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Friday, January 16, 2009
Hillary Clinton in Atlanta on Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is shedding some light on the schedule of Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. senator and future secretary of state, who will be in Atlanta on Saturday to attend a dinner in her honor — one part of the Martin Luther King Holiday ceremonies.
Clinton is to receive the King Center’s “Salute To Greatness” award in downtown Atlanta, as will Chick-fil-A founder and CEO Truett Cathy.
The SCLC now says that dinner will be preceded by an afternoon reception for Clinton at SCLC headquarters on Auburn Avenue.
No word on whether husband Bill will accompany her.
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Georgia Power lets big businesses off the hook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A two-page bill to permit Georgia Power to immediately pass to ratepayers the cost of financing the construction of two new nuclear reactors was making its way around the state Capitol on Friday afternoon.
The bill is bound to stir controversy — Georgia Power is usually required to shoulder such costs, then charge ratepayers afterwards.
On Monday, we posted an item that identified opposition to the Georgia Power bill among large industrial users. That was important, because big companies are capable of hiring big lobbyist to sink the bill.
But as unveiled, the Georgia Power bill sponsored by Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour has this line: “These financing costs shall be recovered from each customer through a separate rate tariff and allocated on an equal percentage basis to standard base tariffs which are designed to collect embedded capacity costs.”
Translated into English, this means: “Large industrial and commercial plants — whether a Kia auto plant or a big box Wal-Mart — shall not be charged - much — for this adventure. Not in advance. Instead, the burden will fall on small businesses and homeowners who are much likely to shell out money for trouble-making lobbyists.”
Problem solved. We understand that many interested parties, such as Georgia’s textile industry, have already moved from hostile to officially neutral. Because suddenly, the Georgia Power bill has naught to do with them.
Updated: Georgia Power spokeswoman Christy Heiser just sent a statement over. The bill does not exempt industrial and commercial customers, she said. And perhaps that’s true. They would pay some. But the language of the legislation does mean that the extra cost Georgia Power wants to levy wouldn’t be applied to the largest portion of the kilowatt hours these big customers use.
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A word on ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There have been mixed signals from his transition squad over how quickly the next president intends to act on the issue of open service for gays in the U.S. military.
So it’s no surprise that this 11-second YouTube clip is zipping around gay and lesbian sites, parsed from a longer video posted last week by Barack Obama’s change.gov.
In it, incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs offers a single word of reassurance when asked if Obama intends to end “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
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No standing ‘O’ for the Big ‘O,’ says the Post
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post’s media critic, Howard Kurtz, defends his employer from accusations that Barack Obama received a standing ovation in the newsroom when the president-elect arrived for an interview on Thursday:
He worked the room. The whole room. The whole room of grizzled journalistic veterans, most of whom stood and, well, stared.
Note to media-bashers: There was no standing ovation. Although one clerical employee was heard to shriek that he had shaken her hand.
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Michael Thurmond and the recession
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No doubt you saw that 128,625 workers filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits in December. That’s a 174 percent increase from the same month a year ago.
State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond called the numbers both “stunning and sobering.”
But Thurmond is passing around other news as well — an award from the American Institute for Full Employment, which points to U.S. Department of Labor statistics that say Thurmond’s department “helped laid-off workers get new jobs in an average of 11.6 weeks, one of the shortest benefit duration periods in the nation and nearly four weeks faster than the national average.”
Thurmond, as anyone in Democratic political circles knows, is seeking a 2010 promotion. He intends to run for governor or lieutenant governor.
But as the man in charge of Georgia’s unemployment support structure, Thurmond is also the state official most clearly on the front lines of the deepest recession since World War II.
Politically, it is a precarious position. But if Thurmond charts the proper course it, the experience could give him an advantage over many other Democrats.
With each plant that closes, each mill that shuts down, Thurmond makes the trek to north or south Georgia to advise auditoriums full of frightened people on what they’ll need to do to survive.
The situation is somewhat similar to the one faced last year by Secretary of State Karen Handel, the Republican in charge bringing order to early balloting and a crush of Barack Obama-driven voters. Like Handel, Thurmond is an independent actor, elected on his own. But when it comes to cash for his department, he must make do with whatever a Republican governor and Legislature give him.
Thurmond’s dilemma, of course, is more dangerous than Handel’s. Voting is one thing. Keeping a roof over the heads of one’s family is another.
As an African-American, Thurmond has a distinct advantage in a Democratic primary. He’s a good speaker, and is often brought in to rouse partisan crowds.
But don’t expect him to pick his contest anytime soon. With the exception of House Minority Leader DuBose Porter and retired adjutant general David Poythress, most Democrats eyeing 2010 are waiting on one particular domino to fall first.
With a string of addresses that resemble a stump speech, former Gov. Roy Barnes has persuaded many that he is seriously considering a re-entry into politics.
Thurmond, like many others, will let Barnes have his say before the labor commissioner decides to run for the No. 1 spot, or the No. 2.
Another Democrat in the wings is state Sen. Tim Golden of Valdosta, a Sam Nunn-like Dem. He’s contemplating a run for statewide office, but is waiting to name is target. Golden, you’ll remember, almost left the Democratic party after doing battle with then-Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.
Attorney General Thurbert Baker is another Democrat thought to be in the mix, though we haven’t heard much about his 2010 plans.
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The fourth GOP candidate for governor: Ray McBerry
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Uh, it looks like we now have four Republican candidates in the 2010 race for governor.
On his campaign web site, Ray McBerry, a “state’s rights” candidate who challenged Gov. Sonny Perdue in the 2006 primary, has announced he’ll try again.
Berry won nearly 12 percent of the GOP primary vote by tapping the leftover frustration from the 2001 removal of the Confederate battle emblem from the Georgia state flag — and Perdue’s promise of a referendum that might restore it.
On his web site, Georgia First, McBerry is described as a “Christian statesman” who believes a governor ought to “interpose” himself between the people and their enemies — such as “the federal leviathan.”
McBerry thinks graduated income taxes are Marxist, and — in language far too familiar for Southerners of a certain age — says this most recent wave of illegal immigrants is “creating counterproductive divisions and dangers to our historic way of life.”
