the ballot and would be in exactly the same position Jim Martin is today,” said Tom Perdue, Chambliss’ longtime political consultant. “Martin was the beneficiary of an Obama wave that swept the country. As a person, as a candidate, he’s the most insignificant opponent in all my 30 years of politics. Nobody knows who he is.”
Update: Martin spokesman Matt Canter in turn offered something for the Chambliss bulletin board:
“Saxby Chambliss spent 6 years stockpiling $13 million from special interests only to waste nearly every dime of it during the general election. I’m sure Tom Perdue’s dog could have also done a better job managing Saxby Chambliss’ campaign. In fact, Perdue’s dog is probably better qualified to fix this economy than Saxby Chambliss.”
Several Democrats have piped up with reminders that Perdue contributed $2,000 to Martin’s 2006 campaign for lieutenant governor.
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A TV ad for Sarah Palin, four years ahead of its time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first TV ad of the 2012 presidential campaign has hit the airwaves. This from the Anchorage Daily News:
A California-based conservative group that hammered Democratic Sen. Barack Obama during the presidential election is launching a string of commercials this week praising Gov. Sarah Palin.
The group calls itself Our Country Deserves Better, and the ad is designed to counter what it calls attacks by “media elites” on Palin. The group is small, and so is the buy — about $50,000. The ad began airing in Alaska on Monday. You might see it on national cable, but this is likely your best chance.
Says the newspaper:
The Our Country Deserves Better Committee made headlines during the campaign for airing footage of Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and holding a multi-state “Stop Obama” bus tour.
The group’s chairman is Howard Kaloogian, a Republican who served in the California State Assembly from 1994 to 2000. Together with [chief strategist Sal] Russo, he worked on the successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis.
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The Obama robo-call
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Democratic campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin on Monday evening released a robo-call from President-elect Barack Obama.
Listen to the automated phone call here.
It tracks very closely to the radio ad released late last week .
“Turn out one more time” is the key phrase.
Again, no party identification or reference to the cloture fight in the Senate.
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Gingrich to be a UGA law school lecturer — on judicial review
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich will become a regular — but temporary — lecturer at the University of Georgia School of law this spring.
He’ll be teaching a course on judicial review. Which should come just in time to monitor one or two U.S. Supreme Court appointments by the Obama administration.
The position is the Carl E. Sanders Political Leadership Scholar. In taking the temp position, Gingrich follows in the footsteps of former senators Max Cleland and Wyche Fowler, and most recently, Democratic political consultant Paul Begala.
Gingrich will have a little help. Randy Evans, his close friend and legal counsel, will assist with teaching the class, according to UGA.
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Freedom’s Watch won’t last much longer than Georgia Senate campaign
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Freedom’s Watch, the conservative group that purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV airtime on behalf of Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, apparently won’t last much longer than the U.S. Senate runoff on Dec. 2.
Backed by casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Freedom’s Watch “is pretty much kaput,” reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Says the newspaper:
The group’s dozens of staffers have been paid through the end of the year. After that, Freedom’s Watch is likely to shut its doors permanently, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Technically an issue-advocacy group rather than a political campaign arm, Washington-based Freedom’s Watch spent $30 million on television and radio ads in the general election, plus an undisclosed amount on mail and phone-call campaigns.
It was active in four U.S. Senate races and about three dozen congressional races, said spokesman Ed Patru…”
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And, yes, there will be firefighters. Or something like.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Now, be truthful. The moment you knew Rudy Giuliani was coming to Atlanta for Saxby Chambliss, you knew this was in the cards:
ATLANTA—U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) today announced that he and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will honor first responders at a press conference Tuesday, November 25, 2008, at 1:30 pm, at Chambliss Campaign Headquarters.
That’s at 3200 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Suite 210, for all Rudy fans.
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Two polls have Martin at 46 percent. The question is how far ahead is Chambliss?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Public Policy Polling of North Carolina published a poll this afternoon that showed Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss with a broadening lead over Democrat Jim Martin in the U.S. Senate race — 52 to 46 percent.
Within 30 minutes, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has poured money and personnel into Martin’s bid, issued the results of its own internal poll, which showed Chambliss leading 48 to 46 percent.
“Jim Martin is well-positioned to win this campaign,” said DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller. The DSCC poll of 600 was conducted over the weekend, and has a margin of error of 4 percent. Other than the straight horse-race figures, no other stats were offered.
The PPP survey of 871 likely voters, which is non-partisan, was conducted Saturday and Sunday. Margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.3 percent.
Says PPP:
Each candidate is earning over 90% support from voters within his own party. That’s an increase from the last poll we did before the November 4th election, and an indication that those planning to turn out for the runoff may be mostly the strongest of party stalwarts.
Chambliss leads 69-29 with white voters. Even with a higher than expected black turnout for the runoff that share of the white vote would not be good enough for Martin to win- he needs to move closer to a third of it.
Martin leads with voters under 45, but Chambliss has a staggering 69-31 lead with senior citizens, and with the balance of the electorate between older and younger voters tipping in an old direction for the runoff, that makes Martin’s climb that much harder.
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Transportation to be addressed early and forcefully, Cagle promises
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said Monday that a package to fix metro Atlanta’s traffic congestion and build new roads in rural Georgia will be one of the first issues addressed when the Legislature convenes in January.
“I’m going to introduce it during the first week,” Cagle said — adding the caveat that it would require Senate and House leaders, and Gov. Sonny Perdue, to reach a near-consensus on the package beforehand.
The lieutenant governor said he thinks an agreement could be reached “within the next several weeks.”
Cagle made his remarks before speaking to a gathering of nearly 400 business and transportation leaders called together by the group Get Georgia Moving, for the purpose of building momentum in the Capitol.
On Monday, it was this gathering — not the two leftover campaigns for the U.S. Senate — that provided the biggest show of political force in the state.
The theme of the afternoon was a very pointed question: “Do We Have the Political Will?” Last year, an attempt to pass an optional sales tax for regional transportation projects failed by three votes in the Senate — after it was entangled in multi-issue negotiations between the House and Senate.
Cagle emphasized that he didn’t want to see this happen again. “There’s nothing more important than transportation to our state,” Cagle said. “The thing that is hold us back more often than not is the issue of transportation.”
Cagle said some changes had been made in what was offered last year. Two popular votes would be required — a 2010 constitutional referendum, then a local vote by the counties involved, after projects for spending have been identified.
Transportation is very closely tied to the building 2010 race for governor, and Cagle is a likely Republican candidate. “I think we need some good strong leadership in the state, particularly around transportation,” Cagle said.
Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens, who is also studying a GOP campaign for governor, was in the audience.
Passing what many will call a tax increase in the middle of a horrendous economic downturn could give some lawmakers pause — as it did last year. But Cagle framed the effort as an economic stimulus that could produce 230,000 jobs. You’re likely to hear more about that.
Neither House Speaker Glenn Richardson nor Gov. Sonny Perdue were present, but several legislative leaders, both Democratic and Republican, showed up — as did Gene Evans, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation. She emphasized that Georgia has underfunded transportation needs for the last 22 years.
UPDATE: After Cagle left, a three-man panel addressing the politics of transportation had their say — state Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna), House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) and state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus). (State Sen. Tommy Williams of Lyons, set to become Senate president pro tem, was to have evened out the partisanship, but was held up.)
Stoner had this observation: The transportation issue in the state Capitol has thus far remained non-partisan. But it won’t stay that way forever. “The job of the majority party is to govern. If we do not solve this in the next year, it will be a big issue in the [2010] elections.”
Smith was asked if what kind of package could be expected to come out of the General Assembly this year. Smith said he didn’t like predicting the future, but raised the possibility that transportation advocates might have to accept something less than all parties involve think is necessary.
That drew an interesting response from Smyre, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus. Smyre said a proposal to permit local communities to levy a transportation sales tax is the most feasible thing to pass muster — it fell only a few votes short in the 2008 session. Anything else, Smyre said, and everyone will have to start over. From scratch.
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The case against a Georgia visit from Barack Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is a near certainty that Barack Obama won’t come to Georgia to campaign for Democrat Jim Martin before next week’s U.S. Senate runoff against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
A few Democrats maintain a sliver of hope that the president-elect could make a surprise, guerilla-style foray into Atlanta within the next eight days. But late last week, the word from Washington was that such a huge personal investment by Obama wasn’t under discussion.
Tea leaves at the bottom of the cup point to the same conclusion:
— Within a matter of days last week, Obama completed a rapprochement with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent-Democrat who endorsed Republican John McCain, and cemented a partnership with former primary foe Hillary Clinton. A president-elect aiming for a post-partisan administration isn’t likely to pick a heated, red-blue Senate contest as a backdrop for his first Southern appearance.
— Very quietly, the Obama team has let it be known that the new administration will not immediately reassess the U.S. military’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which permits gays to serve in the armed forces — as long as they don’t discuss their sexual orientation. Raising the topic of gays in the military was considered by many to be the second of two out-of-the-box decisions that ended badly for a newly elected President Bill Clinton.
The first was a November 1992 trip to Georgia, as president-elect, to campaign for Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler in this state’s last U.S. Senate runoff. Fowler was defeated by Republican Paul Coverdell.
— As of Sunday afternoon, only one post-November campaign can boast a videotaped endorsement by the president-elect. And that’s the effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Martin is from Atlanta, a city that will have clout enough in the Obama administration. But it can’t compete with the City of the Big Shoulders.
A Martin radio ad, featuring an endorsement from Obama, began airing in Georgia last week. Perhaps there’s an Obama TV ad in the works. If so, then it has been hoarded as a climactic — but digital — appearance by the president-elect. If the ad doesn’t exist, that, too, speaks to Obama’s priorities.
Whether the first African-American elected president should invest himself in Georgia’s Senate race has been a hotly debated topic both here and in Washington.
Behind the scenes, stalwarts say that abandonment of a Democrat still in the field would send the wrong message, especially in the South.
Obama loyalists reply that Martin has hardly been hung out to dry. The Obama campaign in Georgia has been kept intact for the Senate candidate’s use.
Thousands of AFL-CIO volunteers are reportedly headed here for the campaign’s final days. And in case you haven’t noticed, outside groups have pumped millions of dollars into TV ads on Martin’s behalf. Clinton showed up last week. Former vice president Al Gore is to attend an Atlanta fund-raiser tonight.
And lest we forget, Obama is about to inherit two wars and an economic meltdown. “A politician has got to have an upside to coming here. I haven’t found an upside yet,” said Jon Flack, who operates Tondee’s Tavern, one of the state’s most influential Democratic blogs.
Flack has argued since Nov. 4 that the race in Georgia is within reach even without the president-elect’s presence. And Republicans agree, judging from the tea leaves at the bottom of their cups.
Chambliss has just scheduled a barbecue in Gainesville at noon Wednesday, just as the nation begins to shut down for Thanksgiving. Former U.S. senator Zell Miller and Gov. Sonny Perdue will be in attendance. That’s not the sign of a candidate who’s coasting to Dec. 2.
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The long-distance debate over gay marriage within the Gingrich family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. O’Reilly showed video footage from California, of protests after passage of a referendum to revoke court approval of gay marriage in that state.
The focus was on an elderly woman who had a large cross stripped from her hands after she apparently waded into a crowd of demonstrators.
Said the former Georgia congressman:
“I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, is prepared to use harassment.
“I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.
“And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact — for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that that are antithetical, that are the opposite.”
Over the weekend, Gingrich’s lesbian half-sister, Candace Gingrich, pubished an open letter to her big brother on Huffington Post:
This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It’s a movement of progress — and your words on Fox News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.
Then again, we’ve seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group — one that looks down upon minorities and women — when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us “fascists” when we fight back.
You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of “traditional” marriage.
The holidays can be such a tense time among families.
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GOP groups say Martin’s soft on crime; the Democrat tells of a kidnapping
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Freedom’s Watch, a 527 group, and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, have started after Democrat Jim Martin on the issue of crime.
With 10 days left before his runoff with Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, Martin responded this morning with a 30-second ad — and the personal story of his 8-year-old daughter’s 1980 kidnapping.
He’s told the story before. It was part of his response in 2006, during the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, when opponents accused him of being soft on crime.
“You never forget the horror of coming face-to-face with violent crime,” Martin says in the current ad. “That’s why I fought so hard to crack down on violent crime and lock up violent criminals.”
Here’s the Freedom’s Watch ad:
And here’s the Martin response:
The RSCC continues to peddle an accusation that Martin voted against making child solicitation a felony as a state lawmaker, but the accusation doesn’t hold water. Read here for the details.
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Two months after giving away $1 million, state school superintendent files for bankruptcy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State School Superintendent Kathy Cox, who in September gave away the $1 million she won in a game show, has filed for bankruptcy.
Her husband is a builder hit hard by the economic collapse.
This is in today’s Athens Banner-Herald::
“On November 17, after consultation with numerous attorneys, my husband and I made the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy due to losses incurred by his home building business,” State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox said in a statement issued Friday by her office.
“The collapse of the home building market has been well documented and small builders, like my husband, have been hit especially hard. This was a gut-wrenching decision, but in the end, we felt that we had no choice.”
Cox issued the statement, and a similar e-mail to school superintendents, following a story that appeared in the online version of The Newnan Times-Herald. According to the article, Cox and her husband, John, filed Monday for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with $3.5 million in liabilities and just shy of $650,000 in assets.
Only last September, in a giddy peformance, Cox became the first $1 million winner on the FOX TV series “Are You Smarter Than A 5th-Grader?” by answering correctly the question: Who was the longest reigning British monarch?
She gave the money to Macon’s Georgia Academy for the Blind, Clarkston’s Atlanta Area School for the Deaf and Cave Spring’s Georgia School for the Deaf.
My AJC colleague Rhonda Cook talked to Cox spokesman Dana Tofig today. He said that Cox created a “gift foundation” with her winnings that will protect it from family creditors. Tofig also said that none of the $1 million would be used to administer the foundation — i.e., no individuals will profit by it. The cash still goes to the three schools.
Photo credit: Fox Television
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Sarah Palin and the Thanksgiving execution video
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A six-minute video is quickly making the rounds this morning, featuring Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska giving a Thanksgiving pardon to a rather ugly, 30-pound Tom.
But unbeknownst to the former GOP vice presidential nominee, the background of a post-pardon press conference — in which Palin declares that she still has a light heart — includes a smiling turkey executioner, doing what he does best.
This is the MSNBC version. The network has thoughtfully smudged the most graphic portions:
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A follow-up from the GOP: Sign that absentee request before you mail it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the last few days, we’ve heard some talk about problems with a state GOP mail-out of absentee ballot requests.
County election offices are having to send thousands back for lack of proper signatures, we hear. And looking at the one that arrived in the mailbox, the request for a John Hancock is easy to overlook.
Which explains the following, brief e-mail sent out late Thursday from Republican headquarters:
IMPORTANT
If you received an absentee ballot request form in the mail and did NOT sign the card before mailing it to your local County Registrar, your application WILL NOT be processed.
The e-mail refers voters to this link on Secretary of State Karen Handel’s web site, which will allow them to check the status of their absentee ballots.
And don’t forget the 42-cent stamp.
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The Obama radio ad for Martin: ‘Turn out one more time’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President-elect Barack Obama has cut a radio ad for Democrat Jim Martin in the U.S. Senate runoff.
It’s the first direct involvement by Obama in the extra four weeks of campaigning, and foreshadows at least one TV spot that you’re likely to see soon. No word yet on where or how heavily it will play, but common sense would say that African-American stations in Atlanta will be airing it many, many times.
Two things you won’t see in the script. One is the word “Democrat.” The other is the number “60.”
Read it below:
Obama: This is Barack Obama. I want to thank everybody who turned out and voted for me in November. Together, we can get America moving again.
But the elections aren’t over. In Georgia, there’s a runoff on Tuesday, Dec. 2. And I want to urge you to turn out one more time and help elect Jim Martin to the United States Senate.
Jim supports my plan to cut middle-class taxes, make sure every American has access to affordable health care, stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, and get our economy moving again.
Jim Martin’s a man of his word. And I know he’ll do everything he can in the Senate to help me change Washington and get America moving again.
Please join me in supporting Jim Martin for the United States Senate, on Tuesday, Dec. 2. And head to the polls just one more time this year.
Martin: I’m Jim Martin, running for Senate, and I approved this message.
Narrator: Paid for by Martin for Senate.
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‘Thousands’ of union volunteers headed to Georgia for Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The national AFL-CIO is sending up to 2,500 volunteers to Georgia to help Democrat Jim Martin in the U.S. Senate runoff against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
The union organization said it will have 10,000 volunteers working the state over the next two weekends. About three-quarters will be from Georgia, spokeswoman Andrea Gage said Thursday.
Richard Ray, president of the Georgia AFL-CIO, put the number of incoming volunteers in the “thousands.” He said in a telephone interview:
“Our goal is to touch every union member in the state at least six to eight to 10 times. Either by phone call, letter from their local union, letter from us, or a knock on the door. We’re pulling out all stops. This is the biggest thing that I’ve ever been involved in in Georgia. This is the biggie.
“This election is not so much now [about] who is Jim Martin and who is Saxby Chambliss. It’s about who can turn out the votes.”
Ray puts the union vote in Georgia at 325,000. Not an overwhelming number, but a low turnout on Dec. 2 could give it greater impact.
The storm of union activity is to include 550,000 work site flyers, 600,000 phone calls, 610,000 mailings, and knocks on 225,000 doors.
Retired workers from two closed auto assembly sites — the Ford plant in Hapeville and the General Motors plant in Doraville — have already given much time to Martin. They see their pensions jeopardized by Republican calls for the Detroit Three to embrace bankruptcy, Ray said.
“We have a large group of those retirees,” Ray said. “They’ve been working from the very first for Jim. I had a crew that went all around 285 and they put up signs at every exit. And they are mad at what they see not happening for them.”
Republicans are waving the union banner, too. Just not in the same way.
Chambliss posted an article today on redstate.com, arguing that his re-election was necessary to block an effort to make it easier to form unions — by filling out a card rather than by secret ballot.
Wrote Chambliss:
When Georgia voters go to cast their ballot in the December 2 runoff, no one will know who they voted for unless they feel compelled to tell someone. The same should be the case in labor union votes.
True elections are conducted with anonymity for voters. Secret ballots allow people to freely vote their conscious when selecting those who will create and enforce our laws.
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In early voting, African-American ballots still lag
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After three days of early voting in Georgia, African-American turnout continues to show signs of lagging behind the pace set in the general election.
Clearly, that has implications for the U.S. Senate runoff.
The number of total ballots nearly doubled — about 33,000 were cast Monday and Tuesday. Many counties delayed the start of early voting until Wednesday.
At the end of three days, 63,934 ballots had been cast, according to Secretary of State Karen Handel’s web site. Of those, 23 percent — 14,482 — were cast by African-Americans. In the general election, black voters delivered 34.5 percent of early votes.
That’s down from 24 percent after Tuesday.
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The near-disaster that Sonny Perdue kept to himself
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue revealed Thursday that state government was close to suffering major computers crashes, threatening lots of important data, during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
Perdue told reporters, including my AJC colleague Cameron McWhirter, that he “wasn’t fully transparent with all of you” at the time because the danger was “fairly frightening.” He said the threat was one of the main reasons he put two computer outsourcing contracts out to bid last year.
On Thursday, The governor held a press conference in his Capitol office to announce he was awarding an eight-year, $873 million contract to IBM and a five-year, $346 million contract to AT&T.
Patrick Moore, who heads the Georgia Technology Authority, said the new contracts will save the state millions in part because the state will reduce the number of state computer servers from about 2,700 now to about 1,600.
Ninety-two GTA workers will lose their jobs. The two companies were sole bidders for the contracts. Perdue had scrapped a similar deal in 2003 when only one company bid. This time, Perdue said, the state had done more homework about what he needed so he felt better about awarding these contracts.
“We weren’t going to be a patsy consumer,” he said.
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Atlanta Press Club cancels U.S. Senate debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A few minutes ago, the Atlanta Press Club officially canceled its plans for hosting U.S. Senate runoff debate for Sunday, executive director Lauri Straus said.
Neither Democrat Jim Martin nor Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss would commit — each citing scheduling conflicts. Martin pointed to a visit from former Vice President Al Gore, and the Chambliss campaign said it had a fund-raiser on its calendar.
Press club debates involving two other runoffs, for Public Service Commission and the state Court of Appeals, will be held Sunday.
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The D.C. debate over whether Obama should head to Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Chris Cillizza, who writes The Fix for the Washington Post, picks up on the debate over whether President-elect Barack Obama should head down to Georgia for the U.S. Senate runoff:
“When you’re President of the United States it pays to remember who your friends are,” said one senior Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about the president-elect. “Thinking Barack Obama has anything to risk by campaigning for Jim Martin is like most conventional wisdom — just plain wrong.”
Another Democratic Senate insider was more measured about Obama’s impact. “Obama could make a big difference with a visit, but it’s not the only way he can help,” said the source. “Fundraising or appearing in ads would be enormously beneficial to Martin as well.”
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Newt Gingrich and middle-class tax cuts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s Wall Street Journal, former House speaker Newt Gingrich says President-elect Barack Obama is right. Middle-class America needs a tax cut.
Just not Obama’s. Writes Gingrich, with Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation:
Mr. Obama’s tax plan includes creating or expanding nine or more federal income tax credits mostly focused on low- and moderate-income earners…
For the bottom 40% of income earners, who pay no federal income taxes on net today, these refundable income tax credits will not reduce tax liability but instead result in new checks from the federal government for the targeted social purposes. That’s not a tax cut. It’s welfare.
Instead, says Gingrich:
For a real middle-class tax cut, we should cut the 25% income tax rate that now applies to single workers earning $32,550 to $78,850, and married couples earning $65,100 to $131,450. We should reduce that rate down to the 15% rate paid by workers below these income levels. That would, in effect, establish a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 90% of American workers.
The former Georgia congressman concedes that a reduction in corporate tax rates or the capital gains tax isn’t in the cards:
Fine. Leave those rates for a future initiative. For now we should focus on the middle-income tax rates that are attractive to cut in the current political climate.
Yet another idea from the white-haired idea machine that addresses how Republicans, demoralized by November’s results, can reclaim ground by showing what they’re for — not what they’re against.
Think of this as evidence that Gingrich, despite his declarations of disinterest, shouldn’t be dismissed — not yet — from this quiet race for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.
Three weeks ago, Gingrich let it be known that he was “available” for the job. The official Gingrich position, as of this week, is that he’s “not interested.” The unofficial line is that the two characterizations aren’t necessarily contradictory.
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Bernie Marcus: Retailers who don’t back GOP Senate fights ‘should be shot’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Internet is buzzing with some slowly breaking news that first surfaced in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The column by Thomas Frank focused on legislation to make it easier for workers to form unions, by signing cards — “card check,” the process is called — instead of by secret ballot.
Midway through his piece, Frank focused on one of Atlanta’s own:
And hear the lamentations of the billionaires. “This is the demise of a civilization,” moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. “This is how a civilization disappears. I’m sitting here as an elder statesman, and I’m watching this happen, and I don’t believe it.”
Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the “low hanging fruit” and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation’s CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. “This is as important as anything that’s ever happened to these companies. And they’re not reacting, and they’re not fighting. The old time fighters are gone.”
But in the class war, as in the real deal, there are always ways of motivating the yellow. “If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their [expletive deleted] jobs.”
The expletive appears in its original form in the WSJ. It is a commonly expressed plea for the Almighty to deliver an individual to the gates of Hell, although it is often applied to inanimate objects.
We’re presuming that Marcus has maxxed out in his contributions to Saxby Chambliss.
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Sugar executive defends Chambliss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is in today’s Savannah Morning News:
Imperial Sugar Co. CEO John Sheptor defended the conduct of Saxby Chambliss on Wednesday, saying the U.S. senator from Georgia has “behaved appropriately with character and integrity at all times.”
The comments came after Imperial Sugar executives and workers broke ground on a new packaging warehouse at the Port Wentworth plant, damaged in the Feb. 7 explosions and fire that killed 14 workers and injured scores more.
Chambliss, a Republican in the midst of a re-election campaign against Democrat Jim Martin, is resisting an order to give evidence in a lawsuit by families of victims killed or hurt in the refinery disaster.
Savannah attorney Mark Tate, who issued the subpoena, has said Chambliss tried to talk some of Tate’s clients out of suing Imperial Sugar in the months that followed the tragedy.
Chambliss has said he is not only immune from such demands to testify, he is prohibited — a contention that Tate and others have challenged.
Chambliss supporters say the demand for the senator’s testimony is politically driven. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has made an issue of Chambliss’ treatment of a whistle-blower at a July hearing that examined the causes of the refinery explosion.
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Cagle joins Oxendine, shuts down 2010 fund-raising for governor ‘til Senate runoff ends
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has joined state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine in putting his fund-raising for a 2010 run for governor on hold until the U.S. Senate race has left the room.
In a letter to supporters, Cagle sought to make a virtue of the reality that Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss is soaking up every dime he can from GOP financial sources for the Dec. 2 runoff with Democrat Jim Martin.
The Democratic attempt to reach a 60-seat majority in the U.S. Senate eclipses all other concerns, Cagle wrote:
With this in mind, I have made the difficult decision to cancel our major 2008 fundraiser which was planned for December 2.
There is no doubt this step will have a significant impact on the funds we are able to raise. While this will leave us a great deal of ground to cover, I believe that with your help we can close the gap quickly.
In the meantime, I will be focusing a great deal of time and energy turning out Republican and independent voters for my good friend Saxby Chambliss.
Oxendine, who is also making a GOP run for governor, made the same call two weeks ago, and invited Cagle to join him.
Cagle’s letter can be found in its entirety on the jump.
Friends,
First, let me thank you for your strong support of our exploratory effort to build the resources it will take to win an extremely costly and competitive run for Governor beginning next year. Support from around the state continues to be very encouraging, and I am excited about what the future holds in store.
However, we are faced with a present day challenge that I wanted to address directly with you. As you know, U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss is locked in a runoff battle with former State Representative Jim Martin for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat. This election will be decided on December 2, 2008.
This election is clearly important to Georgia. However, it’s really about much, much more than that. As Democrats consolidate control of the House of Representatives and the White House, there is virtually no limit on what they can pass unless we hold the line in the U.S. Senate. That line exists at 57-60 votes, depending on how many Republicans join with the Democrats on a given issue. Typically the number of moderates who cross party lines is one or two. The Democrats currently have 57 seats, with two other seats still in play in other states. If they add Georgia to the list, they have a reliable 60 vote margin to shut down debate on most issues. With this, they will ram through broad union organizing expansions, socialized health care, and tax increases, as well as surrendering in the war against terrorism and packing the federal judiciary with activist judges. This kind of unchecked liberal agenda is a disaster America can’t afford.
With this in mind, I have made the difficult decision to cancel our major 2008 fundraiser which was planned for December 2. There is no doubt this step will have a significant impact on the funds we are able to raise. While this will leave us a great deal of ground to cover, I believe that with your help we can close the gap quickly. In the meantime, I will be focusing a great deal of time and energy turning out Republican and independent voters for my good friend Saxby Chambliss. I strongly urge you to do everything within your power to accomplish the same goal. America is watching Georgia right now, and the stakes could not be any higher. We must win, and if we all focus and work as a team, we can do it. As always, thanks for your support and please don’t hesitate to contact me or my staff if we can provide any additional information. We will be in touch as we reschedule this event for next year.
Sincerely,
Casey Cagle
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House members scold Pentagon for failing to spend enough — on the F-22
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The made-in-Marietta, radar-evading F-22 could become one of first big fights between Congress and the Obama administration, if a hearing held Wednesday on Capitol Hill is any measure.
Members of a House subcommittee tore into a Pentagon weapons buyer for failing to spend $90 million on the stealth fighter, as Congress had directed. The buyer said he wanted to wait and see what the new administration might want.
On the bright side, it looks like the battle will be a bipartisan one. This from the Air Force Times:
Undersecretary of Defense John Young was warned that the 2009 Defense Authorization Act “is not negotiable. You will obey what the bill says. That holds for the Pentagon and the secretary of defense,” scolded Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, during a hearing of the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee.
“You are acting in defiance of the law and the intent of Congress,” lectured Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga. “Is it up to you to decide which laws you will follow and which you will flout?”
…. After 150 minutes of hectoring Young, Gingrey conceded that he was uncertain how Congress could make the Defense Department comply.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you call the Justice Department? I don’t know.”
Congressional aides seemed to know the answer: As a practical matter, Congress can do nothing.
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Young climbs aboard AFRICOM effort
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador Andrew Young has lined up behind the lobbying effort to bring the U.S. military’s new Africa command center to a location near you.
Because Pentagon officials have been unable to secure a spot on the actual continent, Georgia has become one of several states trying to nab it — and the 1,300 or so employees it would bring.
This from Global Atlanta:
Military personnel “would love to come to Atlanta,” Mr. Young said. “Right now they’re in Stuttgart and they don’t speak the language. They’re strangers. They’d come here and they’d find friends, they’d be right at home.”
He does not view AFRICOM in the traditional military sense but rather as a coordinator of peacekeeping and trainer of urban law officers.
“We know how to train police officers to relate to the community,” Mr. Young said, relating his own experiences as mayor of Atlanta.
In a wide-ranging interview on Africa, Mr. Young said “17,000 United Nations forces just aren’t enough” to control the fighting between militia groups and government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Congo is larger than Europe,” he said.
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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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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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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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An emerging Southern view of the Detroit bailout
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sonny Perdue now drives a Kia. Occasionally.
The jet-black, $37,500 Borrego sports utility vehicle showed up in the governor’s Capitol parking spot last month, a gift to the state from the South Korean car maker - which is now building a $1.2 billion plant in west Georgia.
Apparently, company executives didn’t want Perdue showing up on their doorstep in something out of Detroit.
In the midst of a high-stakes debate over whether to salvage the U.S. auto industry with an umpteen billion dollar federal bailout, this is a small detail, but a telling one.
In its own way, the governor’s new ride may be as meaningful as the demolition of the Ford plant in Hapeville, or the abandonment of the General Motors plant in Doraville.
For behind the philosophical back-and-forth over government intervention, scheduled to begin Monday in the U.S. Senate, is a cut-throat, economic reality: the South has ambitions of becoming Detroit’s rival.
And a federal dollar that artificially props up manufacturing on the northern end of I-75 is a dollar that hinders the creation of new economic models downstream, some Southern politicians maintain.
Last week, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina argued that the refusal of the federal government to bail out the Pittsburgh-based steel industry in the 1970s ultimately led to the establishment of new steel mills in the South. Which permitted the birth of a new facet of the auto industry - highly automated, mostly non-union, and foreign-owned.
“There wouldn’t be a BMW in South Carolina or a whole host of other auto industries scattered across the South, because we would have just kept them all in Detroit,” the Republican said.
Georgia’s Kia plant is scheduled to open next November, employing as many as 2,500 workers. The site is located within U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s 3rd District. Westmoreland, like other House Republicans, voted against the $700 Wall Street bailout.
He’ll vote against a Detroit rescue as well - on the grounds that it would create a slanted field of play for the workers he’ll soon represent.
“One of the things we have constantly said is we can’t compete with some of these foreign businesses because the government has intervened in those businesses, and it makes an unfair advantage,” Westmoreland said. “What we’re doing here with the auto industry is basically the same thing.”
As have other states, Georgia laid out a boatload of incentives to land its auto plant, worth an estimated $415 million. But that’s not the same thing, the Georgia congressman said.
“I don’t think we were doing that because of bad business decisions Kia was making,” Westmoreland said. “We did that to get them in here, to create the jobs, to create the taxes, to put economic development into the area.”
Regional rivalry has its limits, of course. Before turning one’s back on Detroit, one must consider the impact that the addition of 1.5 million unemployed would have on an already shaky national economy.
Foreign car makers with interests in the South made up roughly 40 percent of the U.S. sales market in July, but contrary to what you might expect, they’re not interested in seeing Detroit disappear, said Bruce Belzowski, an assistant research scientist for the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.
Companies like Toyota “really don’t want to be seen as conquerors, from an image perspective,” Belzowski said.
Then there’s the fact that, if you’re a member of Congress, you never know what this economy might bring next. And an attitude anchored too firmly in laissez faire today might hurt Delta or Lockheed tomorrow.
Even if you’re a prospective Kia employee, you might not want to see Detroit fall. Wages are lower in Southern auto plants, but they’re still tied to wages hammered out between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three, according to Belzowski.
“Those people wouldn’t be making the money they’re making now if not for the UAW,” he said.
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No Barack Obama in sight, but Bill Clinton to rally for Jim Martin this week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Everyone’s been debating over whether the first African-American elected U.S. president should come to Georgia to campaign for Democrat Jim Martin in the U.S. Senate runoff.
That’s still up in the air. But what’s certain is that Martin has snagged the first faux black president. We’re shy on details yet, but the Democratic campaign just announced that former President Bill Clinton will be in Atlanta on Wednesday on Martin’s behalf.
Clinton — whose wife is under consideration for secretary of state, remember — was here only a couple weekend ago for Martin. But that was a private fund-raising event. This is a public rally.
“President Clinton and I share a common goal of helping President-elect [Barack] Obama fix our economy and get our country working for middle class Georgians again,” Martin said.
Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain and former U.S. senator Zell Miller participated in a rally for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss last week.
Also this weekend, the Martin campaign put up the TV ad below — a kind of anti-“firewall” approach, accusing Chambliss of blocking Obama’s planned recovery efforts.
The ad includes some footage of Chambliss speaking back in July. “We may not be in a recession. I don’t know what that term means,” Chambliss says. It’s a remark that had one meaning this summer, and a wholly different one today.
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Zell Miller video from that Saxby Chambliss rally on Thursday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Perhaps recognizing that he was the best part of a large Thursday rally for Saxby Chambliss, even better than former presidential contender John McCain, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has cut loose a web-only ad of former U.S. senator and governor Zell Miller’s remarks at the event.
It’s not TV quality video, but you might expect something like it before this U.S. Senate runoff is over. Couple bits of background: Miller declares that Chambliss may be the “last man standing” who would allow the Republicans to block Democratic initiatives with a filibuster. As a senator, when Republicans controlled the chamber, Miller declared reliance on a 60-member cloture vote in the Senate, needed to shut off debate, to be undemocratic.
Miller also accused Democrat Jim Martin of being the first state lawmaker to speak against a $100 million tax cut that Miller proposed as governor. But he made no mention of the fact that, as lieutenant governor, Miller joined Martin in support of a statewide sales tax increase in 1989. The Chambliss campaign has been hammering Martin on that one.
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Bourgeois, the Fort Benning protester, faces excommunication by Vatican
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, the Maryknoll brother who has led protests down at Fort Benning for decades, has let it be known that he stands to be excommunicated by the Vatican for his support of the ordination of women.
Blog for Democracy gets the hat tip. And here’s the article from the National Catholic Reporter.
Bourgeois, now 70, began his protests against the School of the Americas, an Army training school he blamed for human rights abuses in Latin America, in 1989. The institution was closed. In its place, the Pentagon opened the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation in 2001.
Bourgeois has continued his opposition. The last major demonstration occurred two years ago, attracting an estimated 10,000 protesters.
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Another (Republican) group joins the U.S. Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yet another group has walked into the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia.
We’re hearing that the conservative pro-business group Americans for Job Security has reserved $600,000 to $700,000 in TV air time in metro Atlanta, presumably on behalf of Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
If the group is engaged in a statewide hit, the buy is likely to amount to $1 million or so.
AJS has played heavily in U.S. Senate and House races across the country this political season:
— As of Oct. 31, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune said AJS had spent $452,000 in the Minnesota Senate race;
— USA Today says the group dropped $1.2 million in races across the country during six weeks of the general election;
— In a quick Googling, National Public Radio has the most detailed look at the new player.
This from September:
Americans for Job Security — a pro-business advocacy organization with a long record of running election-season ads without disclosing donors — is targeting Democratic Senate candidates in three key races with negative radio messages.
One ad blames Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for rampant “pork-barrel spending,” and accuses her of trading an earmark for campaign contributions. Another says that Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken’s economic plan “reads like a bad joke.” Yet another warns that New Hampshire Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen is all about taxes, taxes, taxes.
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Chambliss leads, but Martin close behind, Democratic poll says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll this week is showing Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss leading in the U.S. Senate runoff, with Democrat Jim Martin close behind.
The poll commissioned by the Democratic-oriented web site puts Chambliss at 49 percent, and Martin at 46 percent. Margin of error is 4 percent.
A separate poll by Survey USA has no horse race figures, but the poll had something else: 15 percent said a visit to Georgia by former GOP presidential candidate John McCain would make it more likely that they would vote on Dec. 2.
But 30 percent said a visit by President-elect Barack Obama would encourage them to head to the polls.
Statistician Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com says to take all these stats with a pail of salt. Many, if not most, of the people who say they are likely voters will find themselves doing something else on the first Tuesday in December, he said:
The tricky thing for pollsters will be in figuring out just which of these people are lying about their intent to participate and which of them aren’t. Pollsters like to root their models in recent precedent, but things like runoffs and special elections happen so rarely that there’s just not very much to key oneself off of.
The point is … if the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn’t be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn’t be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20. This will be a return to the high margins of uncertainty that we saw in the primaries.
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At times, you wonder how ‘Comedy Central’ could survive without Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens has made the big time.
On “The Daily Show” last night, Jon Stewart and John Oliver spent four minutes riffing on the Republican congressman’s fears that President-elect Barack Obama could establish a dictatorship along the lines of Stalin or Hitler.
A bit of the dialogue:
Oliver: Broun had the keen eye to see what so many had missed. That Barack Obama is incredibly similar to Hitler.
Stewart: Adolf.
Oliver: That’s right, Jon. Not Keith Hitler. Not Tommy Hitler. Not little Sarah Hitler. The main Hitler. Adolf Hitler. That is the Hitler most similar to Barack Obama.
Stewart: You’d have to be crazy not to see that.
Oliver: You’d have to be nuts.
Stewart: A mad man.
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The DSCC attacks Chambliss on the issue of children’s health insurance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has chosen the day of John McCain’s visit to Georgia to launch a round of TV commercials attacking Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
The ad below specifically notes Chambliss’ vote against the expansion of the federal-state children’s health insurance program — which in Georgia is called PeachCare.
The operative language:
Congress tried to pass better health care for children. But he voted no. Lower drug prices for seniors. He said no. Tax cuts for middle-class Georgia families. He said no.
“For six years, Saxby Chambliss has been part of the gridlock that’s hurt the middle class.”
Once McCain, the former GOP presidential candidate, has left town and clears the airwaves, look for Chambliss or his surrogates to respond in kind.
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Live blogging: McCain warns that he’s an example of what Democratic organization can do
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5:53 p.m.: John McCain has left the building, and is headed for a big-dollar, Saxby Chambliss fund-raiser at the 191 Club in downtown Atlanta. A few wrap-up points:
First, the former presidential candidate was a fairly soft-edged when it came to his criticism of Democrats. My AJC colleague Jim Tharpe pointed out something I hadn’t noticed — that McCain never mentioned Barack Obama by name.
Perhaps most important, McCain warned Republicans in Georgia that he serves as an example of what Democratic organization accomplished this political season, and urged them not to take the Dec. 2 runoff lightly.
5:50 p.m.: Defeated Republican nominee John McCain cracked jokes with an enthusiastic Cobb County crowd here, telling them that he now sleeps like a baby.
“Sleep two hours, wake up and cry. Sleep two hours, wake up and cry,” McCain said. He told the same joke on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” two nights earlier.
He also listed the presidential candidates from Arizona: himself, Barry Goldwater, Bruce Babbit, and Mo Udall. “Arizona may be the only state in the union where mothers don’t tell their children they can grow up to be president,” he said.
On the Republican incumbent: “Saxby Chambliss has been doing what we Republicans should have been doing for these past eight years, and that’s cut spending,” McCain said.
“I ask you to go into battle one more time. The eyes of the country and the world will be on the state of Georgia on Dec. 2.
The first praise from McCain about Chambliss was on agriculture exports…
5:26 p.m.: Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain is on the stage. Saxby Chambliss is speaking. Boos from the crowd of 1,500 when he mentioned President-elect Barack Obama. Chambliss says he’d pray for him — but not his agenda.
“It only takes one U.S. senator to stop that,” Chambliss said.
5:25 p.m.: Until this evening, Zell Miller had stayed out of the U.S. Senate race — and the presidential race, too, for that matter.
But he just unloaded on Democrat challenger Jim Martin, and gave Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss an unqualified endorsement.
“It’s critical for us to keep Saxby’s voice and vote in Washington,” Miller said. “Saxby could well be the last man standing between us” and the Democratic agenda.
Now, there’s some irony here, because Miller, when he was a senator, constantly expressed frustration at U.S. Senate rules that allowed Democrats — then in the minority — to stop the Bush administration with a cloture vote.
Miller told of his proposal for a $100 million tax cut when he was governor, and named Martin as “the very first legislator” to speak out against it.
“And another thing. I don’t like this spread-the-wealth, income distribution. To steal from Peter even if it gets Paul to vote for you is wrong, wrong, wrong,” Miller said.
“I’ve served with both of these men in the race. And there’s no question in my mind which one is best to serve our state and our country,” he said.
4:58 p.m.: A number of heavyweights have climbed to the stage — foremost among them former U.S. senator and governor Zell Miller. Public Service Commission candidate Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, also in a runoff, is on the stage.
Gov. Sonny Perdue is not here — he’s at the Republican Governors Association in Miami. U.S. Rep. Tom Price has joined Westmoreland here. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, over from South Carolina, is here as well. Big ally of McCain in D.C.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson named as being here as well. But darned if I can see them.
4:30 p.m.: Authorities at Cobb Energy Center have already closed the ballroom doors on the 5:30 p.m. event, and an overflow crowd is already spilling into the hallway. There’s a 1,500-person limit to the room.
Very crowded, and hardly enough room to move. Reporters very much a presence — TV cameras number 18. But no one dares move, for fear of losing his seat.
Alec Poitevint, who was the McCain chairman in Georgia, just brushed by — and said this event for Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, would be larger then the final McCain event held in the same spot last February. And he’s right.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is here. So is U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland. Many suits here — a rush-hour crowd on their way home to Cobb County.
Big emphasis here on absentee voting. Many volunteers out front, filling out applications.
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Dear journalist: The reality you just witnessed may have been slightly enhanced for artistic purposes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
People do talk about reporters behind their back. This shout-out from Jodie Cobb of the DeKalb County Democratic party was making the rounds Wednesday afternoon:
The New York Times will be at the Obama Campaign’s Decatur office this evening at 6:30 to do a story on US! The great volunteers and our effort to get Jim Martin elected.
Donna Edler at the Campaign for Change has asked me to get as many people as possible down to their office by 6:00pm today (Wednesday) so we can show the world that Georgia is the most important political place on earth right now!! Please bring your cell phones and chargers.
Republicans know this, too — that extras are often required to make a scene work.
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Did Nunn school CBS’ Couric for her Palin interview?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At an off-the-record tech conference in New York, CBS’ Katie Couric reportedly said that former Georgia senator Sam Nunn helped her prepare for her interview with Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee.
Can’t find the original posting at Portfolio.com, but this appeared on Media Memo:
Couric shed some light on her preparation for the interviews: Beforehand, she sought advice from former senator Sam Nunn and Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas. They told her to draw Palin out on her geopolitical worldview and urged her to let the governor speak at length without interrupting her. Maybe she should bring them along with her when she takes over at Meet the Press?”
Nunn was an outspoken Obama supporter at the time. Haas’ political affiliation is harder to pin down, but as I recall, during the GOP primary, Mike Huckabee at one point cited Haas as someone he consulted with on foreign policy.
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Georgia NAACP says Obama’s election has resulted in ‘acts of intimidation and retaliation’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia NAACP has scheduled a 3:30 p.m. press conference in downtown Atlanta today to discuss “acts of intimidation and retaliation” rising out of the election of President-elect Barack Obama.
According to a news release:
— African-American parents are reporting that their kids - from elementary to high school -are being verbally and physically harassed by their white classmates while their teachers turn the other way.
— Teachers and principals have told students that they cannot in any way discuss President-elect Obama and the election or they will face disciplinary action, even though prior to Nov. 4, teachers held regular class discussions on the upcoming election.
— At the workplace, employees are being ordered by their employers not to mention the name Obama or the election.
— One worker was told to move her car out of the company parking lot because she had an Obama bumper sticker on her vehicle.
— Both African-American students and employees are reporting that they’re receiving all kinds of slights, cold shoulders, and uncomfortable stares from their white classmates and colleagues.
Daryl Graham, spokesman for the state NAACP, said the press conference would feature an east Cobb County family whose daughter attends Walton High School. “The day after, there was a chill in the building,” Graham said.
By way of background, in a mock election, 549 students at Walton chose Obama by 53 percent.
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ICYMI: ‘Don’t preach,’ says Perdue; and Broun says to pay no attention to that voice of regret
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From elsewhere on ajc.com today:
— At the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami, Gov. Sonny Perdue stirred some up the water war with his host state on Wednesday, declaring that Florida has no moral high ground when it comes to environmental policy:
In Georgia, Perdue said, “You have a … pristine undeveloped coastline with marshes there that people love to look out on. 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.”
— U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens) has decided that regrets his statement of regret more than his characterization of President-elect Barack Obama as a “Marxist” who must be watched lest he set up something like a geheime Staatspolizei.
On Tuesday, in a recorded interview with talk show host Austin Rhodes on WGAC in Augusta, Broun had expressed second thoughts about his phrasing.
“I regret saying it that way. Yes, I do. I apologize to anybody that’s taken offense at that,” Broun said.
But on Wednesday, Jessica Morris, a spokeswoman for Broun, told my Washington colleague Julia Malone that the statement was inoperative — or Broun was insincere. One or the other. It’s hard to say which.
“We have not issued any official apology,” Morris said. “What he said in the [radio] interview does not negate what he really feels — that he has questions and concerns regarding some of the statements Obama has made.”
Broun worries about a July speech by Obama in which the Democratic candidate said:
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
The Obama transition team has said Obama was referring to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure.
As a matter of fact, this has already been accomplished, Malone writes:
The “Civilian Response Corps,” as it is called, was launched two years ago by the Bush administration, after a bipartisan vote by Congress and the urging of Republicans including former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
“I think the attention to this issue is very important,” said John E. Herbst, the former ambassador to Ukraine who is leading the project.
The civilian corps is now recruiting engineers, law enforcement personnel, health officers, city administrators and other specialists who could be sent overseas to help re-establish local governmental controls after a crisis.
“The impetus was some of the problems we encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq on the civilian side,” Herbst said. “Our military performed brilliantly,” he said, adding that the troops needed the skills and assistance of civilians to help re-establish order.
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The Democrat now leads in Alaska’s senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Perhaps the biggest news in Georgia this morning comes out of Alaska, where in that state’s U.S. Senate race Democrat Mark Begich now leads Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens by 814 votes.
Check for yourself here. A victory there would put Democrats at the 58-seat mark, and would likely increase the emphasis both sides put on winning the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia.
You saw in a post last night that Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss was prepared to expel Stevens, who was convicted last month on seven felony counts, but still hopes the long-time Alaskan senator would pull this race out — and give the GOP a chance to rebound in a special election.
A couple leftovers from Wednesday’s press conference with Chambliss and John Ensign of Nevada, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee:
— Republicans are very aware of a Barack Obama-driven surge of volunteers moving into Georgia on behalf of Martin, and want to give every impression of matching them on the ground.
“We have 10 regional offices that we have expanded from their original number of people. We also have a number of others - grassroots organizations and offices throughout the state,” Chambliss said.
— Both Chambliss and Martin on Wednesday expressed skepticism about the extension of federal bailout privileges to the U.S. automotive industry. Martin, who enjoys union backing, was more open to the idea, but neither ruled it out entirely.
Said Chambliss:
”I’m very much opposed to extending additional funding for the automotive industry - unless there is major restructuring within the automobile industry. They have got fundamental, deep-rooted problems in the automotive industry today, and they have brought their position on themselves. And it’s not a function of government to step in and give them a blank check. Money will not solve the problems within the automobile industry.”
Said Martin:
“It needs to be carefully done. We don’t want the same kind of proposal that came forward with last bailout. The automobile industry is an important part of our economy and deserves careful consideration. [It needs to be] core competitive in the world economy and creating energy efficient cars. Just giving money to executives of automobile industry doesn’t make sense.”
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Saxby Chambliss says he’d vote to expel Alaska senator, and Sarah Palin may be ready to replace him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saxby Chambliss said Wednesday that he’ll vote to expel Republican colleague Ted Stevens, should the long-time Alaskan senator win his re-election bid.
Stevens was convicted of seven felony counts last month related to the failure to report gifts from lobbyists. He is leading narrowly in his re-election bid but has not officially been declared the winner of a seventh full Senate term.
“First of all, I hope Senator Stevens is successful in being re-elected. And assuming that he is, I intend to support any motion to remove him,” Chambliss said during a press conference with John Ensign of Nevada, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has served notice that he’ll seek to expel Stevens from the Senate Republican Conference at a meeting next Tuesday.
While Ensign said that he, too, would vote to expel Stevens from the GOP circle — a move that would foreshadow expulsion by the entire Senate — the Nevada senator counseled waiting to see whether Stevens wins his race.
“If he actually wins the election, then you have to expel him twice. And so it’s probably better to let Alaska — it’s probably going to take a while to count all the votes up there — let that take place, then after the first of the year deal with it,” Ensign said.
Expulsion or, more likely, a resignation would trigger a 90-day special election to replace him, Ensign said. It would also give Republicans a chance to keep the seat out of Democratic hands.
Gov. Sarah Palin, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, has been mentioned as a candidate if Stevens leaves or is ousted. And just by coincidence, she was interviewed this afternoon on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
In the interview, which airs at 9 p.m. tonight, King asked Palin if she intends to finish out her term. ” I will do what the people of Alaska want me to do,” Palin replied. “If they call an audible on me, and if they say they want me in another position, I’m going to do it.”
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DSCC ads to hit Atlanta airwaves, greet John McCain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We hear that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has re-joined the contest on behalf of U.S. Senate runoff candidate Jim Martin, with a five-day TV buy in metro Atlanta that’s to start Thursday.
No video has been associated with the purchase — yet.
But the ad buy seems timed to dilute televised images of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who comes to Atlanta tomorrow on behalf of Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
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On Thursday, no more President Bush
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press, which provides much political coverage for the AJC and news outlets throughout the country, is making a very minor change that’s likely to catch your eye — or ear.
As of 3 a.m. Thursday, AP will begin referring to the president of the United States — and the president-elect — by their full names.
In other words, President George W. Bush. And President-elect Barack Obama.
No political statement is intended.
For decades, since Franklin Roosevelt lived in the White House, it’s been AP “style” to refer to the president by his last name only: i.e., President Bush — whether No. 41 or No. 43.
The news cooperative isn’t exactly sure why it was adopted, but the practice was only applied within the United States. Heads of states in other countries are addressed by their full names. So is the president of the United States — but only in articles filed from overseas, headed for other countries.
“We saw a need to standardize how we refer to the president, especially since the wire now services more of a global audience,” explained Darrell Christian, AP editor at large and co-editor of the AP stylebook.
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A Democratic attempt to create some rain for the McCain appearance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrats are out to make the Thursday appearance of John McCain for Saxby Chambliss as awkward as possible.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is passing around a 50-second web-only ad intended to remind viewers of the reaction by the former GOP presidential candidate reaction to a Chambliss TV ad that had helped the Republican oust U.S. Sen. Max Cleland.
“I’d never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield — it’s worse than disgraceful. It’s reprehensible,” the ad quotes McCain as saying on CNN in 2003, a year after the election.
See the ad below.
But if you expect McCain to repeat himself, keep in mind that the Arizona senator owes his Georgia colleague. Both Chambliss and Johnny Isakson stepped out on a pretty thin limb just last February, when they put their names behind McCain’s presidential campaign — while the majority of other Republican heavyweights in the state went elsewhere or stayed on the sidelines. Yes, Georgia Republicans went for Mike Huckabee — but a debt is a debt.
As a matter of fact, the McCain event will be in the same facility where Chambliss and Isakson gave their presidential endorsements.
Meanwhile, Chambliss is having a media-heavy day: A morning radio interview with WBMQ in Savannah; “Fox and Friends” afterwards, a studio appearance with Neal Boortz on WSB, with a Glenn Beck appearance and a press conference in the offing.
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House chairman: Trim back early voting and the 50 percent rule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another Republican voice now says early voting should be cut back — and that perhaps a state law that demands election victors to win by a 50-percent-plus-one margin isn’t such a good thing after all.
The Associated Press this morning quotes state Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton), chairman of the House Governmental Affairs Committee, as saying that changes to state election law are likely to come with the winter session of the Legislature.
State Senate leaders, also Republican, have already voiced their concern with the implications of early voting, but hadn’t mentioned changing the threshold needed to win elections.
Wrote AP:
State Rep. Austin Scott said he expects legislators to discuss tightening runoff guidelines in the wake of the surprising showing by Democrat Jim Martin that forced a Dec. 2 showdown with Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss.
He also said he was considering whether to draft a measure that would shorten Georgia’s 45-day advance voting period.
“Most people think it was stretched out too far,” said Scott, a Tifton Republican who chairs the House committee charged with drafting electoral policy. “Maybe two weeks would be long enough.”
….Scott said the six-week advance period also could expose the system to more voter fraud, and he said legislators could limit potential abuse by tightening early voting.
“The two goals of the election are access and integrity,” he said. “And reaching that balance is sometimes easier said than done.”
Republicans also could overhaul election rules that now require a runoff if none of the candidates earn more than 50 percent of the vote.
Scott and a slew of House Republican leaders unsuccessfully proposed lowering the bar to 45 percent last year, and he said the provision could resurface from legislators concerned about the mounting costs of runoffs.
Statewide runoffs have cost tens of thousands of dollars in the past, and the Dec. 2 contest could top $100,000.
“The counties have asked for that 45 percent threshold because of the cost of elections,” Scott said.
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Obama team confirms Nunn’s role as defense advisor on transition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A spokeswoman for Barack Obama this morning confirmed that former Georgia senator Sam Nunn will have a key role in the shift to a new administration, but said that a report that he would oversee a Pentagon transition team was overstated.
“Senator Sam Nunn will play an informal senior advisor role throughout the defense transition process. His expertise and the respect he has earned will be invaluable to ensure a smooth transition,” said transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. But he won’t be paid, and won’t have a formal position on a Pentagon transition team, as the AP reported.
The Associated Press article also said Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state under President Clinton, would also be a leader in the switch of administrations.
“However, he is not playing a role in the transition process,” Cutter said. “There’s a lot of disinformation out there. We’re working hard to put the agency review teams together and expect they’ll be announced this week and inside the agencies by the end of the week.”
Whether formal or informal, paid or unpaid, it’s clear that Nunn will be a significant part of the transition process on defense and national security matters. Not a suprise, given that Nunn appeared at Obama’s side during a Virginia press conference, a week or so before the election.
Here’s a quick review of what Nunn’s involvement might mean:
— First, what it doesn’t say that Obama has named a secretary of defense. On the eve of the presidential election, from the King & Spalding office in Atlanta, Nunn declared himself uninterested in any cabinet position or permanent post in government. There’s no reason to disbelieve him, and his background role in the transition reinforces this. But Nunn is a reassuring figure to those in the Pentagon who don’t know what a Barack Obama administration might bring.
— In Nunn, you get a defense expert — the former head of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee — who’s expressed skepticism about the ramping up of hostilities toward Russia, and NATO’s extension of mutual defense membership to countries like Poland and Ukraine on the Russian border. NATO, Nunn has said, should be wary about making promises it can’t keep — not when its own defense forces are busy in Afghanistan.
“We need to understand that when you make military commitments, you’ve got to back it up with military capability,” Nunn said three months ago. “And right now, NATO is in danger of turning itself into a political organization rather than an effective military organization, and making political commitments which cannot be backed up with current forces.”
— Included in Nunn’s concerns about Russia is that country’s reaction to Eastern Europe as a platform for a U.S. missile defense system. “For us to deploy a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland - the system itself is not yet mature, and the Iranian threat is not yet mature. So we’ve got some time. Russia offered their territory, and it seems to me we ought to be working with Russia on missile defense,” Nunn said in the same interview.
— Though he did not often speak of it publicly, Nunn was highly critical of the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. (As a senator, he voted against the first Gulf War.) The former senator has blamed President Bush’s go-it-alone policy in Iraq for the souring of diplomatic relations on a number of other, perhaps more important fronts.
Like Obama, he has said that the U.S. needs to renew its emphasis on diplomacy. “Although it’s really not accurate, we’ve given the impression in the world that the military is our primary and only tool. And the military are the first ones to say that we can’t be the only tool. There has to be a whole array of tools in the arsenal, ” Nunn said last year.
At the same time, Nunn has not advocated an immediate skedaddling — to use a technical phrase — out of Iraq, if only for logistical reasons. “We have something like 44,000 track vehicles over there. It would take, probably, 12 months —- nothing but flying C-17s and other cargo aircraft back and forth to get them out, ” he said.
— During the debate over running mates this summer, gay groups targeted Nunn for his support of the U.S. military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy that permits gays to serve — as long as they keep their sexual orientation a secret.
Barack Obama’s involvement of Nunn in the transition of the nation’s military command would seem to be, if not a dismissal of this objection, then a recognition that — in the face of two wars on the other side of the globe — that open service by gays and lesbians may not be an immediate priority.
Remember that the topic of gays in the military was the first fight picked by Bill Clinton when he assumed the presidency in 1992. Earlier this year, Nunn said “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” deserves another look, but said any change in policy should bubble up from within the Pentagon.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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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.]
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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Flintstones vs. Jetsons, democracy vs. dictatorship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is unusual.
Watching CNN’s Cafferty File, we learn that the collision of the Bush family and the Obama famly at the White House today was something like “the Flintstones meet the Jetsons.”
Hanna-Barbera would be so proud.
Meanwhile, our own U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens), now free of any restrictions imposed by a November election, has warned of a Barack Obama dictatorship. This from the Associated Press:
A Republican congressman from Georgia is calling President-elect Obama a Marxist and warning that he might be planning to form a Gestapo-like security force so he can rule as a dictator.
Two-term Rep. Paul Broun of Athens cited a July speech that has circulated on the Internet in which Obama called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
Broun said he was not fear-mongering but wants to warn people that the nation could be going down that path.
His comments came in a Monday telephone interview with The Associated Press after he called Obama a Marxist at a Rotary Club meeting in his district over the weekend.
Looking back, that George Jetson always did look a little Bolshevistic.
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Not just Richardson, but Keen, too, challenged in GOP caucus fight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By now, you know that state Rep. Glenn Richardson of Hiram was all but guaranteed another two years as House speaker this morning.
About three-quarters of the House Republican caucus voted by secret ballot to stick with with the chamber’s first GOP leader. Unless rebellious Republican lawmakers choose to make an alliance with Democrats in January — an unlikely situation — the election should settle the matter.
But before it was over, House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island also got an unexpected challenge during the caucus meeting, according to my AJC colleague James Salzer.
Keen didn’t find out until shortly before the morning meeting that state Rep. Tom Graves of Ranger would also run for the position.
Graves, who has been a thorn in the leadership’s side, accused Keen of not putting the Republican caucus first. At one point, he said Keen was soliciting support for his likely campaign for governor in 2010, rather than for Republican House candidates fighting for election this year. “I believe our caucus and our state deserves the best of the best,” Graves told caucus members.
Keen denied he sought campaign contributions for his race for governor. In fact, Keen said he won’t decide whether to make the race until after the 2009 legislative session. If he decides to run for governor, he said, he would resign his leadership post.
“We are entering one of the most difficult sessions you can imagine,” he said. “I don’t think it’s time to take a risk for change.”
The vote for majority leader was also secret, but it would be a fair guess that Keen won by the same margin as Richardson.
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Giving Maynard Jackson the news
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My daughter Carol toured Oakland Cemetery on Saturday. Someone had made sure that Maynard Jackson, the late mayor of Atlanta and godfather to African-American politics in Georgia, was informed of Tuesday’s results. Jackson’s been dead these four years now.
Photo credit: Carol Galloway
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Gingrich says he’d serve as GOP chairman — if the RNC wants him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich has let it be known that, if Republicans want him, the former U.S House speaker is willing to serve as chairman of the national party and lead it out of the wilderness it’s blundered into.
The question is whether the 168-member Republican National Committee is open to the match.
“If a majority of the RNC thought he was needed, he would accept that appointment,” said Randy Evans’ Gingrich’s close friend and legal counsel. “He fully appreciates the urgency of the moment.”
What might strike some as coyness is in fact caution. The odds are stacked against the former Georgia congressman, for several reasons.
For one thing, six days after the election of Barack Obama and substantial gains by Democrats in the House and Senate, Republicans have yet to decide whether a serious overhaul of the party is required.
If a revolution is in order, then there’s the small matter of which side is issued the pitchforks, and whose castle is to be stormed. Is this a fight to purge moderates, or a battle to expand the tent?
“The RNC has to do some soul-searching and decide what level of change is necessary,” Evans said. “If that answer is bold, energetic change led by someone who has done it before, then Newt would be a good choice.”
If the party is eying a shift toward the middle, Evans added, “that isn’t Newt.”
Though he retains his reputation as a polarizing figure, Gingrich served as a sideline strategist for the GOP during the presidential season. He pointed McCain to the issue of offshore drilling. But Gingrich also helped generate skepticism over the Wall Street bailout — which McCain and other Senate Republicans supported.
A Gingrich chairmanship might get loud support from the GOP’s talk-radio contingent. The former House speaker has close ties to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Neal Boortz.
But the RNC is a different, often parochial animal, made up of the top three members of the GOP establishment in every state and U.S. territory, plus the District of Columbia.
The RNC is scheduled to make its decision in January, shortly after Obama’s historic inauguration. Had John McCain made it to the White House, committee members would have deferred to his choice.
But without White House clout, past elections have shown that the RNC prefers — though is not required — to choose from within its ranks. And the 65-year-old Gingrich is not an RNC member.
Moreover, while President Bush still searches out new lows in popularity, the RNC is peopled with those who helped him win two elections — and many remain loyal. Yet Gingrich, seeing Bush squander the fruits of his ’94 revolution, has been ruthless in his criticism of the out-going president.
A sifting of the ashes will begin in Miami with a Wednesday meeting of the Republican Governors Association. Gingrich and other candidates will be there to buttonhole party leaders in small, private conversations.
Those interested in the job include Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan GOP, and Katon Dawson, the South Carolina chairman. The current RNC chairman, Mike Duncan, also seeks another term.
One potential candidate who has taken himself out of the race is RNC member Alec Poitevint of Bainbridge, who chaired the successful McCain campaign in Georgia. Poitevint said he’ll concentrate on the re-election of Saxby Chambliss to the U.S. Senate.
Pointevint wouldn’t tip his hand on who he intends to vote for in January. But he said any candidate interested in the chairmanship job needs to prove his mettle — by showing up in Georgia to help Chambliss through the runoff.
Sue Everhart, the state GOP chairman and another RNC member, in previous conversations hasn’t expressed enthusiasm for a Gingrich chairmanship. But Georgia’s third RNC member, Linda Herren of Atlanta, said making Gingrich the official voice of the GOP would be fine by her.
“There were too many deals cut with the Democrats. We have no rudder,” Herren said. On the other hand, she said, if Gingrich really wants the GOP chairmanship, a front-porch strategy won’t cut it. She’s already been lobbied by a half-dozen candidates.
“Newt - if he wants to do it, he’ll have to start pedaling now,” Herren said.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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Chambliss slips further below the 50 percent mark
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the yet-to-be resolved U.S. Senate race, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss is now 16,895 votes short of the magic 50-percent-plus-one mark that would let him avoid a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin.
For Chambliss, the 50-percent gap has increased more than 800 votes since Friday morning, though the overall percentages have not: Chambliss, 49.8 percent; Martin, 46.8 percent; and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 3.4 percent.
Here’s the latest on the tardy Fulton County vote.
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The Freedom’s Watch attack on Democrat Jim Martin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Freedom’s Watch is a pro-Republican 527 that has played in other U.S. Senate races, and had sponsored ads on behalf of Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in the general election.
No surprise with the ad below, which is currently on air:
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The Speaker’s solution for an active duty lawmaker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A little catch-up:
House Speaker Glenn Richardson sent out a note yesterday intended to resolve the matter of state Rep. Doug Collins of Gainesville, who is an Air Force chaplain currently in serving in Iraq.
Collins had written a letter to members of the House Republican Caucus laying out his effort to participate in Monday’s vote to select caucus officers, including the speaker — who’s opposed by state Rep. David Ralston of Blue Ridge.
Collins, by way of background, was one of those Republicans punished for opposing Richardson’s choice for chairman of the state transportation board.
House Republican Caucus rules require personal attendance at the 10 a.m. meeting. No proxies allowed. But with Collins’ letter circulating, Richardson has proposed a change in rules that would allow exceptions for lawmakers in uniform.
However, the Richardson solution also requires a signed letter giving voting power to a colleague. We e-mailed Collins yesterday to see whether he’s done that. If not, then the situation remains basically unchanged and Collins is out of luck. Iraq is far away, and notarized mail is slow.
Ralston, by the way, has sent a letter to all House Republicans, explaining his reason for challenging Richardson. The communication includes this line to reassure those who hold committee chairmanships and more:
“This campaign is not about a wholesale cleaning out. It is about new leadership that will reflect the best of our caucus and will advance the ideals we all embrace in a positive, open and productive manner.”
Read the speaker’s voting proposal and Ralston’s letter in their entirety on the jump.
FROM HOUSE SPEAKER GLENN RICHARDSON
Dear Caucus Members,
As most of you know, our fellow House member Doug Collins is serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq. We are all very appreciative and supportive of his service to our country. And, I hope all of you will join me in not only thanking Doug for his service but wishing him a prompt and safe return.
As a result of his service, he will be unable to attend the Caucus meeting on Monday. So, to allow him to participate, I have prepared the attached proposed rule change to the House Republican Caucus rules.
In accordance with rule 22, this memo serves as written notice to the members of the caucus at least three days in advance of any vote to amend. I have asked retired Lt. Colonel Amos Amerson to present this rule change on my behalf. I hope you will adopt this unanimously at our meeting on Monday. Thank you.
Glenn Richardson
DATE: November 6, 2008
RE: AMENDMENT TO HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS RULES and the Rules for the Nomination of Candidates for Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem and for Election of Republican Caucus Officers, Georgia House of Representatives, Revised February 13, 2001.
In accordance with Rule 22, I hereby offer for your consideration the following amendments to the Caucus Rules. The purpose of these amendments would be to create a method for voting by proxy in Caucus elections only.
Amendment to HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS RULES:
- There shall be no voting by absentee ballot, however, voting by proxy shall be permitted as specifically expressed in the Rules for the Nomination of Candidates for Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem and for Election of Republican Caucus Officers.
Amendments to: Rules for the Nomination of Candidates for Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem and for Election of Republican Caucus Officers:
In all cases, election to a caucus office shall require a majority vote of the caucus members voting either in person or by proxy as permitted in Rule 9.
Proxy votes from absent caucus members will be counted only if the absent member is serving on active duty in a branch of the United States Armed Forces and cannot attend the election meeting in person because of such duty and has, in writing, designated an eligible member of the caucus as their proxy to vote in his or her stead and has delivered such writing to the caucus Secretary prior to the election of the caucus officers.
RALSTON LETTER
On Monday, our House Majority Caucus will make a very solemn and serious decision. We will come together to choose our new leadership for the 2009-2010 term.
The decision we make will define us as a Caucus and send a message to those who placed their trust in us to represent them in the Georgia House of Representatives.
After much prayer and careful deliberation, I have announced my intention to offer for the position of Speaker of the House.
I do not do this out of anger. I am not angry nor am I bitter. Speaker Richardson has been, is, and will continue to be my friend.
I do not do this because of some unbridled ambition. I have no desire to ever seek another office if you honor me by election to this position of trust.
My reasons for seeking to become Speaker are straightforward. Like many of you, I believe strongly that we must have change for the future of our Caucus, the Republican party and the people of Georgia.
We have become defined as a chamber where heated rhetoric, name-calling and in-fighting have become the order of the day.
We suffer as a chamber from our lack of cooperation and meaningful dialogue with the executive branch and the other legislative body.
Finally, we have allowed a closed leadership system to develop, one which devalues respect for all individual members, has become intolerant of independent thought, and has promoted retribution and intimidation as leadership tools.
I have committed to this race because I am convinced that a change in leadership is the only way we can govern effectively and preserve our majority.
At this time in our state’s history, it is essential that we have strong, stable and civil leadership. We will continue to have differences with the executive branch and the State Senate, but we must be prepared to work those differences out in more productive and less publicly acrimonious ways.
Every member of our Caucus represents Georgians who elected them to do what is right. As a result, every member is entitled to respect and to full participation. We must empower our Caucus to have input into our positions.
We must also never forget that we are Republicans. As Republicans, we must not only stand for the principles that make us different, but we must never forget that we are held to a higher standard by both who support us as well as those who would seek to tear us down.
My Republican roots run deep. My commitment to this party has been proven. Having served in the minority in the Georgia General Assembly, I do not want to go back. However, the people of Georgia did not give us a permanent lease on the House. Just as our brothers and sisters forfeited their leadership position in Washington, we are in danger of doing the same.
Most importantly, we must be always mindful that the chamber in which we serve is truly the “people’s House.” We have been chosen by the people of Georgia to represent and serve them - not other politicians.
I have the leadership skills needed for this job. I do not have to change who I am. This campaign is not about a wholesale cleaning out. It is about new leadership that will reflect the best of our Caucus and will advance the ideals we all embrace in a positive, open and productive manner.
I hope you will join with me on Monday in a vote that will say to our citizens that we will put them first again and will send a strong, clear message that it is time to put aside the ways we have tried in the past and get about the people’s business.
The people of Georgia want to be able to have respect for and pride in their House again. With your help, we will make that wish a reality.
Respectfully,
David Ralston
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‘Mutts like me’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama gave an interesting self-characterization during his first press conference as president-elect. The subject was the harmless topic of finding a dog to keep his two young daughters company in the White House.
Obama said he’d like to pick a shelter dog, but one of his daughters is allergic, so they may need a specific breed:
“A lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me,” Obama said.
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On Thursday, Chambliss was 8,000 shy of 50% — this a.m. he’s 16,000 short
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With all Fulton County precincts now having reported (at least on the web site of Secretary of State Karen Handel), Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss’ chances of escaping a U.S. Senate runoff seem to have gotten smaller.
On Thursday morning, Chambliss was 8,198 votes shy of the 50-percent-plus-one mark he needs. This morning, the number has nearly doubled to 16,086.
By percentage, the race stands at Chambliss, 49.8 percent; Democrat Jim Martin, 46.8 percent; and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 3.4 percent.
Read the latest vote-count article here.
Last night, a Democratic friend — with a fine hand for note-taking — was phoned by an Ogden, Utah firm apparently polling for Chambliss.
The pollster asked how the respondent voted on Tuesday, of course, and asked him to rate issues. The pollster asked what he thought of a national sales tax. (The Fair Tax in local parlance).
There were abortion and gun control questions. Another that asked if the rich were taxed enough. And whether Democratic control of Washington was a good thing or a bad thing.
Most interesting was the hot-button list of items that might erupt in a short campaign:
— Criminal rights activists (Democrat Jim Martin, Chambliss’ runoff rival, is an attorney);
— Politicians acting on self-interest;
— China cheating on trade deals;
— Courts allowing same-sex marriage;
— The “lack of oil exploration” driving up gas costs;
— The $700 billion bailout of Wall Street;
— Pork barrel projects;
— The state of health care;
— And bringing troops home now.
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‘It’s wrong to support, or oppose, a candidate because of faith’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark DeMoss, the Christian public relations specialist based in Duluth, makes something of a splash this morning with a brief essay on the lessons of the ’08 campaign.
DeMoss, you’ll recall, served as one of Republican Mitt Romney’s liaisons to Southern evangelicals during the primary. DeMoss is Southern Baptist. Romney is Mormon.
I’d like to see evangelicals look for competent, qualified candidates who share our values, whether or not they share our faith or theology. I believe it’s wrong to oppose a candidate because of his faith (Mitt Romney), and equally wrong to support a candidate primarily based on common faith (Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin).
Along the campaign trail I met so many people, including pastors and religious leaders, who could tell me only that their choice for president was a “good Christian,” or “one of us.”
This, in my view, is a dangerously inadequate approach to choosing our highest leaders. We don’t choose people for any other positions using this test; why would we apply it to one of the most important positions on the planet?
DeMoss also suggested that conservative Christians become more active on the financial sides of campaigns.
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Gun shop backs off ‘Obama sale’ on guns and ammo
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Athens Banner-Herald has this today:
A local gun shop that used Barack Obama’s name to hawk weapons has backed down, saying the message was meant to champion gun rights, not threaten violence.
Georgia Outdoor Sports owner Carrie Mentel said she advertised an “OBAMA SALE!” - on “GUNS AMMO ARCHERY” - outside her Hull store Wednesday morning, hours after the election, because firearms enthusiasts are worried the new Democratic president soon will step all over their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
But some passing motorists interpreted the sign as a call for violence against the country’s first black president.
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Killing rumors: Cleland says appointment talk is news to him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Politico.com reported this afternoon that former Georgia senator Max Cleland was “in the running” to be the next secretary of the Army in the Obama administration.
If that’s the case, Cleland is as surprised as anyone, says my Washington colleague Julia Malone. “I don’t know anything about anything,” he told her. Cleland referred Malone to his assistant, who in turn dismissed the report as “speculation.” The assistant added that there had been no contacts with the Obama transition team.
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TV ads in Senate race start again tomorrow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve picked up word that the U.S. Senate contest will be back on television starting tomorrow. Because you haven’t suffered enough.
Freedom’s Watch, a conservative 527 that has served as an ally for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, has purchased time on at least one Atlanta TV station.
The Chambliss campaign has purchased air-time for Friday as well — as has Democrat Jim Martin, who finished second.
Martin opens the second round of the campaign on a positive note. The ad below pitches the Democrat as a helpmate to President-Elect Barack Obama. The theme is “America is back.” See the script on the jump.
Chambliss goes on the attack from the get-go, with the ad below. We’ve seen it before. It attempts to reclaim the phrase “Saxby economics” and accuses Martin of wanting to help Obama raise taxes on small businesses.
SCRIPT FOR JIM MARTIN AD “AMERICA IS BACK”
OBAMA: In this country, we rise or fall as one nation. There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
MALE NARRATOR: Jim Martin has worked to do what’s right for our country. He served his country in Vietnam. He helped pass the biggest middle-class tax cut in Georgia history. Now Jim Martin will work with Barack Obama to get our economy moving again.
Jim Martin for Senate. America is back.
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Barney snaps under pressure, bites White House reporter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Politico is reporting that Barney the Scottie, President Bush’s canine companion, finally snapped and bit a White House reporter today.
Reporters haven’t decided whether Barney was fed up with liberal media bias, depressed by how history is likely to rate his tenure, or was simply enjoying the sense of freedom that comes to any short-timer.
The victim was Reuters TV correspondent Jon Decker, who’d bent down to pet the dog. Damage was limited to a broken skin on a finger.
Politico quotes Decker:
“As a result of the bleeding, I was treated by White House physician Dr. Richard Tubb,” Decker tells us. And, “Am now on antibiotics and will be getting a tetanus shot administered by Dr. Tubb tomorrow,” he says.
Rumors that Barney has contacted Scooter Libby for the name of a good attorney are totally unfounded.
Libertarian country in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So where is Libertarian country in Georgia? As a percentage of Tuesday’s vote in the U.S. Senate race, clearly north and western Georgia — old “impeach Earl Warren” territory — is the most fertile ground for the third party.
Statewide, Buckley received 126,003 votes, or 3.4 percent. His top counties were Lumpkin (6.4 percent), White, Haralson, Gilmer, Dawson, Hall, Barrow, Pickens and Cherokee (5.2 percent). As one knowledgeable Republican pointed out, Buckley’s 4,700 votes from Cherokee, assuming they were all taken from GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss, guaranteed a runoff.
But Cobb County provided more votes (13,022) for Buckley than any other, followed by Gwinnett (11,434) and Fulton (10,755). Which means Chambliss has some ground to make up not just in exurbia, but suburbia as well.
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr received 28,414 votes, or .7 percent.
Clearly, in the down-ballot Public Service Commission races, voters were more willing to take a chance on a third-party candidate. In the northern district, three-man race for Public Service Commission, Libertarian Brandon Givens received 174,761 votes, or 4.9 percent.
And in the southern district PSC race — in which Republican Doug Everett was the only other candidate — Libertarian John Monds cracked the 1 million-vote mark, with 33 percent of the vote.
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Karl Rove: Barack Obama won by peeling away churchgoers, white men
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Karl Rove’s take on Barack Obama’s victory, on the Wall Street Journal web site today:
….For the third election in a row the exit polls were trash. The raw numbers forecast an 18-point Obama win, news organizations who underwrote the poll arbitrarily dialed it down to a 10-point Obama edge, and the actual margin was six.
But we do know President-elect Obama ran better among frequent churchgoers (perhaps getting 10 points more than John Kerry did), independents (perhaps five points more than Kerry and eight points more than Al Gore), Hispanics and white men. He even made special appeals to gun owners and sent his wife to cultivate military families. This allowed him to carry previously red states like Florida, New Mexico and Iowa.
This combination helped Senator Obama run four points better nationally than John Kerry did in 2004 and 2.5 points better than Al Gore did in 2000. These small changes on the margin meant all the difference between winning and losing.
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Newsweek: On hackers, John Lewis, and Sarah Palin’s appearance — in a towel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a preliminary, post-campaign Newsweek piece now online, which says:
— Hackers, possibly from a foreign country, penetrated the computers of both the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns.
— McCain “was dumbfounded” by U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ comparison of him to George Wallace, the Alabama governor and segregationist. McCain “had so admired Lewis that he had once taken his children to meet him.”
— “[Sarah] Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported….According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill.”
— Then there was the “towel” incident: One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.
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Sometimes, you may not want the military vote from Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Doug Collins was one of those Republicans punished by House Speaker Glenn Richardson earlier this year after that nasty fight over chairmanship of the state transportation board.
But Collins is also a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve, and is currently serving in Iraq. And he wants to vote in next week’s meeting of the House Republican Caucus — which will determine whether Richardson continues as speaker.
Richardson’s being challenged by David Ralston of Blue Ridge.
Caucus rules say you must be present to vote. No proxies are permitted. Not even if you’re in uniform in Iraq.
Collins said he’s tried for months to lobby for an exception, to no avail. He tried for a meeting with Richardson, but that didn’t work either, Collins said in a letter sent to all 105 GOP members. Here are a few paragraphs:
It was disappointing for me to think that in light of all that I was getting ready to do my own party’s leadership did not want to talk with me even if only to say - I am sorry we did all we could. Instead all I got was an email from the Chief of Staff saying someone else would call me.
I understand politics but I also understand leadership and not contacting me after I had a letter hand delivered to him shows that all members do not mean the same to this Speaker. This action was made even harder to understand and to swallow after all of the talk by the Speaker about his changing and being available to all the caucus members.
Read the entire letter on the jump.
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5 November 2008
Dear Fellow Caucus Members,
I had hoped that I would not have to write this email but due to the circumstances I cannot stay quiet about what has happened to me over the last 6 months. I am now taking what little free time I have over here in Iraq to write this letter so you can understand what has happened.
When my wife forwarded the Caucus election note to me several days ago it was a reminder of a lot that I am missing but at the same time it brought back a lot of frustration. I will try to be brief but I need to tell you the story of what happened to me. It started back in May when I contacted Jay Roberts about the possibility of me voting by proxy in the Caucus election. I knew that the Whip’s job would be open and I wanted to make sure that I could vote. The immediate response from Jay was No.
I was told the rules did not allow it and they wanted to make sure everyone showed up for the meeting and vote. After a few minutes explaining that I would not be on a pleasure trip but that I would be deployed to the war zone in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was told that he would work on it. I want to be very clear at this point. I believe Jay to be an honorable man and a friend; however I do not believe that leadership was unaware of the situation and at the time I thought something would be done.
I waited until the middle of July and contacted Jay again and was told that he had talked to an attorney and that I could not vote unless the rules were changed and that the caucus would have to change them. I still did not worry because he said he would do everything he could and I thought that with the Caucus meeting coming up in Atlanta in a few weeks it would be worked out there. I was wrong.
After the Caucus meeting I heard nothing so I assumed that I was not going to be allowed to vote. I could think of a number of reasons why but at this point I still believed that politics would be put aside and I would be allowed to vote. It stood to reason that since I would be able to vote by absentee ballot from Iraq in the General Election surely I could vote in the Caucus election.
Hearing nothing I decided to make one last attempt 10 days before I was to ship out to Iraq. I had my secretary Julie Jordan hand deliver a letter to Speaker Richardson’s office. In the letter I explained briefly the situation and asked for a response and help. I asked that he get back to me within a week because after that I was on standby and could be called to leave at any time. I waited a week and no reply.
Not even a note saying someone was looking into this. Nothing. Finally after having Julie confirm the receipt of the letter by the Speaker’s staff, I emailed asking for an answer. I was emailed back by the Chief of Staff and told Jay Roberts would call me.
On the night before I was to fly to Iraq Jay called me and told me that there was nothing he could do. He tried to explain that the August Caucus meeting really wasn’t a business meeting so the issue could not be addressed during that meeting.
I flew out the next morning having had no resolution to an issue that I started asking about 4 months earlier. As I have said earlier I believe Jay tried but was undoubtedly not supported by the current leadership.
However, the thing that disturbed me the most in this whole process was that as a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House did not respond to my letter with either a phone call or email before I left.
It was disappointing for me to think that in light of all that I was getting ready to do my own party’s leadership did not want to talk with me even if only to say - I am sorry we did all we could. Instead all I got was an email from the Chief of Staff saying someone else would call me.
I understand politics but I also understand leadership and not contacting me after I had a letter hand delivered to him shows that all members do not mean the same to this Speaker. This action was made even harder to understand and to swallow after all of the talk by the Speaker about his changing and being available to all the caucus members.
I wish each of you well. I am sorry to have taken a few minutes of your time but I felt that each of you had the right to know my situation and the way the current leadership viewed my vote. I look forward to seeing you all again in January.
Douglas Collins - District 27
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On the Senate runoff: Watching paint dry, and the Ox says he won’t graze while Chambliss needs the cash
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The gap between U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his goal of 50-percent-plus-one grew by five votes overnight. We don’t know how, and we don’t know why.
But at the end of office hours on Wednesday, the Republican needed 8,193 more votes to stay out of a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin. This morning, he needs 8,198.
Here’s the link to results on the secretary of state’s web site.
Also, so as not to compete with Chambliss, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine has directed his Republican campaign to “cease all Georgia-based fund-raising of new campaign dollars” in his 2010 race for governor until after the Dec. 2 runoff for U.S. Senate.
And he invited Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, another Republican candidate for governor, to do the same.
“Additionally, I will reach out to all of my maxed out contributors and urge them to contribute to Saxby’s campaign,” Oxendine said. “I know that suspending fund-raising on new Georgia dollars is the appropriate and moral position to take and I do so with humility, confidence, and pride.”
Possibly, this comes in response to a notation in this space on Wednesday.
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A map, an Obama mantra, and the case of the missing evangelical
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spare thoughts on a few hours sleep:
— John Perry, the AJC’s data analyst, has put together this Georgia county-by-county map of the presidential contest. Counties won by Republican John McCain are in red, those won by Democrat Barack Obama are in blue. Click here for a larger image.
— You know that Democrat Jim Martin has reached out to the Barack Obama campaign for help in the U.S. Senate runoff. How badly does he need the president-elect? Martin invoked Obama’s name 12 times in his short statement today.
— Fivethirtyeight.com, a Democratic-oriented polling aggregate site, has this line today: “We’ve been getting emails from [Obama] organizers who had already purchased their plane tickets to come down to Georgia. It won’t be for a 60th seat, but it will be a seat nonetheless.”
— At his press conference, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss expressed disappointment in GOP turnout on Tuesday. We’ve heard grumbling elsewhere about the lack of an effective Republican GOTV operation. But there is one piece of evidence that the GOP base stayed home.
Exit polling indicates that white “born again” Christians made up 38 percent of the Georgia vote. And yet, in the state Court of Appeals race, Perry McGuire —heavily supported by conservative Christians in past attempts at statewide office - came in next-to-last, with only 8 percent of the vote.
— You’re probably wondering why people are still walking gingerly around the U.S. Senate race results. Chambliss is 8,000 votes or so shy of declaring a 50-percent-plus-one victory.
My AJC colleague Mary Lou Pickel has posted this about uncounted absentee ballots in Fulton County:
There are a total of about 40,000 absentee ballots that have to be counted and 40 people are working on the process, [Fulton County election spokesman Mark] Henderson said. The county was processing the paper ballots it had already received on election night, but then “at midnight we were just bringing over the ballots we received yesterday,” Henderson said.
At this writing, Chambliss is 8,193 votes shy of escaping a runoff. In the last U.S. Senate runoff, in 1992, Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler fell 34,744 votes short. And lost in a pre-Thanksgiving runoff. This year, runoff elections are scheduled for Dec. 2.
— A U.S. Senate runoff could have an impact on the 2010 elections. Over the next 28 days, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss will be scouring the normal GOP sources for cash. Just as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine are doing the same thing.
If they cede the next month to Chambliss, that leaves the two potential candidates for governor only a matter of weeks before the window closes again — no fund-raising is allowed during the winter session of the Legislature.
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Chambliss ‘in campaign mode,’ Martin asks Obama for help
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With votes still trickling in, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss on Wednesday refused to concede that he’d been thrown into a U.S. Senate runoff — but acknowledged he was now “in full campaign mode.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Jim Martin has already reached out to the campaign of Barack Obama, wanting a little help from the president-elect in the form of a visit.
The pair held dueling press conferences shortly before noon.
“We’re in a runoff. The runoff race begins right now,” Martin said from downtown Atlanta.
Chambliss was at his Cobb County office. “I think the next four weeks are going to be highly interesting and highly competitive,” he said.
The GOP senator said he didn’t know how many votes are outstanding. Said Chambliss’ chief strategist, Tom Perdue: “We’re taking what we got overnight and going with it.”
Currently, Chambliss has 49.9 percent of the vote, according to Secretary of State Karen Handel. He needs 50 percent plus one to escape a runoff.
Martin now has 46.7 percent. Libertarian Allen Buckley won a crucial 3.4 percent of Tuesday’s vote.
Chambliss expressed disappointment in Republican voting strength on Tuesday. “There was great turnout in early voting. Frankly, I think it was fairly evident that there was not the expected turnout yesterday that a lot of folks thought would be there,” he said.
“Voter fatigue” with the presidential race, and the bitterness of the final weeks of the Senate campaign could have been among the reasons, he said.
“Certainly, everybody in Georgia was ready to get this race over with. It’s been the longest presidential campaign in my memory. And I do think the tone of the campaign probably may have even turned a lot of people off,” he said.
Who might come to Georgia to help campaign for him remains undecided. But national Republican organizations have already promised hefty financial support.
On Tuesday, Democrats increased their majority in the U.S. Senate to 56, with Chambliss’ race and two others still in question.
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Gingrich: ‘This was failure of GOP Congress, president’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One wonders if the race for chairman of the rudderless Republican National Committee has now begun.
This from this morning’s Washington Times:
“The first fact of the 2008 election is the failure of the Republican Congress and the Republican president,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “John McCain ran 24-plus points ahead of President Bush’s job approval - an amazing achievement. This was a performance election not an ideological election.”
The same article included this:
“Republicans [once] owned the military and the war issue, but you have so many younger people military dependents from all over the country stationed or living here in western Kentucky,” said Kentucky-based Republican campaign strategist Tim Havrilek, a conservative evangelical Christian. “Patriotism and the flag don’t cut it anymore, not with body bags being hauled off in plain view every week, military dependents feeling the squeeze of the economy just like everyone else, our military people going back to Iraq and Afghanistan five and six times.
“I’ve never seen more military people out working to elect a Democrat for president,” he said.
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Martin says he’s in a runoff — Chambliss says, ‘Not yet’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
During the pre-dawn hours, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss slipped below the 50 percent mark, and the U.S. Senate race now appears headed toward a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin.
The Chambliss campaign said this morning that it’s not conceding anything, and will wait for a smattering of precincts, absentees and paper ballots to be counted.
The Democratic campaign says that it’s now in runoff mode. Martin has an 11:45 a.m. press conference scheduled.
Secretary of State Karen Handel has the race as follows on her web site:
Chambliss: 49.9%
Martin: 46.7%
Libertarian Allen Buckley: 3.4%
As of this moment, Chambliss needs to pick up 10,334 votes to clear the 50-percent-plus-one mark.
If there is indeed a runoff, early voting could begin as early as Nov. 17. The runoff election is Dec. 2
Handel’s office has already prepared the following timetable:
— Nov. 10/11: Expected certification of election results. Absentee Ballot production begins. Early voting can begin when ballot building for absentee ballots is completed.
— Nov. 17: Anticipated date ballots should be ready. Counties can begin early voting. While it is a county-by-county decision, there should be consistency state-wide.
— Nov. 24-26: Advance voting begins (week prior to Election).
— Nov. 27,28: State holidays for Thanksgiving.
— Dec. 1: No voting (state prohibition against ballots cast or issued day prior to election).
— Dec. 2: Run-off elections.
Other runoffs statewide include the PSC race between Republican Lauren McDonald (47.8 percent) and Democrat Jim Powell (47.3 percent), and a race for the state Court of Appeals, featuring Sara Doyle (22.5 percent) and Mike Sheffield (20.9 percent).
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Chambliss slips below 50 percent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
6:30 a.m.: Republican Saxby Chambliss continues to cling to a slim lead in the U.S. Senate race. A handful of missing boxes in both Carroll and DeKalb counties may give us the answer of whether we have a Dec. 2 runoff. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46.8 percent.
Here are the latest numbers, with 96 percent of precincts reporting:
Saxby Chambliss — 49.8%
Jim Martin — 46.8%
Allen Buckley — 3.4%
FYI, Martin pulled 42.3 percent in the 2006 race for lieutenant governor.
12:48 a.m.: In the last 90 minutes, as the vote in metro Atlanta has rolled in, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss has dropped from 55 percent to 51.2 percent.
In total votes, his lead has been cut nearly in half, and is now 187,513 ballots.
But even as the race tightens, the parties are breaking up. This is from my AJC colleague Stacy Shelton:
“Now that Obama has spoken, this place is clearing out. Martin is unlikely to come out again. He’s no longer here and the Park Tavern is getting ready to kick us all out.”
12:24 a.m.: Unless there are some last-minute swings in the vote-counting this morning, Tuesday didn’t bring much change at the statehouse, according to my AJC colleague James Salzer.
Rep. Jeanette Jamieson (D-Toccoa), a 24-year-old House veteran, lost to 28-year-old Republican business owner Michael Harden. Jamieson had been damaged by the disclosure that she owed the state more than $45,000 in back taxes.
Another North Georgia Democrat, Rep. Charles Jenkins of Blairsville, was also headed for a loss, and a third, Rep. Rick Crawford (D-Cedartown) may have held on by the skin of his teeth.
A few House Republicans were in tight races late, but there didn’t appear to be any major surprises.
Rep. John Heard (R-Lawrenceville) initially appeared to beat Lawrenceville lawyer Lee Thompson. But the latest Secretary of State count shows him losing the race. Also, Rep. Allen Freeman (R-Macon) was slightly behind former Twiggs County Commission Chairman James “Bubber” Epps with a few precincts yet to be counted.
Democrat Pat Dooley appears to have re-won a Cobb County House seat, besting Rep. Steve “Thunder” Tumlin (R-Marietta), according to totals on the secretary of state’s web site.
In the Senate, every incumbent with a challenger won handily.
12:15 a.m.: The 8th District race was the only U.S. House contest that Republicans held out hope of picking up this evening, but Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall of Macon appears to have the situation well in hand, leading retired Air Force major general Rick Goddard — 57 percent to 43 percent.
Marshall is even winning Houston County, home to both Goddard and Gov. Sonny Perdue.
11:42 p.m.: In the northern district Public Service Commission race, Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald has just slipped below 50 percent in the three-way race.
Which means, if things progress this way through the night, a runoff is in the offing.
McDonald’s at 49.8 percent, Democrat Jim Powell’s at 45.2 percent, and Libertarian Brandon Givens is at 5 percent.
11:42 p.m.: Democrat Jim Martin, the U.S. Senate candidate, will address his supporters at the Park Tavern in 10 minutes, we’re told. With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Republican incumbent Chambliss is more than 360,000 votes ahead, with a 55 percent margin.
Stay tuned. Okay, you’ve waited long enough.
“There are as many as 500,000 votes still outstanding. It’s going to be very close,” Martin said. “It’s probably going to be a long night.”
11:15 p.m.: On the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead, there is a special suite for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, his family and friends.
At about 10:30 p.m. there were about 25 people up there, including the Republican incumbent, his wife Julianne and their grandchildren, Parker, 10, and John Baker, 12 — all watching Fox TV political coverage.
“We’re getting hammered in the House. It looks like we’re going to lose 20 seats,” said Chambliss, who served eight years in the chamber.
Also there were Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife Mary — And Chambliss’ mother, Emma, who is 91. This is the first time she has attended one of her son’s election night parties. This is, in fact, the first time she has lived in Georgia during one of his campaigns.
She moved here three weeks ago. “I couldn’t vote,” she told my AJC colleague Craig Schneider. “I just hope he’s going to win. That would make this an extra great night.”
But it looks like a long wait. Jim Martin, Chambliss’ Democrat rival, has headed over to the Obama party to shake a few hands — while he also waits to see if we’ll have a second round in the Senate race.
10:30 p.m.: U.S. Rep. John Lewis was just on ABC News:
”Earlier tonight, I was at Ebenezer [Baptist] Church speaking to a group — hundreds or thousands of citizens. When Pennsylvania went over to Barack Obama, I shouted for joy, and I didn’t know I could jump so high. I think I’m going to shed more tears before the night’s over.”
10:06 p.m.: An exit poll of Georgia voters says Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss may have escaped a run-off in the U.S. Senate race.
The poll, commissioned in part by the AJC, puts the race at: Chambliss, 50 percent; Democrat Jim Martin, 45 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 4 percent.
The survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
Actual returns show Chambliss with a healthy lead — but the large metro Atlanta counties have yet to weigh in. CNN specifically has declined to call the race in Georgia. So has the Associated Press.
The same exit poll shows Republican John McCain winning Georgia with 51 percent of the vote, and Democrat Barack Obama at 47 percent.
9:52 p.m.: Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, has apparently survived a tough race over Democrat Bruce Lunsford, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader
Says the newspaper:
McConnell, who led in most polls by slim margins down the stretch, seems to have benefited from a strong showing at the top of the ticket in Kentucky by GOP presidential candidate John McCain. He also relied heavily on his seniority and post as Senate Republican leader, which he molded into his major campaign theme…
The race will rank as Kentucky’s most expensive campaign in history and one of its most contentious. By October, McConnell had collected $17.8 million and Lunsford had amassed $7.1 million, of which $5.5 million came out of his own fortune.
9:40 p.m.: According to a final round of exit polls, the victory of Republican John McCain in Georgia may have depended on whether voters thought the economy to be merely bad — or something worse.
Sixty percent of Georgia voters polled named the economy as their No. 1 issue. But those voters split almost evenly between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
Of those who judged the economy as “not good,” 63 percent supported McCain.
Those who proclaimed the economy as “poor” went 67 percent for Obama.
Race, of course, can never be ruled out of Southern politics. Of white voters who identified themselves as Democrats, 21 percent voted for McCain. But only 3 percent of white Republicans crossed over to Obama.
Obama won the support of 62 percent who said race of the candidates was an important issue in the election. Of those who said the candidates’ race was not in issue, 54 percent cast ballots for McCain.
8:57 p.m.: Democrat Kay Hagan has ousted Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina — overcoming a last-minute charge by Dole that she took “godless money.”
Hagan leads Dole, 55 percent to 42 percent, with partial returns from 25 of 100 counties, according to the Raleigh News and Observer. The Associated Press and the major networks, based on returns and exit polls, have given the race to Hagan.
8:21 p.m.: Right now, Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent in the U.S. Senate race, is running more than 4 points — in real votes — behind presidential candidate John McCain in Georgia.
One reason, according to early exit polls, may be the fact that Democrat Jim Martin is running slightly better among white voters than presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Martin is winning 27 percent of the white vote in Georgia, compared to 25 percent for Obama.
The difference could be crucial. Current exit polling shows Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss leading with 49 percent of the vote — not enough to escape a run-off. Martin is running at 46 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley at 4 percent.
Among other exit poll findings:
— Young voters, and also new voters, were seeking alternatives to Chambliss. Fifty percent of voters between 18 and 24 are choosing Martin. Among new voters, 58 percent are going to Martin.
—Buckley is showing strongest among new voters as well, at 12 percent. He’s getting 10 percent of those between 18 and 24. Chambliss is winning only 29 percent support from new voters, and 40 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old vote.
— Chambliss is running strongest among white men (72 percent) and among those who named terrorism (84 percent) and energy (74 percent) as their top issues. Martin did best among voters concerned about health care (66 percent) and Iraq (59 percent).
7:17 p.m.: Early Georgia exit polls show Republican John McCain with a slim 50 percent lead in Georgia, with Democrat Barack Obama at 48 percent, and Libertarian Bob Barr at 2 percent.
In the U.S. Senate race, the exit polls Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss headed for a run-off with 49 percent of the vote. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley is making a big difference at 4 percent.
Margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
This may change slightly in a final wave of exit polling, but voters appear split by age and race:
— 53 percent of voters 44 and younger voted for Obama;
— 54 percent of voters 45 to 65 and 53 percent of voters over 65 voted for McCain;
— Only 2 percent of African-Americans voted for McCain;
— But 73 percent of white voters in Georgia voted for McCain;
— Late deciders were breaking toward Obama. Of those who decided in October, 56 percent picked Obama, compared with 47% of those who decided earlier.
— Independents were going for McCain 53 to 41 percent;
— Of those who identified themselves as evangelical or born again Christians (36 percent of voters), 84 percent voted for McCain. 11 percent for Obama;
— Obama is running up huge margins in the metro Atlanta counties of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, with 71 percent of the votes to McCain’s 23 percent, and in south Georgia with 52 percent to McCain’s 47 percent. McCain did best in north Georgia with 62 percent to Obama’s 35 percent, and in the Atlanta suburbs with 57 percent to Obama’s 41 percent.
— And new voters (12 percent of the total turnout) went heavily for Obama, 64 percent to McCain’s 35 percent.
7:10 p.m.: The Associated Press and other news outlets have called the first results of the election: John McCain is the winner in Kentucky, while Barack Obama has captured Vermont.
Eight electoral votes were at stake in Kentucky, while Obama picks up three from Vermont.
Democrats, meanwhile, have taken one Senate seat away from the Republicans, with Mark Warner defeating Jim Gilmore in Virginia to capture the seat that was held by the retiring Republican John Warner.
In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican Lindsey Graham — a leading McCain ally and adviser — was re-elected to his Senate seat.
And in Indiana, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has been re-elected.
7:03 p.m.: The Associated Press reports that, nationally, Barack Obama was the overwhelming choice of the one in 10 voters who went to the polls for their first time Tuesday — a racially diverse group of mostly twentysomethings, half of whom call themselves Democrats.
One in five of the new voters was black, almost twice the proportion of blacks among voters overall. Another one in five of the new voters was Hispanic. About two-thirds of them were under 30 years old.
These first-time voters, a key element of Obama’s strategy, were turning out for him over Republican John McCain by about a 3-1 margin, according to preliminary exit poll results.
6:54 p.m.: The Fayette County Republican party was bothered by a bipartisan bomb scare today.
The county party received the suspicious package on Monday. But it wasn’t until this morning that GOP officials actually took a look at it and noticed that it came from someone calling himself “Michael the Archangel,” county chairman Josh Bonner told my AJC colleague John Hollis.
Local law enforcement authorities summoned the postmaster and an X-ray machine, to make sure the package wasn’t explosive. Upon opening it, police found threats against Barack Obama, who is not Republican.
Apparently, this Michael the Archangel had mailed similar packages to various GOP posts all across the country.
“It caused a lot of excitement in little ol’ Fayetteville,” Bonner said.
6:40 p.m.: Early exit polling has picked up on some basic differences between the 2004 vote in Georgia and today’s version:
— Whites made up 71 percent of the electorate in ’04, and African-Americans were 25 percent. This year, exit polling is showing 66 percent of voters are white, and 30 percent are black.
— The electorate is indeed younger this year. In 2004, 11 percent were under the age of 30. This year, that number has creeped up to 13 percent.
6:23 p.m.: Politico.com has named Cobb one of 25 counties in the nation to watch closely tonight:
Since 1976, GOP presidential nominees have averaged 62 percent in this populous Atlanta suburb. But polls show McCain running considerably behind that clip in Cobb. McCain isn’t a great fit in the socially conservative county, but there is another factor at play in driving down his numbers: Roughly a fifth of the population is African-American. Then there is the wildcard — the Libertarian nominee, Bob Barr, was once the local congressman.
6:07p.m. A first wave of exit polls has begun to give us a picture of Georgians who’ve cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election — whether today or in 45 days of early voting.
Georgia voters were most concerned about the economy: 60 percent picked it as the No. 1 issue. And 53 percent pronounced themselves “very worried” about the economy.
Terrorism was the first worry of 10 percent, as was health care. Nine percent were concerned with energy issues.
The Associated Press is also reporting that a majority of voters opposed the recent $700 billion financial bailout, with just four in 10 supporting it.
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Short lines not good for GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just ran into a GOP strategist, who agreed that these reports of short lines at the polls today — while good news for Secretary of State Karen Handel — could be a portent of trouble for the Republican campaigns of John McCain and Saxby Chambliss.
The assumption — as posted here earlier — is that Democrats won early voting, and that it’s the GOP task to play catch-up today. No-wait voting could well be a sign that the Republican base may not be showing up. At least not in the numbers needed.
A few notations from elsewhere:
— NYT’s The Caucus has this bit of background:
Voting experts predicted a record [national] turnout of 130 million voters, which would be the highest percentage turnout in a century. It could shatter the previous record of 123.5 million who cast ballots four years ago. If 64 percent of registered voters make their way to the polls, as some predict, it would be the highest percentage since 1908.
— A Washington Post piece on Republicans in Congress trying to stem the tide has this paragraph:
Girding for large losses, Republicans said their incumbents could win if they succeed in establishing an identity independent of President Bush, Sen. John McCain and congressional GOP leaders. “Republican candidates that have established their own personal brand and have framed their races around a personal choice will survive this,” said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Republicans trying to distance themselves from Bush isn’t news. But McCain?
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Nail-biter night ahead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some last minute Georgia numbers to chew on while you wait for your first exit poll fix:
— A Republican-oriented number cruncher offered this look at early voting, which points to the problem the GOP may face tonight:
In 2004, white Georgians made up 71 percent of the vote. African-Americans made up 25 percent. That’s a 46 point gap. Even so, the spread between George Bush (58 percent) and John Kerry (41 percent) was only 17 points.
In early voting this year, white voters made up 60 percent of the electorate. African-Americans made up 35 percent. The 46 point spread of 2004 has been reduced to 25 points. And that reduction erases 2004 margin between Bush and Kerry.
— As you read this, Barack Obama is probably winning the race in Georgia.
Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh, N.C., outfit, on Monday judged the final outcome of the presidential race in Georgia to be a nail-biter, with Republican John McCain clinging to a small lead of 50 percent to Democrat Barack Obama’s 48 percent.
Among early voters polled, Obama led 52 to 47 percent. McCain has a 54 to 43 percent among those planning to vote today. PPP’s Dean Debnam said the race will hinge on two factors: “The first is whether the Republican turnout effort is strong enough to offset the advantage Obama has built among early voters. The second is whether Obama can win over the last few white voters he needs to beat out McCain.”
The PPP survey is the most extensive of any in this list. It surveyed 1,253 likely voters from Friday to Sunday. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percent.
— InsiderAdvantage puts the presidential race in Georgia marginally closer (McCain, 48%; Obama 47%; Barr, 2%) and — like PPP — has the Senate race headed for a run-off (Saxby Chambliss, 48%; Jim Martin, 43% and Allen Buckley, 2%).
That’s based on 512 registered, likely voters. African-Americans were assumed to constitute 30 percent of the vote. The polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
But IA’s Matt Towery offers this judgment:
Towery said the scope of the problem for the Republican presidential candidate is even clearer in a poll conducted just within the 6th congressional district. It had a smaller sample size - 344 - and a greater margin of error - plus or minus 6 percent. While that poll showed Republican Rep. Tom Price at 60 percent and Democratic challenger Bill Jones at 33 percent, it showed McCain at 55 percent but Obama at 42 percent.
More significantly, the 6th District poll also shows Obama pulling 35 percent of the white vote and 47 percent of the female vote.
“That is very bad news for John McCain and Republicans in general to have a district so overwhelmingly Republican in which Obama is polling 42 percent,” said Towery. “It also suggests that the white vote may be closer than we expect. If that’s indicative of the white vote in the more populated areas that surround metro Atlanta, I’m not sure there’s enough white vote in the rural areas to bring Obama below 28 percent.
“I still think McCain is likely to win Georgia by a smidgen but if my gut is right and blacks are voting beyond 30 percent, then he’s a dead duck.”
— At fivethirtyeight.com, a polling aggregate site that leans slightly Democrat, Nate Silver still says Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss has an 88 percent chance of coming out the winner in the U.S. Senate race. But he also hedges his bet with this, part of a presidential lookahead:
Georgia and New Hampshire are a bit less essential electorally, but they may tell us the most about whether the polls are off in this election. If there’s one state where Obama is likely to overperform his polls, it’s in Georgia, where 35 percent of early voters are African-American, and where almost 30 percent of them did not vote in 2004.
These are the sorts of voters that may erroneously be screened out by “likely voter” models that rely on past voting history. Obama could not only carry the state, but he might help boost Jim Martin to victory in the U.S. Senate race there—giving the Democrats a plausible path to a 60-seat caucus.
— Finally, the Republican-oriented firm of Strategic Vision in Atlanta — which has polled the presidential race by ticket — says McCain/Palin is leading Obama/Biden 50 to 46 percent.
“At this moment Sarah Palin continues to be the most popular of the four candidates,” said SV’s David Johnson. “She draws her biggest support from white male voters and females ages 45 and over as well as social conservatives.”
The SV poll of 800 likely voters has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Johnson says it’s weighted for an African-American turnout of 35 percent.
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Obama v. Hank Williams Jr.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the house Monday evening, Hank Williams Jr. called to urge me to “put country first” — whatta punster — and vote for Republican John McCain.
Being in Cobb County, we may not have been targeted by robo-calls from Democrat Barack Obama. Still, his people filled us in on the thoughts he’s now sending out to friendlier territories.
He’s quite polite. “This race will be close. That’s why I need your vote. Thanks so much. Bye, bye.” It’s the “bye-bye” that gets you.
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Starbucks may rethink that free cuppa
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier today, ajc.com told you about all the freebies that local businesses were willing to give you for voting.
Starbucks and other shops plan to offer coffee. Krispy Kreme is hand out donuts with sprinkles. For Ben & Jerry’s, it’s a free scoop.
And if they actually do it, all may be felons.
The following note just crossed the desk:
Secretary of State Karen Handel reminds Georgia businesses and attractions offering ‘gifts’ for voting in tomorrow’s General Election that it is prohibited under Georgia law.
Georgia Code Section 21-2-570 states:
Any person who gives or receives, or offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.
Business are free to offer ‘Election Day’ specials or sales for all of its customers but gifts, incentives or specials just for voters is prohibited under this provision.
We predict chaos at hundreds of counters tomorrow, when minimum wage workers are required to decide whether a “tall” order of coffee is worth a criminal record.
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DOT board meeting will address ‘blue’ e-mails sent by Gena Evans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Transportation Board has planned a closed-door session next week, Nov. 13, to discuss Gena Evans, the Department of Transportation commissioner.
According to my AJC colleague Ariel Hart, one of the specific topics will be “blue” e-mails sent by Evans several years ago to a boyfriend, via state computers. Details of the off-color communications have been aired by one local TV station, WSB. And WAGA (Fox5) has advertised a broader story tonight.
The coverage has made to DOT board “terribly uncomfortable,” board Chairman Bill Kuhlke said after the WSB story aired last week.
Now, he says, “I think there’s a witch hunt going on.” Evans wasn’t at DOT when the emails were sent, but the board will be talking about them anyway. Kuhlke also said he supported Evans.
The DOT chair said discussion items may include “what sort of directions we might be able to give Gena, reactions to board members themselves” and “any disciplinary action we need to take.”
According to WSB-TV, the e-mails were written by Evans when she was unmarried, had a last name of Abraham, and headed another state agency. A handful of older communications between her and a boyfriend in 2003 used coarse sexual language.
Kuhlke said last week he also expected board members may bring up the new budget rules Evans has instituted, backed by the state auditor.
The accounting changes pushed DOT’s books into a large deficit, announced at press conferences by Gov. Sonny Perdue and Evans. Transportation work has slowed to a trickle. Kuhlke said he agreed with the budget changes, but added, “It’s been sort of chaotic since she came on board.”
When Evans sent the blue emails in 2003, the Georgia Technology Authority had a policy against “creation, accessing or transmitting sexually explicit, obscene or pornographic material,” or “material that could be considered…offensive,” according to GTA. Issued in 2002, the GTA policy said it applied to “All agencies of the state of Georgia.”
Evans said she violated no policy because the agency she headed then, the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission, didn’t adopt any e-mail policy on its own. As the first story was airing last week she said in an interview with the AJC, “I’m going to stay and fight.”
The pot has apparently been stirred by the indefatigable open records activist George Anderson, of Rome. On Oct. 1, Anderson sent a letter to the board members about the e-mails.
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Analyzing tomorrow’s vote: Vernon Jones and Bill Campbell on WAOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
V-103/1380 WAOK AM, a mainstay of black radio in Atlanta, has snagged a must-hear team of commentators for Tuesday night.
The straight man will be David Stokes, associate editor of the Atlanta Inquirer. Joining him will be Vernon Jones, CEO of DeKalb County, and — by phone — former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell, who only recently finished a sabbatical sponsored by the federal government.
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A mulligan of a robo-call
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, called the house this morning to urge the family to vote for Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in the U.S. Senate race.
This was the second robo-call from Keene in a matter of days. Possibly because the first one urged a vote for “Saxby Chandler.”
This tells you something about the sudden competitiveness of the campaign, which caught many conservatives flat-footed — and perhaps a bit disorganized.
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Republican group brings out the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the final 48 hours of the race, a Republican group has decided to do what John McCain wouldn’t — bring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Barack Obama, into the presidential campaign.
The ad below, sponsored by the National Republican Trust PAC, just ran on CNN two or three minutes ago:
Here’s the script:
For 20 years Barack Obama followed a preacher of hate and said nothing is Wright raged against our country.
[Clip of Rev. Wright:] “Not God Bless America, God Damn America … US of KKKA!”
[Quote of Obama appears on screen:] “I don’t think my church is particularly controversial.”
He built his power base in Wright’s church.
Wright was his mentor, adviser and close friend.
For 20 years Obama never complained until he ran for President.
Barack Obama. Too radical. Too risky.
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Get ready for a very long Tuesday night. Which could last until Friday.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just after last night’s debate of U.S. Senate candidates, this note was sent by Randy Evans, a member of the State Elections Board, warning that the results of Tuesday’s elections could take a very long while to develop:
Based on the most recent data, it appears that there are in fact three real reasons regarding why Georgia may not know the winner of the 2008 general election until Wednesday, or maybe even Friday.
- Lines of voters at polling places may extend the time that votes are being cast. Polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Tuesday. There will be no change to that. Folks in line at 7 p.m. will be permitted to cast their ballot, even if their vote is cast after 7 p.m. (as long as the voter was in line at 7 p.m.)
If we have a two- to four-hour line, as expected in many precincts around Georgia, it could be 9 p.m. or later before voters are done. Counties that finish earlier can start to tabulate votes immediately and some returns will come in early. However, the outcome will likely have to wait until all votes are in, and then tabulated. This could be late on Tuesday or possibly on Wednesday morning.
Absentee ballots will have to be counted. There have been many absentee ballots cast in this election. Paper mail-in absentee ballots will have to be counted. In addition, the in-person absentee ballots will have to be tabulated. This will be hundreds of thousands of votes. In addition, because absentee votes are segregated, they are open to challenge in the event there are indications of voter fraud. Hence, in addition to the time required for counting and tabulation, there are the challenges associated with any improper absentee ballots.
Finally, there are the provisional ballots and the challenged ballots. For provisional ballots, voters have 48 hours to supply the information (like their photo ID) to establish that their vote should be counted. For disputed ballots, it can be a time consuming process - especially given the number of ballots involved.
In other words, don’t schedule any meetings for early Wednesday morning. We’re in for a long, long night.
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Win or lose, Obama has changed the game in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Perhaps Georgia will serve as the foamy tip of a Barack Obama wave on Tuesday. At the risk of using more of the Las Vegas-style language that has wearied everyone, odds are higher that the state will remain red.
Regardless of the outcome, the Obama presidential campaign has made its mark in Georgia. Democrats and Republicans agree that the effort here has revolutionized the way politics is played, with its emphasis on new technology, young people and organization.
Mere television will no longer be able to contain this state’s contests for power.
Former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, an Obama ally who ran his last race in 1990, was among the first to mark the strategic shift forced by what he called “one of the most competent campaigns that we have seen in the history of this country.”
“The Internet has sent us back to the future,” he said last week. “When I was campaigning, we had to have headquarters in counties all over Georgia. Guess what? We’re back to that day now.”
While it used several dashes of TV advertising, the Obama campaign primarily relied on a small knot of paid staff and whole divisions of volunteers scattered across Georgia — Twittering, Facebooking, and MySpacing their way beyond anyone’s expectations.
An autumn crash on Wall Street obviously helped force a close contest. But by contrast, the Georgia campaign of Republican John McCain operated out of a headquarters in Tallahassee, Fla. It chose to piggyback on the strength of U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ re-election bid and the state’s Republican reputation.
Strategists across the state, both Republican and Democrat, now wonder which parts of the Obama campaign can be bottled for later use.
The Illinois senator has drawn hundreds of thousands of new Georgians into the discussion, including a record number of black voters. But we can elect the first African-American president only once.
If Tuesday’s U.S. Senate race results in a runoff, the extra-innings contest could be the first test of whether these new voters represent a permanent force in state politics, or a passing flash of emotion.
Obama’s appeal to younger voters will likewise be captured in tomorrow’s exit polls.
Last week, Nunn told of Republican friends who complained of sending money to their college-aged children, only to see the cash end up as contributions to the Obama campaign. But again, years will be required to judge whether this is a generational shift toward the Democratic column, or mere infatuation.
“Much of this is candidate-based and can’t be replicated. Obama’s almost a party unto himself,” theorized Mark Rountree, a Republican strategist.
But technology is another matter. Last Wednesday, Rountree received a mailer at his home, from the state GOP and the Chambliss campaign. With six days to go, it was an invitation to mail an application for an absentee ballot. A stamp was required.
At the same time, the Obama campaign was sending out tens of thousands of e-mails that — sorted by ZIP code and address — directed voters to early voting stations within blocks of their homes.
Rountree said the GOP has nothing to compare.
Eric Tanenblatt, another Republican, once served as Gov. Sonny Perdue’s chief of staff. He now leads the government affairs section of the law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge.
Tanenblatt is paid to understand the power of grassroots movements, and was fascinated by the Obama campaign’s offer to e-mail to supporters the first news of the Democratic nominee’s choice for vice president. He signed up, and has received at least three e-mails a day from the Democratic campaign ever since.
Some of the last messages, noting his Buckhead residence, urged Tanenblatt to help re-elect U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat.
But beyond the trick of matching e-mails to geography was the Obama campaign’s mastery of networking, Tanenblatt said — the ability to assemble and reach out, via the Internet, to the growing number of voters who live outside the reach mainstream media.
“They’ve used technology better than any campaign I’ve ever seen. They have taken networking to that next level — to social mobilization,” Tanenblatt said.
And he wonders how it can be applied to the next Republican campaign. Or, perhaps, to the next cause that needs a little push in Congress, the Legislature, or your nearest county commission.
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McCain on SNL: ‘I’m a true maverick. A Republican without money.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a presidential candidate whose campaign could be tanking, Republican John McCain appeared relaxed — and fun — on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” giving viewers a taste of the version that ran in 2000.
The content was also telling. Because if McCain had approval over the SNL skits, he also approval over some sly digs made at the expense of his running mate, Sarah Palin/Tina Fey, in the opening skit.
The pair was featured on QVC, hawking campaign ware and jewelry: “You can’t go wrong with McCain fine gold,” the candidate said.
Ba-dum-bump.
Says McCain: “Would I rather be on three major networks? Of course. But I’m a true maverick — a Republican without money.”
And in an aside, his running mate goes “rogue” with Palin 2012 T-shirts.
“Because I am not going anywhere,” says Palin/Fey. “And I’m certainly not going back to Alaska, If I’m not going to the WhiteHhouse, I’m either running in four years or I’m going to be a white Oprah. I’m good either way.”
McCain also looked comfortable on the “Weekend Update” segment below, listing the radical strategies he might adapt in the final 72 hours of the campaign. His options: Reverse Maverick, Double Maverick, the Sad Grandpa, the Charleston, the Forest Gump, and the Rocky IV.
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Handel: Certain (Democratic) politicians ‘grandstanding’ on early voting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Secretary of State Karen Handel, a member of the GOP, is extremely ticked off by the likes of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and other Democrats who publicly pressed Friday for emergency extensions of voting through the weekend — and engaged in well-publicized trips to various overflowing precincts.
The following came from Handel’s office today:
Secretary Handel is extremely pleased with early voting turnout and how the overwhelming majority of Georgia’s county election offices prepared for and managed the early voting process. Two million Georgians voted early, nearly 90 percent in person with photo ID. This historic turnout will ease pressures on the state’s 3,000 precincts on Election Day. County election officials will now spend Saturday, Sunday and Monday making critical final preparations for Election Day, and the Secretary of State’s office will deploy election monitors and technicians to assist them.
At the same time, Secretary Handel is disappointed that a handful of elected officials, political party organizations, activist groups and media outlets used this occasion to politicize the early voting process. Their failed attempts to find fault with the Secretary of State’s role in election oversight through grandstanding, patently false allegations and biased reporting revealed their desire to create confusion and chaos among voters to further their political agendas.
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Legends of the vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Voting in Georgia has reached mythical proportions — by many measures, including the legends that have jumped up on the Internet and elsewhere.
For instance, there’s the tale about cops forcing voters to scrape political bumper-stickers off their cars before they park near polling stations. No eyewitnesses on that one yet.
Nor did Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama really hold a surprise rally on the Marietta Square on Saturday. Which, with the Georgia-Florida game in the offing, would have been foolish.
But some of these legends are passed along with a good deal of authority. Ben George, a Democratic staffer for the state Senate, jotted down a few notes on his voting experience Friday. Sent a photo, too.
Voters, he said, were warned to turn their cell phones off — or else electronic voting machines would go haywire:
9:47: Got to the back of the line at Pryor Street polling place. Line was out of the building, up the MLK Street hill, and wrapped at that time almost all the way down Peachtree Street to Mitchell Street.
Ballparking it, I’d say that the composition of folks in my sight were 70 percent or more African American, and median age around 30 to 35. Stunned at the number of young folks.
11 a.m.: Standing atop the street vents next to the building. Smell is a bit dank. Shortly thereafter, a poll worker makes her way up the line, making sure everyone knows that to vote on site they must be registered in Fulton. One person who is registered in Cobb leaves the line. It was the only person I saw leave the line the entire time.
11:50 a.m. “Students for Obama” bus parks and lets people out — I think they got in line. A man hands out flyers advertising a “voter special” at a local restaurant. Then two women dressed in Dentyne shirts and caps pass out free gum samples to folks in line.
At the switchbacks, a poll worker tells us to “turn off all cell phones, BlackBerries, BlueBerries.” She really had her speech down pat. She said that they had discovered that cell phone usage caused the voting machines to slow or stall.
When in the auditorium, a poll worker would occasionally make an announcement asking folks to be quiet so voters could concentrate. One announcement included a statement that claimed one person had shut down the machines for two hours by turning on his cell phone.
Noon-ish: The food court set up a lunch stand in the atrium. Fellow line-mates saved space for those who went to fetch food.
1 p.m.: We have to show I.D. The man in front of me, and the woman behind, both have [cards] that say “I.D. only.”
1:55-ish: Voted, and savored the experience. Wore my medal (the “I voted” sticker”) out.
Just to be clear: Voters are required to turn off their cell phones before casting a ballot, but there is absolutely no reason to suggest that the devices would interfere with the operation of electronic voting machines.
This comes from Rob Simms, the deputy secretary of state, who said that the intent of the law is to make sure that the voter is free from outside interference or intimidation. Also, it’s harder for poll workers to direct human traffic while you’re chatting with your BFF.
Photo credit: Ben George
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Who owns ‘Saxby economics’? And what does it mean?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate pound each other through TV ads, a pair of very basic arguments shine through.
First, we have a fight for control of the phrase “Saxby economics” and its meaning.
Democrat Jim Martin, through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, employed the phrase first, in a series of TV attacks on Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss that coincided with the debate over the federal package to salvage Wall Street.
This weekend, Chambliss has an answering ad up, alleging that Martin is a congenital tax-hiker. But in the same 30 seconds Chambliss also attempts to reclaim his own name. “Saxby economics is about cutting your taxes,” he says at the outset. See the ad below.
The second thread that winds through the latest ads in the Senate race is a theme borrowed from the presidential contest. Martin and Chambliss both have taken on the topic of supply-side economics, an article of faith in Republican quarters since the administration of Ronald Reagan. That tax cuts for job providers stimulate the economy, and the benefits trickle down to the populace.
Like John McCain, the man at the top of his ticket, Chambliss attempts to regain traction via the tax issue. Martin, echoing Democrat Barack Obama’s mantra of change, challenges the presumption that tax policy over the last eight years has benefited most Americans. “He’s for tax breaks for the middle class. Jim Martin will stand up for us,” say a pair of faces in the Martin ad below.
Martin doesn’t use the phrase “Saxby economics” in the above ad. But he does employ it in that country music jingle, paid for by the DSCC, we told you about on Friday:
The middle-has had it, with all his policies.
Saxby economics don’t trickle down on me.
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