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Obama, McCain in the mushy middle?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is this presidential election evidence that the nation is determined to move to the middle?
Wall Street Journal reporters Gerald F. Seib and John Harwood speculate that the campaign of ‘08 may yield a new political center, something akin to the alignment that existed two generations past when conservative Southern Democrats and liberal Northeastern Republicans formed a center that constituted “a kind of human bridge between the partisan extremes.”
The premise is that John McCain and Barack Obama are running as candidates who can bridge the partisan divide — something we know to be true of McCain, as evidenced by his participation in the Gang of 14, campaign finance reform and other efforts to chart his own course.
But while Obama talks the talk, there’s no real evidence I’ve seen that the speeches translate into anything more than campaign bromides. He’ll set a firm departure schedule on Iraq, raise taxes on capital gains, create universal health care and, most assuredly, appoint judges in the mold of John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite the talk, the policies that emanate from them are pretty much from the “partisan extreme” that’s supposedly to vanish if he’s elected.
The mushy-middle is certainly useful in public office — if, in fact, there’s a strong leader in the White House or in the governor’s office who has a strategic vision. Otherwise, if Obama proposes a fixed pull-out from Iraq in 10 months and the mushy-middle causes him to make it 12 or 15, what’s gained by compromise? Bad policy executed more slowly.
Likewise, If he proposes to raise the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 28 and the mushy-middle settles at 23, we’re still enroute to big government and high taxes, just on a slower train. And if the compromise on judges gets us David Souter, an unknown from the left, rather than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose leanings were known, the train’s track reaches the same destination.
Rebuilding the middle is a lot like campaign finance reform. It’s usually more appealing in the abstract than in practice. It’s wishy-washiness as a virtue.
If Obama and McCain have distinctly different visions for America and distinctly different ideas about what’s best for the country — and they do — the solution is not to split the difference. One solution often precludes the other.
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GOP … on road to 2010 Georgia governor’s race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Oxendine, the insurance commissioner who would be governor of Georgia, orders latte at the downtown Atlanta Starbucks.
No syrup, he says. But chocolate chips.
And skim milk.
He pauses briefly and then asks for cream and whipping cream.
Conflicted?
On latte, maybe. But not on a desire to be governor or the willingness to leave a safe job he’s held for 14 years to join the stampede to succeed Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2010. While others ponder the opening created by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s announcement that he’ll seek re-election to the Senate — not the governor’s office — in 2010, Oxendine’s in, declared, and ready to go.
Isakson would have been a shoo-in. Had he declared, the crowd would have assembled to replace him in the U.S. Senate. Now, in the gubernatorial race, U.S. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville and Jack Kingston of Savannah are possibilities, as is Secretary of State Karen Handel of Atlanta and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. So, too, is state House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island.
On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin, a 25-year-veteran, has a career decision to make. His life in the House gets no better; his party’s chances are nil of taking control of the House and elevating him to speaker. Over the next decade, the prospects don’t much improve, either. The combination of the Voting Rights Act and GOP control of redistricting will keep Democrats in the minority in the House and Senate.
Democrats’ best access to power is statewide. And while some of its best and brightest are too liberal to be elected statewide, others could position themselves in the mainstream. State Sen. Michael S. Meyer von Bremen of Albany, a thoughtful and decent moderate Democrat, is abandoning his Senate seat to run for the Georgia Court of Appeals. His Senate colleagues, Tim Golden of Valdosta and Doug Stoner of Smyrna, could have statewide potential, along with U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon. Atty. Gen. Thurbert Baker and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond have already won statewide.
After that the bench thins.
Among Republicans, the best news is not at the top of the Gold Dome power players. It is likely to be 2010 before Georgians can gain real relief for the frustrations wrought by the three-way personality conflicts and the incessant games that Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson play. Nothing and nobody on the ballot this November represents a solution.
The solution, incidentally, is not to recreate the last years of the Roy Barnes administration when a dominant governor could assemble compliant House and Senate leaders behind closed doors and decide what both chambers would rubber stamp. Tension is needed. Competition, if it can’t be cultivated in one party, requires Georgians to look to the other.
But the competition should be purposeful, grounded in principle and built on policy disagreements. Is it better, for example, to offer tax relief across the board or to wage-earners via an income tax?
Republicans are still trying to decide as a governing party whether tax relief and spending discipline are good things; whether choice in education and health care are worth pursuing and whether leaders or lobbyists set agendas. Competition, as practiced here, is not purposeful and productive. It’s personal. Ego- and ambition-driven. Pointless.
Isakson’s appeal is that he’s knowledgeable and serious about public policy, has first-rate political skills and is, furthermore, a calming presence.
He would be seen as coming from outside the problem — something Oxendine offers as an argument for his candidacy. (Oxendine says, incidentally, that he’s often asked why he didn’t run for lieutenant governor two years ago if he wanted to be governor. His explanation is that he thought it would be immoral to run for one office determined to pursue another. Fortunately for the ambitious, that immorality — if that’s what it is — is not a jailable offense.)
The next governor needs a Newt Gingrich vision and the political skills to turn competition productive for the Georgians who aren’t represented by lobbyists. We need a place to go and a plan for getting there.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Friday, Sunday and Tuesday.
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Proud Georgians, justice, Hillary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
No Johnny for governor in 2010? Whoa. The field just got very crowded.
From the Do Georgia Proud department: U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville is the Georgia congressional delegation’s “strongest supporter of responsible tax and spending policies,” according to the National Taxpayers Union. Close behind are Reps. Nathan Deal of Gainesville, Tom Price of Roswell and John Linder of Duluth, all Republicans. No Georgia Democrats made the list. Westmoreland, Linder and Phil Gingrey of Marietta were among eight House members ranked as “most conservative” by National Journal magazine.
From the High-Class Company department: Atlanta-based James magazine names U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and State Sen. President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) as Georgians of the Year and State Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs), chairman of the House Rules Committee, as Legislator of the Year, selections on which I concur.
From the Little Guys Win Too Department: Up-and-comer Tom Graves, a state representative from Ranger, who was unceremoniously bumped from leadership, packed up and marched out of his Capitol office to digs across the street for bucking House Speaker Glenn Richardson on a transportation board election, is one of six conservatives honored in Washington. The Legislative Entrepreneur award was presented by FreedomWorks, a nationwide organization led by former House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas. Others honored included Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona and U.S. Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, fiscal-conservative blue-chippers all.
Natives of Lesbos, an island in the Aegean Sea, who are Lesbians, take a gay rights group to court for usurping their identity. If successful, Gay, Ga., will follow suit.
Was that a Republican running in Clayton County? Whatever for? Not one, but two, did. Both qualified for the school board.
From the corrections column: “A story published on May 3 incorrectly identified the political party affiliation of four incumbent congressmen the GOP hopes to defeat in the 2008 elections. The incumbents are Democrats.” Seems obvious, but you had to correct it. It’s not a given that they were Democrats. Republicans carry the county convention and caucus squabbles that were the staple of their out-of-power years into public office. It may be the only behavior they know.
Lisa Clark Gonzalez, 39, and her 17-year-old husband, Adrian, should get their child back —- and be allowed to move on with their lives.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle says now that voters should decide whether the beer stores that are driving the agenda are allowed to sell booze on Sunday. Voters should decide, too, whether they want to cap state spending and cut taxes —- but they don’t have paid lobbyists working for them on that case.
Twenty years ago William Lynd killed two women. This week the victims got justice. Twenty years. It’s cruel of the state and of the courts to delay justice that long. Jack Alderman, another death row inmate, murdered his wife 34 years ago.
Earlier this week, in noting the influence Mitchell County legislators wielded under the Gold Dome for more than six decades, I should have mentioned Frank Twitty, a Talmadge stalwart who served as House floor leader for Gov. Ernest Vandiver, 1959-1963, the father of current state Democratic Party chairman Jane Kidd.
When faced with the choice of integrating the University of Georgia or closing it, Vandiver sought advice from about 60 of the state’s political leaders. All but two —- Twitty and Senate floor leader, and later governor, Carl Sanders —- advised him to close UGA. Ten days later Vandiver went on television and urged the General Assembly to keep the university open.
- Hang in there, Hillary. You’re the trouble we know. And can live with. The moment Obama appears inevitable, the stock market tanks 200 points. Watch the sell-off when investors think he may actually win.
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Rush and the GOP crossovers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the day after the two Democratic presidential candidates split victories, Barack Obama supporters — and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh — were quick to attribute her Indiana victory to crossover Republicans.
“If it hadn’t been for Republicans taking Democratic ballots,” said former Demo nominee John Kerry, an Obama supporter, “they likely would have won in Indiana too. There really is no masquerade now — Rush Limbaugh was tampering with the primary and the GOP has clearly declared that they want Senator Clinton as a candidate.”
Obama strategist David Axelrod attributed the margin to Limbaugh and to cross-over Republicans. And, indeed, there was some indications that Republicans were making sport of the Democratic division in an effort to prolong the fight. Obama does seem inevitable, largely because the Democratic Party can’t risk denying him the nomination and thus offending one of the party’s most loyal constituencies. About 90 percent of blacks vote Democratic, slightly higher for women than men, and in the primaries about 90 percent of black Democrats voted for Obama. If Obama’s denied the nomination and they sit home in November, Hillary’s toast. Oh, the mess of it all.
Pollsters and pundits have lined up to draw attention to the racial divide in voting — it’s quite obvious and certainly relevant to November — asking repeatedly how voters who consider race an important factor intend to vote in the general election.
In Indiana, according to media reports of exit polls, 13 percent of white voters said race was important in their vote — a group that presumably includes those who consider it either a positive or a negative factor in their decision. Of those, 49 percent said they would support Obama against McCain.
The more shocking number, however, is that of the large marjority of whites who said race was not an important factor, a third in Indiana and about 36 percent in North Carolina will vote for McCain or sit it out if Obama is the nominee. In Indiana, Republicans and independents could vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary so some of the one-third of whites who intend to vote McCain in November could be Republican cross-overs. In North Carolina, though, registered Republicans couldn’t vote in the Democratic primary Tuesday.
Without doubt I’d prefer Hillary to Obama as President, assuming that John McCain blows it. She’s more seasoned. She won’t venture too far, in policy terms, from the polls. As the last few months have established, she’s tough and she can take a punch. She bounces back when she’s down. She won’t foolishly surrender our gains in Iraq because she’s wrapped up in slogans and buzzwords — change moving forward — unmindful of the consequences.
Obama, on the other hand, took three weeks to get to the right place on Jeremiah Wright. And I keep repeating this: He sat an listened to 20 years of anti-American hate preach before his perspective broadened enough for him to hear. He will surrender Iraq and I have no confidence that his judgment is sound on national security matters.
The point, really, though is that Republicans and those intend to vote for McCain in November should resist the temptation to play games in the Hillary-Obama race. Recent primaries and Hillary’s resiliance — her ability to take a punch — convince me she’d be the stronger nominee against McCain. Republican should’t help Democrats out of the mess they’re in.
But more importantly, either McCain or the Democratic nominee will be President next January. And if I can’t have the candiate that I think would be best for America, I’d at least like to have the second-best.
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Obama’s Reagan moment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, they muddle on. Hillary Clinton takes Indiana, 51-49, while Barack Obama wins North Carolina, 56-42. Neither is likely now to win at the ballot box the delegates needed. The game shifts to the superdelegates — which means that the party elite anoints the winner. Democrats have a mess on their hands.
Obama showed in his post-victory speech in North Carolina that, while he now appears to be the weaker of the two Democrats in a general election campaign against John McCain, he’ll be tough to beat.
As he stood before the cameras last night, the screen behind him was filled with the faces of people who represent Hillary voters. All were white, most all were women and many of them were older.
And while he didn’t mention Jeremiah Wright, he took the second step in distancing himself from Wright’s jaundiced view of America. I quote a portion of his remarks at length here because they could have been delivered by Ronald Reagan. The view is optimistic and distinctly different from the America where institutions are evil and embittered small-town people live clinging in their grimness to God, guns and bigotry.
From Obama’s speech:
“The people I’ve met in small towns and big cities across this country understand that government can’t solve all our problems - and we don’t expect it to. We believe in hard work. We believe in personal responsibility and self-reliance.
“But we also believe that we have a larger responsibility to one another as Americans - that America is a place - that America is the place - where you can make it if you try. That no matter how much money you start with or where you come from or who your parents are, opportunity is yours if you’re willing to reach for it and work for it. It’s the idea that while there are few guarantees in life, you should be able to count on a job that pays the bills; health care for when you need it; a pension for when you retire; an education for your children that will allow them to fulfill their God-given potential. That’s the America we believe in. That’s the America I know.
“This is the country that gave my grandfather a chance to go to college on the GI Bill when he came home from World War II; a country that gave him and my grandmother the chance to buy their first home with a loan from the government.
“This is the country that made it possible for my mother - a single parent who had to go on food stamps at one point - to send my sister and me to the best schools in the country on scholarships.
“This is the country that allowed my father-in-law - a city worker at a South Side water filtration plant - to provide for his wife and two children on a single salary. This is a man who was diagnosed at age thirty with multiple sclerosis - who relied on a walker to get himself to work. And yet, every day he went, and he labored, and he sent my wife and her brother to one of the best colleges in the nation. It was a job that didn’t just give him a paycheck, but a sense of dignity and self-worth. It was an America that didn’t just reward wealth, but the work and the workers who created it.
“Somewhere along the way, between all the bickering and the influence-peddling and the game-playing of the last few decades, Washington and Wall Street have lost touch with these values.”
That’s a great transition — assuming he repeats it often enough — from Wright’s toxic anti-Americanism and perhaps even from the question of why he sat there for 20 years without walking away, as Oprah had done.
Questions are likely to remain about his judgment. But nobody can question his ability to deliver precisely the right speech at the appropriate time. It’ll be no walk-over for McCain.
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