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Thursday, February 7, 2008
GOP angst, FairTax, fluid thinking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Warning signals to GOP Georgia: Of 1.9 million ballots cast Tuesday, 52 percent were in the Democratic primary. In once reliably Republican Cobb County, it was 48 percent. In Gwinnett, 46. Among metro counties, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in these former GOP bastions — Douglas, Rockdale, Newton and Henry. The biggest vote-getter in Cobb and Gwinnett: Barack Obama.
• Another warning sign: Barack Obama may carry Georgia in November if he’s the nominee and if conservatives opt to sit it out, and if Republicans and independents eager to move beyond the race-game politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton opt for Obama over McCain. But as they say in the fine print of TV commercials featuring drivers making high-risk maneuvers — amateurs shouldn’t try these maneuvers. They can’t get elected statewide in Georgia marketing the liberalism of Obama. Has anybody heard a peep from Jackson and Sharpton? Democrats’ chances improve when the civil rights protest re-enactors are given play-work away from the TV cameras and microphones.
• Another Super Tuesday observation: This is not yet a Republican state and won’t be until state leaders stop playing personality politics and until somebody explains to the “Other Georgia” what Republicans stand for. The party’s core is in metro Atlanta and along the coast. A Joe Frank Harris or Zell Miller Democrat can still win Georgia. Trouble is, most of that breed is now Republican.
• Condolences, as sincere as they can be, go to former Georgian Cynthia McKinney, defeated in her bid to become the presidential nominee of the Green Party. She lost 2-1 to Ralph Nader.
• The FairTax may have been a factor in Mike Huckabee’s win in Georgia, but the turnout by evangelicals and values voters is the more likely explanation. Huckabee ran a distant third in Fulton, for example, and that’s a group of Republicans who would have the greatest exposure to FairTax arguments, since U.S. Rep. John Linder and WSB talk show host Neal Boortz wrote the book. Linder represents Newton, Barrow, Forsyth, Walton and part of Gwinnett, all counties where Huckabee did well, but similar in pattern to his performance elsewhere on the edge of metro Atlanta and in pockets around the state.
• Even among baboons, daddies matter. A study of yellow baboons living near Kenya’s Mount Kilimanjaro finds that females raised in groups with their fathers matured earlier and had a longer reproductive life than other baboons. It is child cruelty to bring children into the world intentionally without a father present. That’s the disadvantage now inflicted on 70 percent of black children, almost half the Hispanics and a quarter of the whites. No safety net can ever equal a caring father.
• Gov. Sonny Perdue, applying good, sound common sense, modifies water-use rules to permit the landscape industry to survive and to permit swimming pools to open. Rules applied stupidly undermine support for rule-makers.
• The Cobb County school board — my Cobb County — plans to call a referendum for Sept. 16 on extending the sales tax for another five years. Here’s one “no” vote. The general election is six weeks later, on Nov. 4. Board members say they can’t wait because the delay would mean about $40 million less in collections. Voters should reject any special election proposition that’s not held during a primary or general election, when voters actually show up.
• The drunks, fresh from an AA meeting, take a snort. Or two. Or a dozen — prompting state Sen. Eric Johnson, the president pro tem, to declare in exasperation: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that DeKalb and Fulton don’t want to give up their political meddling in Grady [hospital]. It is time for the state to wash our hands of this mess. All we have tried to do is help. All we have asked for in exchange is a new nonpolitical board of directors. Let Grady go. Only then can we create a new health care delivery system.”
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Romney a class act
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mitt Romney’s a class act. Recognizing that his chances of securing the nomination are thin, he’s suspended his campaign.
The nomination’s now McCain’s, for certain. The question now is who he’ll pick as his running mate. My choice would be former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The current governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, would be a good choice for conservative support, too. But not Mike Huckabee. Don’t do that deal.
Here’s what Romney had to say to the Conservative Political Action Conference:
•”If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”
•” This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.”
•”I will continue to stand for conservative principles; I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in. And one of those things is that we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face evil extremism.”
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McCain and talk radio
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The big story after Super Tuesday is the divided Republican party — and especially the war prominent talk-radio hosts, Rush Limbaugh in particular, are waging against John McCain. “We are trying to stop the wanton destruction of the party, the wanton dilution of the party,” Limbaugh is quoted by Reuters news service. “We are sick and tired of how the people who seem to be triumphing in our party are precisely the people who seem to be selling this party out in terms of its ideology.”
I have high regard for Limbaugh and his ability to communicate with the conservative base, though I work through the middle of the day and rarely hear him. After Super Tuesday it’s readily apparent that the Ronald Reagan wing of the party needs a leader who can connect with and educate voters. Mike Huckabee is not the guy, but he does have some of those abilities. The party needs a Newt Gingrich, somebody who offers fresh ideas based on putting individuals back in control of their lives — that is, in bringing about limited government by lessening dependence on it.
McCain has a big speech today, a “test” it’s being called. He’s speaking to conservative activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference. It’s not likely that he’ll be able to convince them in one speech. Reiterating his promise to appoint strict constructionist judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, would be a good start. Promising to veto tax increases would, too.
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