Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2008 > February
February 2008
Tax swaps, dumb fixes, drought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The year’s great irony is the rush of Democrats to Barack Obama on his promises of “change.” Think about it. Nothing more terrifies liberals than the prospect of change from the failed policies of the past. Education. Social Security. Health care. You name it. Propose something other than growing government and cultivating dependence and they freak out. Real change that is an alternative to Big Government gets them squirrelier than the discovery that the new family next door drives an SUV with an NRA bumper sticker.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax-swap proposal —- a portion of the property tax for a new tax on services —- is a loser for Republicans. Want to get dispirited Democrats off the mat in Georgia? Push this proposal. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, offers this warning: “Calling for an expansion of the state’s sales tax to include what appears to be a telephone book listing of services is a move that harms … the taxpayer and is likely to cause great contention if passed.” A good leader doesn’t invite his followers to walk into a political ambush with sharpshooters from the Left on one side and from the Right on the other.
Give Dunwoody the right of self-determination. In a metropolitan area, people should be able to control their space. The decades-long abuse of Sandy Springs by remote politicians convinced me flat-out that people in a metro area can never be secure in their homes if they can’t.
Crime stories I love: Indictments for violating the public trust —- in this case, U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, accused of using his office to enrich himself in a complex federal land swap. And prison for white-collar criminals —- a Ponzi schemer in California, 81 years old, was sentenced to 28 years in the slammer for his role in ripping off $190 million from victims in 25 states. Stealing from people who put their trust in you is nearly unpardonable.
One area where Republicans under the Gold Dome promise to make important strides is education. The majority should most assuredly pass State Sen. Eric Johnson’s SB 458, which would give vouchers to parents of students in chronically failed schools and in a system that loses accreditation. The latter may include Clayton County. The Senate should pass, too, Rep. Jan Jones’ House Bill 881, which would give charter school organizers a state-level way around foot-dragging, kill-the-competition local school boards and would make it clear that the money follows the child. Local control means parents, not another level of government.
State Rep. John Lunsford (R-McDonough) has a fine idea, too. His House Bill 854, filed last year to deal with financial information that unions would be required to file, has been amended. The new language: “No public funds shall be disbursed, either through contract or grant, to any organization which engages in lobbying.” The halls and the committee hearings are filled with people on the public payroll lobbying people on the public payroll for more of somebody else’s money.
AJC columnist Bill Husted’s computer advice applies to government as well, especially on housing. The president promises to veto a Democratic bill that would change bankruptcy law to allow a judge to cut mortgage interest rates and reduce what’s owed. It would also provide $4 billion to allow local governments to buy and refurbish foreclosed properties. The headline on Husted’s Sunday column? “Avoid programs that ‘fix’ what isn’t broken.”
What? The drought is not part of an end-of-time cataclysmic event? No. Climatologist Doug Lecomte of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration checked the books and found that drought is a frequent visitor hereabouts. It spent three years here between 1980 and 1982 and five years here between 1985 and 1989. Then there was the visit in the early 1930s and in 1924. All told, the past 325 years have featured more than a dozen droughts. The lesson: Don’t panic. Don’t be arbitrary or stupid with rule-making. Plan, manage and store water. Droughts come and go.
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McCain, Lewis agree: It’s Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A moment of silence on the Thinking Right blog, please, for “conservatism’s witty warrior,” as the morning headline describes William F. Buckley Jr. There was Buckley, then Barry Goldwater, then Ronald Reagan and now….” Be not disheartened, though. The State Capitol here and, I’m sure throughout the country, is filled with young Reagan conservatives who are now working their way up the ranks. His legacy lives, Buckley’s and Reagan’s.
To the political news of the day, John McCain signaled Wednesday that the general election campaign is underway, with Barack Obama as his opponent. (Anybody surprised? Just this week, Obama was endorsed by a former opponent, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, and — drumroll please — Atlanta Congressman John Lewis. That settled it for me.)
McCain jumped Obama for an assertion in Tuesday’s Democratic debate that as president he will take action — though he didn’t say what that would be — “if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq” after U.S. troops leave.
“I have some news,” said McCain. “Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It’s called `al-Qaida in Iraq,’” Obama’s remark was “pretty remarkable,” he said.
“I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq,” Obama responded, “and that’s why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets. But I have some news for John McCain. “There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001.”
Obama said he withdraw from Iraq “so we actually start going after al-Qaida in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan like we should have been doing in the first place.”
Complete withdrawal would be “waving the white flag,” said McCain. “If we left, they (al-Qaida) wouldn’t be establishing a base,” he said Wednesday. “They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaida.”
A new Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll shows McCain with a narrow lead over Obama or Hillary Clinton in the general election. While the lead is within the poll’s margin of error, it reveals that McCain beats Clinton 46 percent to 40 percent and Obama 44 percent to 42 percent.
McCain is seen by the poll’s participants as having the right experience and the ability to lead the country in handling Iraq and terrorism. Obama and Clinton as seen as more likely to bring change to Washington. On handling the economy, Clinton tops McCain and McCain tops Obama.
Democrats, talking to each other, have managed to convince themselves that the country is ready to throw in the towel on Iraq. McCain’s decision to take on his presumed opponent on the issue now is evident that he believes the country’s not. In your head, heart and gut, you know he’s right.
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Does media prefer Obama?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Does the media prefer Barack Obama?
Hillary Clinton clearly thinks so. In Tuesday night’s debate — the last before next week’s make-or-break primaries in Ohio and Texas — she reacted testily to a question posed by MSNBC’s Brian Williams about the North American Free Trade Agreement, one of the few real achievements of the Clinton Administration. Clinton, in that instance, persuaded Congress to approve an important trade agreement over the objections of liberals and others in organized labor.
The question was asked first of Hillary Clinton. “Well, here’s another important topic,” said Williams, “and that’s NAFTA, especially where we’re sitting here tonight [in Cleveland, Ohio]. And this is a tough one, depending on who you ask.
“The Houston Chronicle has called it a ‘big win’ for Texas, but Ohio Democratic Senator [Sherrod] Brown, your colleagues in the Senate, has called it a ‘job-killing’ trade agreement.
“Senator Clinton, you’ve campaigned in south Texas. You’ve campaigned here in Ohio. Who’s right?”
Clinton responded:
” Well, could I just point out that, in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time? And I don’t mind. You know, I’ll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious. And if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.” She was referring to a skit last weekend that had television journalists fawning over Obama.
“I just find it kind of curious,” Hillary continued, “that I keep getting the first question on all of these issues, but I’m happy to answer it. You know, I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning. I didn’t have a public position on it because I was part of the administration. But when I started running for the Senate, I have been a critic.”
The suggestion that the media caters to Obama was advanced earlier in the day by campaign supporters. Howard Wolfson, a top Clinton adviser, said that “the press has largely applauded” Obama “every time” his campaign launches pesonal attacks on Hillary. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says the media has “relished” Hillary’s slide.
I do wonder. During the primary season, I often keep a television on, switching channels from time to time. The sound is off until I happen to notice something interesting. Here lately, with the field down to two candidates, it appears far more balanced — that is, when I look up and the story is political, I’m as likely to see Hillary as Obama. But during that critical period when the Democratic and Republican field was crowded, Obama did seem to be the candidate most often featured by cable channels and the networks. It’s just an impression, but long before Hillary spoke out, I’d asked colleagues to observe the muted television to see if they reached the same conclusion. So far they’ve not reported back.
You report, you decide: Does the media prefer Obama?
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State Republicans shouldn’t gamble with credibility
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans under the Gold Dome who fritter away this opportunity to make a difference, to represent something other than the shopworn grow-government politics they replaced, should have walked in Dorothy Felton’s shoes.
By the Grace of God, she lived to see Sandy Springs created. But for years, until her party gained majority status, she was determined and gracious, always prepared, year after year, disappointment after disappointment, to argue the right of the put-upon residents of Sandy Springs to have a piece of ground they could control, a piece of ground protected from the whims of downtown Democrats who used it as their ATM.
Felton, who died last week at 78, served in the Georgia House for 26 years, always in the minority. Enduring through adversity required conviction, focus, patience and a strong sense of purpose. In that she was not alone. The current session of the General Assembly and the drift of Republicans since they came to power are, to this mind at least, frittering away their inheritance.
Three events of the past week cause me to wonder precisely what this Republican Party stands for.
Event One:
The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously declared that tax dollars the State Constitution mandates to be spent to educate school children cannot be handed over to developers via Tax Allocation Districts. Not for 25 years, not for a day.
The reaction of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle? To declare that the decision “has threatened a critical infrastructure and economic development tool for Georgia, and we must act and develop a solution.”
Tax allocation districts are a conduit for corporate welfare. They have a narrow legitimate purpose —- to entice development to severely blighted areas where the free market wouldn’t go. They should be used sparingly. Instead, they have become abused, with school boards intimidated into going along. Why is it a crisis for Republicans that the Supreme Court has sided with taxpayers?
Event Two:
Cancer Treatment Centers of America wants to build near Atlanta’s airport a $150 million hospital, eventually employing 400, with a projected five-year economic impact of $500 million. It would serve cancer patients expected to fly in from around the Southeast. Few are expected to come from Georgia.
Yet Georgia’s hospitals have ganged up on the General Assembly to keep the competition out. And we have the president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, George M. Israel III, asserting this to senators:
“We often hear it argued that free market principles should be applied to health care. But unfortunately, health care in the United States does not respond to the free market” because Medicare and Medicaid account for 60 percent to 70 percent of reimbursements.”
The former Republican mayor of Macon, Israel thus dismisses the prospect that competition has value in health care, while his organization fights tooth-and-nail to keep the state from relaxing in the slightest anti-competitive regulations that Ronald Reagan recognized as a failure more than two decades ago. He had the requirement for states to have a “certificate of need” system repealed.
If conservatives believe Israel, they should pack up and go home. And stay there. Next stop, HillaryCare. The bill that the chamber and hospitals are fighting, SB 433, will be on the Senate floor this week.
Event Three:
Up soon, too, is House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s bill to shift part of the homeowner’s property tax load to a sales tax on groceries and services. If there are lower taxes-less government principles here, they elude me. Why conservatives would wish to embrace a tax structure that complicates the code, ups the requirement for regulators and introduces something grow-government advocates tried to push on Democrats —- a tax on services —- is beyond me.
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Farrakhan hearts Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan set Barack Obama up for a Sister Souljah Moment on Sunday.
While Farrakhan didn’t endorse Obama, he spent most of his almost two-hour Saviors’ Day celebration speech praising him.
“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” said the 74-year-old Farrakhan. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”
Farrakhan pointed out that the Nation of Islam’s founder, Fard Muhammad, also had a white mother and black father. “A black man with a white mother became a savior to us. A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”
While there’s nothing in the quotes from Farrakhan’s speech to 20,000 followers that anybody would find objectionable, his warm embrace of the likely Democratic nominee does him no good whatsoever. It doesn’t bring him any votes he wouldn’t get anyway and associates Obama in the public mind with a very polarizing figure who turns off huge blocs of white voters.
Suppose, for example, that a national figure identified in the minds of blacks as a virulent racist spent two hours praising Hillary Clinton. Think that would help her effort to win black support?
Some things it’s best to get out early in politics. John McCain’s association, allegedly romantic, with a lobbyist was one. Farrakhan’s embrace of Barack Obama is another.
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Rhetoric will leave off where McCain begins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In one sentence on primary night in Wisconsin, U.S. Sen. John McCain nailed Barack Obama — and defined precisely the terms of the fall campaign.
Be not intimidated by the growing certainty that the rhetorically gifted Obama, and not his fingernails-across-the-chalkboard opponent, will emerge as McCain’s opponent in November. With Hillary came the high negatives that gave Republicans hope of a built-in general election advantage. With Obama comes an army of high-end liberals, affluent and well-educated, along with an energized swell of blacks and the young drawn specifically to him. The prospect of running against a “movement” has unnerved some Republicans, to say nothing of those — affiliated or not — who have listened to Democrats lay out their vision for America through a long series of debates.
McCain summed it up in that one sentence. “I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure that Americans are not deceived by the eloquent but empty calls for change that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than people.”
No question that a decade or two ago, Americans, hands down and without reservation, would have rejected the alternative McCain described. But half the U.S. population is younger than 36.6 years, and an increasing percentage of the country, now almost a third of those who file, pays no income tax, up from 20.6 percent two decades ago. What’s more, an alarming number of children are born to unwed adults — more than two-thirds of blacks, almost half the Hispanics and a quarter of whites — without the security a two-parent family provides.
The point is simply that the “failed policies of a tired philosophy” McCain describes are distant to the experiences of the YouTube and Facebook generation and they are, furthermore, no threat to those who see themselves as possible beneficiaries of Obama’s spending. Besides, 97 percent of income taxes are paid by 50 percent of those who file, according to the Tax Foundation, so — many potential beneficiaries believe — the tab for Obama’s $900 billion in proposed new spending will be borne by somebody else, by “the rich.”
Still, there’s much reason to believe that with time and a focused message elaborating on the two options for America that Obama (or, if by some miracle, Hillary) and McCain represent, the nation will choose the course that avoids replaying the “failed policies of a tired philosophy.”
Why be invigorated by the prospect of running against Obama? Simply this: He will talk himself into trouble — and may very well talk himself out of the White House.
Obama is a truly gifted orator. But he’s been reassured of that so often, and his rhetorical skills have taken him to such heights, that he’s grown much too comfortable with his eloquence. He’ll say too much. He’ll get caught up in the beauty of his argument and get careless.
In the two Democrats’ Los Angeles debate, number 18 in the series of 19, the line of questioning went to the two candidates’ health insurance proposals, which would be costly and require raising taxes “on millions of Americans,” the questioner declared.
“On … on … on … on wealthy Americans,” Obama replied.
As the exchange continued, Obama finished his point.
“And then look, I, I, I’m not … I’m not bashful about it,” he said. “You guys,” he said, making reference to what he said was a “pretty well-dressed” audience attending the debate, “potentially pay a little bit more. I will pay a little bit more.”
Agreeing moments later with Hillary that “people did really well” before tax rates were lowered, Obama declared:
“They were doing just fine.”
When he’s the nominee, expect to see his words fed back to him.
While he may not repeat the mistake of picking up the rhetoric of others, as the Clinton camp accused him of doing last week — she called him “change you can Xerox” in Thursday’s debate from Texas — Obama’s strength is his weakness. He’s been surrounded by the adoring, by party activists who applaud at lines that connect with the moveon.org left but reflect a tin ear for the workaday worries of ordinary people.
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Hillary; a coy Lewis; quitting time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Based on exit polls, Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in for president —- in a nation of 74-year-olds with a sixth-grade education. Otherwise, this campaign’s dying. Ohio and Texas on March 4 could be the final gasp —- though she’s leading in both now.
Republicans who want to pass the buck pretend that on tax increases they’re just giving the people a voice by running them out as proposed constitutional amendments. Yet that same line of thinking doesn’t apply to, say, the proposed Human Life Amendment debated in the House this week or to Sunday liquor sales or to any of the other hot-button questions of the day. I’m not suggesting that they should, merely that legislators are playing a game with voters on taxes. They should vote now the way you’d vote in November. Be honest.
Accidents on interstates through Atlanta will now be handled by the Georgia State Patrol and not Atlanta police. That should, in fact, be the policy statewide: The state patrol polices interstates; locals police city and county roads. Every law that gives law enforcement officers a financial incentive to write tickets, or place red-light cameras, should be changed to remove financial incentives from enforcement.
Dang. Some laws are just not necessary. State Sen. Judson Hill (R-Marietta) introduces a bill to keep state pension fund managers from investing in Iran or Sudan. It’s called the “No Georgia Dollars to Terrorists Bill.” No public pension fund manager in Georgia knowingly invests in terrorists. For my part, I’d rather they spend their time and my tax dollars investigating returns.
State Rep. Sharon Beasley-Teague (D-Red Oak) in one day drove from Fairburn to Albany (173 miles, three hours) to Waycross (114 miles, two hours), to Savannah (129 miles, two hours), to Athens (257 miles, four hours), to Dillard (81 miles, 1 1/2 hours) to Fairburn (134 miles, 2 1/2 hours), putting her behind the wheel —- no food or bathroom breaks —- for 15 hours. Beasley-Teague may claim the one-day record, but the fiscal-year record goes to former State Sen. Roscoe Dean of Jesup, who made 254 round-trips between Jesup and Atlanta in 1974, when he drove a total of 72,696 miles on official business. Dean, first elected at age 28, and a candidate for governor in 1982, eventually wound up in prison —- though the charges stemming from his travel resulted in a hung jury.
Since we’re being honest, I’ve got to tell you that it’s despicable to use the names or images of dead soldiers who are somebody else’s sons or daughters to make political statements about the war —- as a couple on West Paces Ferry Road does. Parents, spouses and even siblings can express their grief as they please —- and I’ll not say a word.
The world breathlessly awaits: WWJD. What will John do? Lewis, that is. Congressman, Atlanta. Hillary or Obama? Anybody care? His support for Hillary didn’t do much for her in the Georgia primary.
Elected officials should not create charitable foundations or take a management interest in somebody else’s, as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has done with the charity that’s now called “Presence With a Purpose.” The risk is that contributions will come from those who have a policy interest in the elected official’s decisions. And of course, as we’ve seen with Atlanta’s once-promising councilman Lamar Willis, the operation of them can be a major embarrassment.
So 35,000 government-issued trailers occupied by Katrina evacuees may be dangerous because of formaldehyde? And what of those occupied by purchasers who’ve been using them for years? The feds didn’t check those —- presumably because the paying customers weren’t complaining or demanding upgrades.
A charter bus operator pulled into a convenience store parking lot in Corsicana, Texas, and abandoned her load of 40 former prisoners. Reason? It was 4 p.m., and that’s her quitting time. I would express outrage, but it’s approaching 6 p.m. and that’s my quitting ti
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A ‘hit job’ on McCain?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The story rumored to be in the works throughout the latter stages of the Republican presidential campaign — that John McCain had an improper relationship with a female lobbyist about the time he ran for President in 2000 — popped into the open Wednesday. It’s published today in The New York Times. McCain’s lawyer, Robert Bennett, insists it’s “shameless” and “entirely unsourced” and a “real hit job.” McCain at a press conference today said “it’s not true.”
Here are a few of the first paragraphs to give you the flavor of the story:
“A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
“When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
“Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.”
The story then goes on to revive the Keating Five savings and loan scandal and suggests that McCain had not been true to the ethical standard he set for himself and the image he cultivated “as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.”
It’s impossible, based on the Times account, to know whether there was anything improper in McCain’s relationship with the lobbyist.
The problem is that two men — a powerful public official and a lobbyist — can have an “intimate” converstion in a restaurant and the assumption is that it’s about legislation. It may be improper, but the immediate assumption is not that it’s romantic. If the lobbyist is female, and especially one who’s attractive, the first reaction is otherwise — that it’s personal.
Evangelist Billy Graham had a policy throughout his ministry that he would always have an aide or another person present when he was in a car or room with a woman other than his wife. That’s not a practical policy for a political figure, especially since it disadvantages the access of a female lobbyist to a male power figure or, in the case of a Nancy Pelosi, the male lobbyist.
But certainly a political figure who repeatedly engages in behavior that seems too familiar and that invites on-lookers to question its propriety, should heed the warnings — and return to the Billy Graham rule. Or, failing that, if his conduct begins to disminish respect for the public office he holds, he should step down.
A hit job? I’d not be particularly concerned about The Times story yet. It was bound to come out. Better now than later.
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Are Hillary and Huckabee done?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee acknowledges that he “may be killing my political career” by remaining in the Republican presidential race after it’s long been evident that he won’t win the nomination.
Campaigning at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, Huckabee said he may be finished in national politics “but I know this: if we don’t start thinking in terms of solving some of America’s problems, we’re killing all of your careers.”
Later when asked to elaborate, Huckabee said: “I’m just saying there are a lot of people who say I’m staying and creating problems for the party, and there are obviously people in the party who are unhappy that I’ve stayed.”
Staying didn’t matter much in Wisconsin and in Washington Tuesday. John McCain won easily in both and managed to split the conservative vote with Huckabee in Wisconsin.
On the Democratic side, Barack Obama socked away two more states — Wisconsin and Hawaii — putting his string of wins at 10. Hillary Clinton may be about a week away from finding herself in Huckabee’s position — under a great deal of pressure to concede for the party’s sake. She badly needs Texas and Ohio on March 4. Win those and she could make a race of it into the convention.
Her assaults on Obama are having an impact. A three-day Gallup tracking poll finds that she has cut his lead nationally from 7 points to 1. That covered the period where the Clinton campaign has accused Obama of plagiarizing speech material from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
She needs some good news. Exit polls in Wisconsin reveal an erosion in her support among working-class whites and women. Hillary does best among the less-educated and the elderly. Obama has solid leads among independents, the well-to-do, voters with a college education and those who are very liberal.
Two questions here, one for those who expect to vote for the Democrat in November and one for those who intend to vote Republican. It’s strongly evident that the two parties represent sharply different directions for the country so nobody who’s been paying attention could be in doubt.
For Republicans: Is it time for Huckabee to pull the plug? I say let him go on; he’s no threat.
For Democrats: Is it over for Hillary?
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An infernal tax scheme comes back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans this session propose to:
Add a $20 tax to cars, trucks and motorcycles.
Tax speeders.
Add a $1-per-pack tax to cigarettes.
Add a one-cent tax to the statewide sales tax and perhaps another one-cent regionally.
Expand the sales tax to groceries and to 174 categories of services, using the proceeds to reduce property taxes on homesteads and cars, trucks and motorcycles.
Georgians who prefer Democrats and who feared that putting Republicans in control under the Gold Dome represented a lurch to the right needn’t have worried. This is where the old gang left off.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson appeared last week before the House Ways and Means Committee to propose something that Democrats never dared bring forth when Zell Miller and his band started studying tax revision 16 years ago.
At the hearing, Richardson expressed frustration with policy wonks who, he believed, skewed the numbers to help defeat a tax shift that he initially designated as “Georgia’s Repeal of Every Ad Valorem Tax,” though it’s not called that anymore.
He is, in that regard, learning one of the elementary lessons of the old order. Experts and especially those in-house with a preferred policy outcome are almost always able to frame the options so that they get the decision they want from the bosses.
This tax on services was a favorite of the academics during the work of the Joint Commission on Revenue Structure during the administration of Gov. Zell Miller. It ran afoul of Miller’s promise to lift the sales tax on food. Miller won, but while legislators come and go, the love affair with a broader-based tax on services hangs eternal.
A tax on services was then characterized as a way to get the rich to pay their fair share by taxing their pet-grooming, lawn services and their country club memberships. It didn’t fly. Most Georgians know full well that an awful lot of little people are swept up in every scheme to tax “the rich.”
The speaker’s target is illegal aliens.
A tax on groceries and a tax on services extracts revenue from those who either don’t file income taxes or underreport income from a cash economy. In his bill, those who report income that is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level — $41,300 for a family of four — could get a rebate for the sales tax they pay on groceries, but they must file an income tax return.
The essential elements of the swap Richardson is proposing now were the elements of the three-year study by the joint commission. Ironically, some commission members objected to lifting the sales tax on groceries as unwarranted relief to the middle class and the well-to-do, while “siphoning off” $600 million a year from state and local governments. That estimate has proved to be high. In 2006, more than a decade after the tax was lifted, the Department of Audits and Accounts puts the forgone revenues at $500 million. With the additional revenues generated, Richardson says 2 million payers of property tax would see their bills cut in half.
All noncommercial vehicles registered in individual names would pay no more property tax — except for a $20 tax, half of which would be used to help fund a $100 million statewide trauma network. Homeowners would get relief from school property taxes. The elderly in counties with an existing school tax exemption would get some relief from the tax for general government.
It’s a complex proposal, still, one potentially with major compliance problems and with unintended consequences. It is likely to be reported out of committee Thursday and reach the floor next week.
Democrats wisely elected not to introduce a sales tax on services. And now emboldened Republicans, sorting through the discards of the past, find this gem. There was a reason Democrats stayed in power for 134 years.
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McCain closing deal: No new taxes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So does this close the deal with conservatives?
John McCain declared flatly Sunday that there will be no new taxes during his administration. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain said that under no circumstances would he raise taxes if he is elected President. Allowing the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire, as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would do, would constitute a tax increase, said McCain.
What’s more, he said, he could “see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates, and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates.” He also suports allowing filers to write off depreciation and he would eliminate the alternative minimum tax.
McCain blamed federal spending for the lack of enthusiasm among primary voters.”Spending restraint is why our base is not energized,” he said. “I think it’s very important that we send a signal to the American people we’re going to stop the earmark pork-barrel spending.”
Having heard the Democrats on taxes and spending, it doesn’t take much for McCain to close the deal with me. A “no tax increase” pledge, along with his earlier promise to appoint strict constructionist judges, fills the bill.
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Winds shifting in the debate over education
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wandering on the edge of the wilderness, uncertain about whether the material difference between the two dominant political parties is the route they choose to more and bigger government, I find inspiration and hope.
It comes in a public hearing before the Georgia House Education Committee.
State Rep. Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) is testifying. Before the committee is her bill to give state-level relief to parents who find themselves stymied by local school boards when they seek charter school alternatives — and, most importantly, enact the principle that the money follows the child.
Jones is a particularly interesting legislator — and an example of the promise that the transfer of power under the Gold Dome held. That promise is that talented, creative legislators could emerge and, once empowered, could invigorate change. They would be different — different in that they were fresh eyes and engaging intellects not invested in the status quo.
Jones, a Warner Robins native with a master’s in finance from Georgia State University, is a former marketing executive and small-business owner who first came to the General Assembly in 2003. My first impressions were that she was a serious, hardworking legislator with an interest in education — but largely along conventional lines.
Sometimes when I wasn’t paying attention, a different — and hence much more interesting — legislator emerged, the one passionately arguing for the reforms in her bill, House Bill 881. Employing the skills honed in business, she digs. She gathers facts. On policy. On procedure. On outcomes.
Those facts, meticulously researched, have led her to the kind of advocacy for parents and for public school alternatives that, when combined with the work of others, engenders hope that on education, at least, the party of Ronald Reagan can materialize and make a difference in Georgia.
Two other education bills introduced this session are a part of that promise of change.
One of the earlier and more determined advocates for giving parents options — especially the parents of children in nonperforming public schools — is Eric Johnson, a Savannah Republican who is president pro tem of the state Senate. This year he’s introduced Senate Bill 458, which would give scholarship-vouchers to children in chronically nonperforming public schools and those that lose their accreditation. Clayton County could on Sept. 1 become the first district in Georgia to lose accreditation. Another education bill that inspires hope was introduced last week by State Rep. David Casas (R-Lilburn), who teaches high school classes on government and economics in Cobb County. He, too, is interesting in that he is a prime example of those who once were the obstacles to any real reform in public education — legislators connected to school systems.
Born in Spain to Cuban parents, he took office with Jones in the class of 2003. And, like Jones, he has emerged as a legislator who deviates from the expected course.
The bill he introduced a week ago, House Bill 1133, would give a state income tax credit to individuals and corporations donating to school-choice scholarship organizations. It’s similar to programs in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Rhode Island. It would allow individuals to contribute $1,000 and couples $2,500 annually to nonprofits offering grants to public school students to attend private schools. Listening to Jones testify on HB 881, I am suddenly aware that, indeed, the center of gravity on the education debate has shifted. No longer are we stuck on inputs and debate about how one government can best grow another, which the input set chooses to define as “local control.”
“It is a unique opportunity,” Jones says of her bill establishing a state commission to grant charters, along with a fairer funding model. “This enhances local control by letting the consumer decide. To narrowly define local control [as] government monoply control does a disservice to Georgia.” And to children who either drop out or struggle through bad schools that show no promise of improving.
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Booze, divorce, designer handbags
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Yep, just what we need: Georgia Republicans acting like national Democrats. State Rep. Ron Stephens of Garden City near Savannah is sponsoring a bill to raise the cigarette tax by $1 per pack. On some days it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether it’s Democrats or Republicans running Georgia. This is one.
• Let’s see. Georgia could either spend its millions extracted from smokers via its tobacco company tax collectors on quit-smoking messages — or on sick people. Georgia essentially chooses the sick. It’s the right choice. Besides, can there be anybody left who doesn’t know the consequences of smoking or the causes of AIDS? Government can’t protect people from their own poor judgment, no matter how much it spends.
• “It is a unilateral disarmament, and it is astounding that at a time when Hezbollah is threatening war against Israel … our intelligence community won’t have the tools to protect us,” says U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell). Astounding indeed that Democrats left town Thursday without acting on renewal of the Protect America Act, which expires at midnight. Play political chicken, yes. But not with our national security.
• Is there any possible way House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s divorce filing could have been more badly handled? A judge who never should have touched it. A clerk of court who refused to show a reporter a public document. A file questionably sealed. This is a bad scene guaranteed to get worse.
• If I knew who to fire at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I would. Whenever the agency comes into the news, it sounds like a rat’s nest of bureaucratic backbiters pursuing incomprehensible side agendas. I loved them when they were on the E. coli beat.
• Grand Prize Winner in the Subtle Lobbying Contest goes to — drumroll, please — Georgia’s judges, a hundred of whom showed up at the General Assembly to listen attentively to Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears’ State of the Judiciary address, which ended with a plea for higher judicial salaries. Funny, I don’t remember seeing them there before.
• Now, here’s a tax reform that should appeal to fiscal conservatives: Advanced by State Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger) and others in the House, and by State Sen. Chip Rogers in the Senate, the proposed constitutional amendment, HR 1216, requires that excess revenue collections go to one of three purposes. Those are: increases in public school enrollment; building reserves of up to 8 percent of the prior year’s spending; and increasing the personal income tax exemption, now $2,700. The latter rewards work, a desirable endeavor, and is family-friendly.
• Woe is me. The Legislature still does not permit Sunday beer sales — and likely won’t this year. The mass uprising last year for Sunday beer is a reminder that a political groundswell is often just an interest group with sound trucks and noisemakers.
• A former Georgia Tech employee, Donna Gamble, is accused of making more than $316,000 in purchases for personal use on a state-issued credit card over a five-year period ending last year. This is a prime example of why Gov. Sonny Perdue’s emphasis on getting a reliable management and accountability system in state government matters. If the Tech software geeks can write spam-filter software, surely they can write software that raises red flags about unusual purchases such as, for example, designer handbags.
• State Sen. David J. Shafer (R-Duluth) makes a convincing case that the Tennessee River flows through Georgia. A mapmaker’s error in 1818 put 1.1 miles of Georgia into Tennessee, says he. Shafer wants a commission to precisely establish the location of the 35th parallel, the line between the two states. The Florida Gator license plate is for sport. The Tennessee River dispute is for real.
• The surge is working, and, one victory at a time, the war is being won. Latest good news is that Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, a key figure in the 1983 bombings at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and at the barracks of French and U.S. peacekeepers, was killed by a car bomb in Syria. Maybe it was Israel. Maybe not. But to whoever is responsible, thanks.
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Conservatives splitting?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain beats Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama beats him. That’s the findings of a new nationwide Zogby Interactive poll conducted Feb. 8-11.
The surprising number, though, remains Hillary’s problem with men and McCain’s with his own party. Against either Obama or McCain, she wins less than 80 percent of Democrats — though that’s better than McCain does among Republicans. Against Hillary, he pulls 72 percent of Republicans. Ouch. Though they’d be foolish to do it, some conservatives are beginning to talk of aligning themselves with the Constitution Party, which is on 16 ballots and expects to be on 40. It nominates a presidential candidate in April.
Looking to the general election, it is hard to imagine McCain winning if, indeed, any number of conservatives split off or sit it out. McCain draws independents, and would draw more than Hillary, but he loses them to Obama, 46-33, according to Zogby.
For the sport, let’s run the generic Democratic race against McCain, regardless of whether the nominee is Hillary or Obama. Bill Clinton says that with Hillary, it would be exceedingly civil. Perhaps. But from cartoonists, liberal commentators and the moveon.org crowd, we can certainly expect:
Repeated reminders that he’s old, really old, older than any first-term President in American history. One instance where he refers to Shirley Franklin as Shirley Chisholm, the now deceased congresswoman who ran for President in 1972, or makes some similar mistake and for the rest of the campaign he’s treated as approaching senility.
He’s a crank. Well, maybe he is. But his outbursts and ill-temper will become the basis for the charge that he’s too unstable to be President.
Iraq. To the moveon.org Democrats, he’s a dangerous militarist determined to occupy the world for the next 50 to 100 years. War, war, war.
No question McCain and conservatives need to make peace. He may not win with them, but he certainly can’t win without them.
McCain can’t shake Huck
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A prominent state senator stopped me in the hall of the legislative office building in Atlanta Tuesday to offer a report on voting among Republicans in Virginia. He was concerned. Hardly anybody was voting in the Republican primary while Democrats were flooding to the polls.
Indeed he was right. Barack Obama swept the state, rolling up 619,036 votes. Fewer than 500,000 Virginians voted Republican. John McCain won with 242,578 votes, beating Mike Huckabee 50-41 percent.
Republicans are starting to get concerned. Despite being the all-but-certain nominee, McCain is just now beginning to crack 50 percent of the Republican vote. In Maryland, he got 55, and in DC, 68, though that translated into fewer than 4,000 votes.
Obama, meanwhile, is blowing Hillary out of the water, prompting the Associated Press to offer the analysis that for Hillary “the list of justifications [for losing] are wearing thin.”
While Democratic delegate allocation formulas make it very likely that the decision will be pushed into the convention, the big day for Hillary is Tuesday, March 4. That’s when voters in Ohio and Texas go to the polls. Hillary’s pulling out all the stops in Texas, launching television ads in English and Spanish. Hispanics could make up half the Democratic voters. In the primaries so far, they’ve gone to her.
Clinton went into Tuesday with 1,147 delegates, to 1,124 for Obama. After big wins by Obama in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, he now has 1,186 to 1,181 for Hillary, with 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
Tuesday settled nothing. The Big Mo continues with Obama — and if it holds out for another two weeks, Hillary’s in real trouble. It wasn’t a great day for McCain, either. With the nomination nearly in the bag, Huckabee continues to hang close — suggesting that as the nominee, McCain has a lot of work to do to sell himself to his own party.
‘David’ wins one for the taxpayers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pro se is a legal term that means “for self.”
Sometimes, though, the lone David beats Goliath. It happened Monday.
A little-known Buckhead real estate lawyer, representing himself in pursuing a challenge to a tax district concept that invites abuse as it spreads across Georgia, won a big one for taxpayers.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously — without a single doubt or dissent, mind you — that John F. Woodham, the pro se plaintiff who filed suit against the city of Atlanta over the funding for the proposed Beltline redevelopment plan, was right. His objections had been brushed aside as those of a meddlesome crank raising technical and procedural objections to something wondrous and good, the conversion of 22 miles of old rail line into a string of parks and neighborhoods, a project expected to cost $2.8 billion.
The merits of the Beltline redevelopment are not at issue here. If it’s a project the locals want and support with their own money, it’s of no particular concern elsewhere.
The core of his objection — and the reason it matters from Rabun Gap to Tybee Light — is that tax allocation districts have become the rage of local government officials. It’s a form of corporate welfare that should be used sparingly. Essentially, it freezes the assessments of property within a created district and attributes all enhancements for a period of, say, 25 years to a project or development that’s being proposed — the Beltline, or a major office-commercial-residential project like the one being proposed by the Sembler Co. in the vicinity of Briarcliff and North Druid Hills roads in DeKalb County.
If a home is worth $100,000 and property taxes are $1,000, an assumption is made that the development will cause the home to be worth $300,000, producing $3,000 in local property taxes. That $2,000 is then borrowed and handed over to the developer for infrastructure improvements. The premise is that, but for the proposed development, the property would not have appreciated and might even have lost value — hence a local government’s interest in creating the tax allocation district. In the case of the Beltline, estimates were that $1.7 billion in new taxes would be generated over 25 years.
Woodham’s legal objections came when a city of Atlanta development authority proposed to borrow the first portion, $28 million, to be turned over for Beltline development.
He asserted that local school boards have no authority to collect taxes intended for the education of schoolchildren and use it for unrelated purposes. The court’s decision, written by Justice Hugh Thompson, affirms Woodham’s contention that using school funds for noneducation purposes violates the state Constitution’s educational purpose clause. While the Atlanta Board of Education had waived most of its anticipated taxes in the district for the 25 years specified, the court noted that it is well settled in law that school taxes can be expended only for the support of schools and “such funds cannot be utilized for any other purpose.”
Tax allocation districts have a place — but what happens is that they become a form of corporate welfare inappropriately employed to fund development that would have occurred anyway within a reasonable period of time. More than two dozen of them have been created around Georgia.
The second concern — now addressed by the state Supreme Court — is that somebody is responsible for educating all those children whose families are attracted by large-scale developments. Before Monday, the education tax dollars of those parents were diverted to other purposes. The consequence is that property owners elsewhere are forced to pay not only for their own children, but also for the children who live in tax allocation districts as well.
Others cowered; David, in the form of John F. Woodham, came forth.
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Hillary or Obama: WWJD?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the GOP race all but over, temporarily idle right-wingers can amuse ourselves with the conundrum facing the Democrats.The Rev. Bill Clinton, preaching Sunday at black churches in the District of Columbia and Maryland, said the Lord has given us a mighty burden this primary season.
“All my life I have wanted to vote for a woman for president,” said the Rev. Mr. Clinton, ordained in the Gospel of Liberalism, to the 800 members of the Temple of Praise church in Washington. And, he emoted, “All my life I have wanted to vote for an African-American for president. … I wonder why God gave us this dilemma.”
One thinks that Minister Clinton might not seen it as a dilemma “God gave us” had the African-American been Michael S. Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, or the woman been Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. But far be it from me to inject myself between the spiritual man in the pulpit and his wife’s troubles in appealing to a very large constituency in the Democratic Party.
Minister Clinton said he understood the desire of blacks to elect one of their own — within the confines of the Democratic Party, of course — as president. But his wife is “the best qualified person to be president I’ve had the opportunity to vote for,” and he urged them to consider her experience, her support for full voting representation in Congress and policy initiatives on health care, housing and education. Pray about it, he urged them.
The Man in the Pulpit fervently hopes that God leads them out of their terrible dilemma by Tuesday, when Hillary faces off against Barack Obama in primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Right now, Clinton and Obama are tied. Obama has 1,143 delegates to 1,137 for Clinton. Obama won primaries over the weekend in Louisiana, Washington, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands and in the Maine caucuses. Obama is expected to win Tuesday’s primaries as well.
Suddenly, Hillary badly needs the 366 convention delegates the national party withdrew from Michigan and Florida, states Hillary can legitimately claim she won.
Sit back. Be entertained. Watch the ministers of political gospel at work. No admission charged. There’s more suspense here than on high school football recruiting day in Georgia.
McCain’s life experiences will suit road ahead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain was not my first choice. Or even the second or third.
He’d be far more appealing with a Southern conservative as a running mate — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, or Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, to name three.
But conservative running mate or not, Mitt Romney’s class-act exit leaves McCain without serious challenge for the nomination. And as both Romney and McCain noted in same-day speeches to the Conservative Political Action Conference, this election is not about shades of gray. “Elections in this country are fought within margins of small differences,” said McCain. “This one will not be. We are arguing about hugely consequential things.”
Romney’s departing words defined the immediate course for conservatives. “I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues … but I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating al-Qaida and terror.”
The immediate course is to support McCain. “Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror,” said Romney. “They would retreat and declare defeat. And the consequences of that would be devastating.”
Against this most vital issue to America’s future — the absolute most vital — all of McCain’s domestic-policy shortcomings, and all of the conservatives’ doubts and disagreements, recede.
It is not essential that a wartime president have military experience. But in two respects, McCain’s life experiences steel him for burdens ahead.
A man who survives torture and five years in a prisoner of war camp most assuredly has the constitution to withstand determined opposition. That opposition comes from unrelenting critics on the left — and from an impatient citizenry grown unaccustomed to the steadfastness required to defeat an often abstract enemy. We are a nation of rationalizers, skeptics and negotiators best defined by Rodney King: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”
We should live in terror that the U.S. president sitting across the bargaining table from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or committing to Israel’s security, or confronting the ambitions of Hugo Chavez, is animated by Pollyannish notions that words and good intentions can substitute for power and resolve. We can’t get along if you want to kill us — and we can’t co-exist if the desire translates into deeds.
The second point about McCain’s life experiences is that with the staying power comes the necessity to understand what is being asked of those who will fight America’s war. In the decades since the draft ended, the nation has rested its national defense burden on volunteers. The result is that key gaps exist in the exposure that most Americans have to the military. We honor and support them, but I don’t think we really know them.
The media are torn between whether to treat them all as heroes or as emotionally damaged victims who need our sympathy and considerable therapy. Most are neither.
I’d welcome a president who knows them, who understands without glorifying the mundane, who connects — who knows firsthand how utterly dishonorable it would be to abandon a cause for which good men and women have died. A president who can be their voice to people who don’t really know them, can ensure that they are not strangers whose sacrifices are betrayed to arbitrary timetables and political expediency.
On the domestic front, conservatives may be in the wilderness for four years or eight. Romney’s exit speech was perfect in laying out the conservative challenge. It should be required reading, a course of study even, for young conservatives concerned about America’s direction and culture.
This is not one for conservatives to sit out.
It is not about shades of gray, a fight within the margins of small differences. For it is true: “We are arguing about hugely consequential things.”
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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.”
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.
Tuesday’s lessons in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some observations on the political season ahead based on how Georgians voted Tuesday:
• Barring a scandal, Republicans can’t lose control of the State House and Senate in Georgia this year. But they can lose statewide. On Tuesday, more than 100,000 more voters chose to vote in the Democratic primary. Barack Obama collected more votes than any two Republicans combined.
• If Hillary Clinton’s the nominee, the Republican wins Georgia. She has a serious gender-gap problem with men. Obama could win Georgia in a general election, especially if John McCain makes a misstep or fails to unite the party.
• The outcome Tuesday in Georgia among Republicans would likely have been no different had none of the candidates dropped out. Mike Huckabee still would have won. And,had Huckabee dropped out, McCain would have won.
• The West Virginia convention deal in which McCain and Huckabee delegates joined forces against Romney was the smoke-filled-room trading of a bygone era. But on the ground in Georgia, outside metro Atlanta at least,the back-up choice for Huckabee or McCain would have been the other, not Romney.
• Republicans are composed of at least three conservative blocs: movement conservatives who pay close attention to issues, social conservatives who want leaders who share their values and national security conservatives who support the military and the wartime President. Economic conservatives are spread over the three groups. And there are, too, the big government Republicans and the moderate and liberal Republicans. A Barack Obama candidacy would siphon off some of them.
• Metro Atlanta — Mitt Romney territory — is ideologically aligned with national Republicans. Social conservatives dominate in areas of Georgia starting about 30-40 miles out from the State Capitol. The rest of Georgia is Chamber of Commerce Republican — traditional with a preference for smaller government and less regulation, but also practical and non-ideological.
• After Super Tuesday it’s hard to see how Romney or Huckabee get the nomination. It’s not so much the sizeable delegate lead that McCain has, but the pattern of voting reflected in Georgia. Romney wasn’t able to connect with voters who are not into the kinds of issues that come before Congress and with those uneasy about the economy. And, frankly, Romney’s Mormonism was more significant than people were willing to acknowledge.
• Georgia’s two senators probably didn’t help John McCain with their endorsements — but despite the vote split here, they haven’t hurt themselves. They didn’t cost either Romney or Huckabee, both of whom got all the votes here they were likely to get, even with more money and more time.
Huckabee’s blowing it out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike Huckabee blew it out in the counties just beyond Metro Atlanta and did extremely well in the areas of the “real Georgia” that have begun to trend Republican.
An example of the latter is Laurens County in Middle Georgia, which goes for Democrats in the Congressional and some state races, but voted for Sonny Perdue and for George W. Bush. With 19 of 20 precincts counted, Huckabee had 2,437 to 1,723 for John McCain and 780 for Mitt Romney.
An example of the former is Bartow County, just up I-75 from Atlanta. With 18 of 19 precincts in, Huckabee had 4,818 votes to 2,996 for McCain and 2,880 for Romney. On the other side of Atlanta about the same distance out, is Barrow County. There with 17 of 18 precincts in, Huckabee had 3,323 votes to 1,947 for McCain and 1,960 for Romney. These are the “real Georgia” — as one of the blog contributors wishes to have them described. That’s the area sominated by life-long Georgians.
The trend was that Romney dominated in Metro Atlanta — though not by margins large enough to offset Huckabee’s support among evangelicals and more conservative Georgians. The counties starting 30-40 miles from the State Capitol were big for Huckabee. And beyond that, Huckabee and McCain split. with Romney usually in third.
It was a big night in the South for Huckabee, who won Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee and for McCain nationally. If both Romney and Huckabee stay in the race, the nomination will go to McCain.
McCain, Huckabee gang up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bring on the back-room dealing, the old smoke-filled vote-trading politics that gets both parties a candidate with the broadest-possible base of support.
It worked in West Virginia today. It’s not a winner-take-all state, but Mike Huckabee picked up 18 of the state’s 30 delegates in a just-concluded convention process. On the first round of voting, Mitt Romney led, followed by Huckabee, then John McCain and finally, Ron Paul. The last-place finisher was dropped.
Then McCain forces, realizing they had no chance to win, opted to keep Romney from winning. They threw in with Huckabee, giving him a 52-47 win over Romney — and 18 delegates. Fair enough.
Huckabee is the spoiler. He has no chance of getting the nomination, but he’s certainly useful to McCain — as today’s alliance indicates.
If McCain winds up as the party’s nominee in November, I’d certainly do as his mother suggests and vote for him over the save-face and take-flight-on-Iraq Democrat. But I’d have to rethink that if, by chance, the spoiler becomes McCain’s running mate.
In today’s 15 Republican primaries, six caucuses and West Virginia state convention, 1,023 delegates are at stake. After the West Virginia outcome, McCain has 102, Romney 93 and Huckabee 61. Ron Paul has four. Needed to win the nomination: 1,191.
Headlong rush to endorse McCain is risky
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The political herd’s rush to John McCain is intended to create a stampede of inevitability before the obvious becomes evident: Most Republicans are not buying.
On the last weekend before today’s Super Tuesday primary in Georgia and 20 other states, an InsiderAdvantage poll in Georgia and Tennessee revealed that more than half of Republican voters want a conservative. In Georgia, 58 percent pick one of the two GOP candidates who have fashioned their campaigns to appeal to conservatives.
In Georgia, 30 percent preferred Mitt Romney and 28 percent Mike Huckabee. McCain got 29 percent. In Tennessee, Huckabee (30 percent) and Romney (22 percent) split the conservative base. McCain gets 32.
The actual results are just hours away — and indeed the stampede that included Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, may well succeed. So far, however, it has succeeded in getting them accused of clubbiness in endorsing a colleague. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta, one of the four Georgia congressmen endorsing Romney, brushed it off as a reflection of “a close-knit club on the Senate side.”
Added Romney’s Georgia campaign co-chairman, Eric Tannenblatt: “I look at this as an endorsement of someone they serve with rather than someone who shares their values.”
Their endorsement does involve some risk, especially to Chambliss, who is up for re-election this year. McCain has plenty of time to convince conservatives that he is the more electable and that he will be true to the promise he made to supporters Saturday at the Cobb Galleria. That promise, second in importance only to a promise not to beat a hasty retreat from Iraq, is this:
“I will try to find clones of [Justices Samuel] Alito and [John] Roberts,” McCain vowed. Since Justice John Paul Stevens will be 88 when the next president is sworn in and Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be 75 — in fact, six of the nine will be 69 or older — President Bush’s successor is likely to fix the direction of the next court for decades to come. Of the current 5-4 majority, 75 is the average age. Of the minority, it’s just over 60.
A pledge to find clones of the Bush appointees, combined with late October evidence of electability, would sweep away most conservative objections to McCain — and therefore any ill will remaining among Georgia Republicans to Chambliss’ decision to weigh in with a McCain endorsement before Super Tuesday.
If all does not go well and McCain either doesn’t get the nomination or shows poorly in the general election contest, Chambliss will find himself in a serious race — assuming Georgia Democrats nominate a mainstream candidate, a fairly wild assumption at the moment.
Hillary Clinton can’t carry Georgia either in November or, based on the polls, today. Obama, however, would have a shot. Over the past seven years, more than 200,000 blacks have registered to vote, compared with about 95,000 whites. Whites were 72 percent of the electorate in 2001, 66 percent today. More than half of the 42,000 new voters who registered for Super Tuesday are minorities — 37 percent of them blacks.
While there’s a near-zero chance that Democrats could retake the state House and Senate, Obama as the nominee would make Georgia very competitive. The possibility of electing the first black president would most certainly swell turnout among Democrats. Chambliss needs every voter he can get, and especially those drawn to Huckabee and Romney, the two presidential candidates he didn’t endorse.
While Senate collegiality and a desire to wrap it up quickly may have prompted both Chambliss and Isakson to embrace McCain over the weekend, those on the ballot in November would be stronger had they all allowed the primaries to play themselves out.
It may be tidy to wrap it up in February. It may serve to distance February’s ill will from November’s turnout-crucial election.
But as the nation saw with an abortion conflict never satisfactorily concluded because of premature court intervention, it’s rarely wise to stampede the political process.
Pick three: Nominee, date, VP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Super Tuesday is upon us.
A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll puts momentum with John McCain and Barack Obama. In the delegate race, McCain will have a big day, coming out of Super Tuesday with about 70 percent of the delegates needed to lock up the nomination. Neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton is likely to settle much on Tuesday.
In the Clinton-Obama race, the break is interesting. Obama leads 45-41 in California, 43-33 in Missouri while Clinton leads 43-42 in New Jersey. Pollster John Zogby’s analysis of the break:
“Obama’s lead in California is by virtue of solid support in the Bay Area and among independents (by 20 points), men (20 points), 18- to 29-year-olds (31 points), very liberal voters (22 points), and African-Americans (75%-14%). Clinton does well among women (11 points) and among Hispanics (64%-29%).
“In Missouri, Obama has solid leads in the St. Louis region (16 points), with independents (7 points), young voters (16 points), and African-Americans (62%-26%). He also leads among moderates and men. Clinton leads in Kansas City (7 points), in the southwest part of the state (16 points), and among liberals (8 points), women (5 points), and among voters over 65 (25 points).
“Obama leads in both northern and southern New Jersey, among men, and among African-Americans (74%-16%), while Clinton again holds Hispanics (19 points), whites (10 points), moderates (8 points), liberals (8 points), Jews (22 points), women (9 points), and voters over 65.”
Republicans undoubtedly would prefer Hillary as the nominee. The pattern of support explains one of the reasons why. Even among Democrats, Hillary has trouble attracting men.
We’ll know tomorrow. The Prognosticator’s Window is open for business. Three chores today: Pick a nominee for both parties, the date he or she will clinch the nomination, and for bonus points the vice presidential nominee. Enjoy the wait.
The problems, potential of John McCain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain presents a real dilemma for conservatives.
On national security, he’s fine; better than fine, even. As the alternative to either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he’s super. He’ll not leave troops hanging out to dry and he’ll not be driven by politics into a face-saving exit from Iraq that invigorates jihadists — and makes our children’s world less safe.
On pork in the budget, he has been among the foot soldiers of the Reagan Revolution.
With a Republican majority in Congress, he’d be a good successor to George W. Bush.
With a Democratic majority, which is likely, he’s a crapshoot.
• Judicial appointments? Crapshoot. Would he nominate a Ruth Bader Ginsberg? Probably not. David Souter, entirely possible. To conservatives, no difference. He says now his appointments would be in the mold of the four strict constructionists on the U.S. Supreme Court. But that was the signal, too, when Souter was appointed.
• McCain now supports making the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent, something Clinton and Obama won’t. In Wednesday’s debate, McCain said his opposition to them stemmed from his determination to get spending reductions. “I disagreed when we had tax cuts without spending restraint,” he said.
He said at the time of the 2001 cuts that he opposed them because they benefited the wealthy. He and former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island were the only two Republicans to oppose the $1.35 trillion in tax cuts.
He opposed further reductions offered by Bush in 2003 — and was joined in opposition by Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and again by Chafee . “The tax cut is not appropriate until we find the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction,” he said at the time.
On a number of other issues — illegal immigration and campaign finance restrictions among them — McCain has teamed with Democrats to offer legislation that alienates conservatives. They haven’t voted for him yet.
In three primaries he won, including Florida last Tuesday, McCain wins without conservatives. In New Hampshire, he lost the conservative vote to Mitt Romney, 38-30. In South Carolina, he lost it to Mike Huckabee, 35-26. And in Florida, he lost it again to Romney, 37-29. He won big among primary voters with a negative opinion of Bush, 40-26 in New Hampshire, 39-26 to Huckabee in South Carolina, and 45-23 in Florida. But of those who view Bush positively, he lost 27-32 in New Hampshire, 31-33 in South Carolina, and 31-35 in Florida.
McCain’s strength is among primary voters who consider themselves liberals, moderates and independents.
It’s highly unlikely that McCain will have the nomination sewed up by next Wednesday. Georgia and 20 other states vote Tuesday. Establishment Republicans eager to get a candidate quickly are rushing to endorse McCain.
Their eagerness is understandable. While it will be tough, the general election is very winnable for Republicans. Listening Thursday night to Obama and Clinton debate universal health care, Iraq and taxes, it was hard to imagine either of them prevailing when the cost and consequences of their ideas settle in on mainstream America. Hillary is a Clinton, with the advantages and baggage that brings. Obama’s much too confident in his rhetorical abilities; he’ll talk himself into trouble.
November’s winnable with a candidate who can unite the party. Bush planted some conservative seeds in his big-government presidency — school choice, health savings accounts and others. Four years or eight years of neglect, and the seeds are dead while big, costly, overregulated government sprouts.
Mitt Romney does represent the best chance to advance a conservative agenda, however slightly that may be with a Democratic Congress. That’s why more than 50 Georgia legislators endorsed him last week.
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