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July 2008
Surprise! Enforce law and illegals go.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Supporters of amnesty for illegals presented the option as either rounding up for deportation 12 million people in this country illegally or giving them a path to citizenship that amounted to amnesty.
Opponents never quite penetrated with their counter-argument: No, nobody’s suggesting rounding up 12 million people by force. The alternative is to enforce the law. Deport those who commit crimes. Verify immigration status when possible. And over time, those here illegally will self-deport.
Guess what? Opponents were right. Illegals are going home. A Washington think tank, the Center for Immigration Studies, released a study Wednesday reporting that stepped-up enforcement efforts are working. The population of illegals has declined 11 percent in the past year, from 12.5 million to 11.2 million.
The economy certainly has something to do with it. New home construction is down; those who are employed in housing may have returned to their home countries to await a revival. if so, efforts to secure the borders will be essential to manage the future flow of illegals.
The immigration debate has long been based on false choices — either round them all up or let them stay.”Opponents of immigration enforcement claim that there are only two ways to address illegal immigration: amnesty or mass deportation,” noted U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican. “But there is another and better option and that is to simply enforce current laws.”
In public life, we get the behaviors we buy. Signal that laws matter by enforcing them and people pay attention. Wink and waive and they don’t. Simple.
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If GOP loses on corruption, so be it.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look, if Republicans sink further from control of the U.S. Senate, or if the Democrats gain a filibuster-proof majority, because a corrupt GOP senator is indicted, so be it. No problem here. None whatsoever.
Up front, let me quickly note that Alaska’s Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator, has only been indicted, accused on seven counts of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in home-renovation services over a six-year period from a company in an oil-related business. He’s up for re-election this year and since that election is just over three months away, he’ll not have the chance to clear his name before Alaskans vote. He’s being challenged by Mark Begich, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage.
Indictments, as we all know, aren’t proof of criminality. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas was indicted in 1993 for alleged official misconduct. Less than five months later a judge order her acquittal. The district attorney refused to present his case.
Stevens is not one of my favorites among Republicans in the Senate. He’s a pork-barreler most recently famous for the Road to Nowhere.
If Republicans lose Stevens and control because he has, in fact, been taking gifts and services from individuals with an interest in influencing government to gain competitive advantage, I’ll cheerfully take exile to the wilderness.
Conservativism never meant fleecing taxpayers in some other state to get goodies for mine. It never meant trading pork for votes or pork for votes. Public service, whether as a conservative, moderate or liberal, never meant getting rich, or living rich, in public office.
I have no problem with taking campaign contributions in any sum from individuals, interest groups and industries seeking to influence government policies, so long as they’re promptly and fully disclosed. I’d take contributions from interest groups supporting school vouchers, for example, because on that issue, I can’t be bought. I’m already there. Individuals should give campaign contributions to those in public office who are best able to advance the policies they advocate. Just disclose, promptly and fully.
When there’s a quid pro quo, where an individual company or contributing individuals, get something of monetary value in return, alarm bells go off. But that’s not necessarily evidence of corruption. I support opening more areas to off-shore drilling, for example. Oil companies will profit from that and may give me campaign contributions. But unless, as a public official, I’ve done something that specifically designates a public resource to a particular beneficiary, there’s no offense.
The Stevens indictment is not about campaign contributions, of course. If he took any of the services without paying, even if it’s not possible to prove a specific quid pro quo involving his public office, Stevens should be bunking with Bill Campbell.
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Officials, learn from Atlanta’s pension-fund debacle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Every elected official in Georgia should be convened at the Georgia World Congress Center, their cellphones confiscated and the doors locked. Ship food in. Bring in porta-potties.
When they are assembled, bring in the actuarial experts to explain what just happened in the city of Atlanta. AJC reporter Cameron McWhirter captured the essence of it in noting that Mayor Shirley Franklin and City Council “made key decisions to sweeten pensions for city workers that have put Atlanta in a budgetary bind that will take years to escape.”
Either they were asleep at the wheel, practicing political expediency or just plain ignorant of the consequences of their actions. Whatever the explanation, the administration that raised police pension benefits by 50 percent in 2002, and did the same for firefighters three years later while increasing pensions for general employees by 25 percent, has wrought disaster on the taxpayers of Atlanta.
The city’s budget is $570 million. By tinkering with the pension fund formulas in a way that would strike the uninformed as inconsequential, taxpayers’ debt increased by a full year’s budget. Look at your property tax bill for the year. Double it —- and that’s the cost to you of the formula changes adopted without notice in 2002 and 2005.
The mayor and council increased the portion of your pension-fund debt that is unfunded from $620.5 million to $1.2 billion without gaining anything of real value in return. Oh, for a brief spell the recipients will be grateful. Beyond that, however, there’s nothing taxpayers gained in terms of efficiencies or upgrades. It’s the same system, only with a more expensive work force.
When pay is inadequate, the best solution is to give workers cash in ways that don’t increase long-term debt. The absolute worst way is the way Atlanta did it. And, in fairness, it is not just Atlanta.
Politicians are notoriously short-sighted. If it’s possible to placate complaining employees by giving them something of value to quiet them that doesn’t have to be paid for by raising taxes during this four-year cycle, politicians will jump at it every time. In that sense, elected officials are the absolute worst decision-makers on compensation issues, especially those related to pensions.
Employees own them. They elect their bosses. They elect the folks who determine how much of somebody else’s money —- somebody unknown and unseen —- should be given over to somebody they know, often somebody organized to turn out the vote.
It’s a horrible system. When money’s flush, they go for money. When it’s not, they go for benefit increases that will come due on some other politician’s watch. Horrible, irresponsible, unfixable system as it’s now structured.
There is a solution, though.
Change the system. It cannot be fixed. Atlanta tried, passing an ordinance in 1978 to require its pension funds to be fully funded by 2018. City Council has now pushed that back to 2024 and will most likely do it again.
The Georgia General Assembly, with a similar problem, closed one system and started a new one fresh. For about a decade, it stayed relatively pure. Then, as new employees started thinking about retirement, the corruptions started. It can’t be fixed. Short-sighted politicians and those who have no clue —- always the majority among elected officials —- perform exactly as the mayor and council of Atlanta did. The solution is to close every public defined-benefit pension plan to new employees. Pay all promises to existing workers, of course. But then give all new workers defined-contribution plans of the 401(k) variety. Workers own the plans. When they leave, they take the money. At the end of every day, employer and employee are settled, fair and square. All games are in the open. All incentive to favor small groups of employees is largely eliminated. Politicians know, and pay, the full cost when making decisions.
Every city and county in Georgia, as well as the state, is a potential Atlanta. Change the system.
Open the doors.
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You simply must adore Obama. You must.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Back to work.
While away for the week, I was outside the reach of the AJC and largely outside the news flow. Occasionally, I did hear tidbits of news about Barack Obama’s trip overseas. I’ll let you fill me in on what I missed.
But I do have to say that a week of drifting in an out of the news did reinforce my belief that the media — or at least the reporters, newscasters and commentators who cover Obama’s campaign and movements — adore him. For the next month or so, try this experiment with television or radio newscasts: Tune in at random at any time of the day for a minute or an hour. What public figure is being discussed? And is the coverage favorable? On what scale: Fawning, adoring, determined to convince you that he’s best qualified to be president, or simply reflecting what the reporter or commentator believes to be the common view?
Most days you learn a lot from an indepth exposure to the day’s news. Some days you learn from a little. What did I miss?
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Atlanta’s public housing revamp shows real hope for the future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of America’s great success stories is here in Atlanta.
For those who believe that the alternative to cradle-to-grave dependency on government is to give individuals incentive to make responsible choices, Atlanta is a conservative’s dream.
Atlanta? Yes — in one sterling instance: public housing.
What the Atlanta Housing Authority has done, executive director Renee Glover specifically, is the road map for conservatives eager to reverse the inevitable slide to dependency. Essentially it involves razing the complexes that anchored generation after generation of vulnerable women for the convenience of the predators who passed through their lives. That was never the intent when the nation’s first public housing project, Techwood Homes, was constructed here in 1936. Sadly, that is what large-scale public housing projects became.
With federal demolition permits now granted, Atlanta will become the first major city in America to rid itself of large public housing projects for families.
The AHA was the nation’s fifth-largest public housing agency, in shambles, one of America’s worst and in danger of federal takeover, when the first signs of turnaround came with the appointment of hard-nosed director Sam Hider almost 30 years ago. At the time, AHA was landlord for 50,000 people housed in 20,000 units in 42 complexes spread throughout the city. Twice as many residents lived there for more than 10 years as had lived there for less than one.
Hider, who died in 2003, began to change the agency — and the culture during his 10-year tenure. In the year before he came, the AHA paid tenants to lobby the Georgia General Assembly for more money and actually sponsored and funded a reception for legislators.
It was under Glover, though, that the real revolution occurred — prompted by a federal program called HOPE VI, launched in 1992. Significantly, it encourages replacement of project housing with vouchers and with mixed-income redevelopment. Nationally, the record is mixed; President Bush has tried repeatedly to cut it out of the budget. In some cases, the crime previously concentrated in projects is shuttled elsewhere.
Glover, an attorney, initially came as an appointee to the AHA board in 1991. After a series of unsuccessful directors, she took the job in 1994.
“Atlanta for decades had seen and experienced the terrible byproducts of concentrating families in poverty,” she said. That meant “higher rates of crime, poor school performance, severe disinvestment in neighborhoods, failing neighborhood schools and institutionalization of families into multigenerational poverty.”
One aim of HOPE VI was to break the cycle. It involved giving project-dwellers vouchers to rent elsewhere, razing hellholes where they had been cooped out of the mainstream so long that they either never learned, or had forgotten, how to function. In short — and this is the lesson and the danger of a growing dependency on government — they had been trained to passivity and failure.
That’s been the problem nationally. As Glover notes, “while tearing down the housing projects and creating healthy mixed-use, mixed-income communities is the right strategy for the real estate, it is only half the equation. The neighborhood schools and other quality-of-life amenities must be addressed.”
This gets now to the second lesson for conservatives who wish to change public education, health care, Social Security and other government programs that invite dependency. It took decades to cultivate full dependency and after that, passivity, to train them out of the values and the behaviors that moved the next generation upward. Simply moving them out of public housing projects, while essential, is only the beginning.
Glover has been steadfast in insisting, as HOPE VI envisioned, that former residents “buy” their way back into attractive mixed-use communities by changing their behaviors, by taking responsibility for maintaining decent, crime-free apartments.
It’s a long, slow process. Decades. It’s not cheaper. It doesn’t “save” money. As with welfare reform, it costs more. But the goal, ultimately, is to train people to survive, to teach them self-reliance and to accept responsibility for their family’s well-being. That’s revolutionary, but slow. The conservative approach to buy us out of the dependency behaviors that government programs buy us into. Give us information and choice, and then encourage us to act in our own and our family’s best interest.
Leaders matter. Without them, it’s just money thrown to the winds.
HOPE IV hasn’t worked everywhere. But it has in Atlanta.
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VP picks, a classy lawyer, fried pies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Nobody will let me have my first choice as vice president on the John McCain ticket. That’d be former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Or, probably, my second, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. His is a small state certain to vote Republican anyway. But I’ll settle for third: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a conservative who was sworn in and promptly called a special session to enact ethics legislation. Like Barack Obama, he’s too unseasoned to be president just now, but he’d season as VP.
Little-noticed changes that matter a great deal build the Sonny Perdue legacy. A prime example is the Georgia Technology Authority’s plan to contract with private-sector vendors to operate computer systems for 11 agencies. About 500 state workers will move to the private sector and about 200 jobs will be eliminated. Technology changes too quickly for government procurement. And, too, why hire the excess help needed for emergencies when the private sector can provide three or 300 when needed? Great move.
Don’t retire the odd-even watering police just yet. China deals with its Olympics-related traffic problems by ordering odd-even driving days. Why add road capacity when you can simply order drivers off the road?
When a public official, tasked with responsibility to reduce payroll by 2.5 percent, announces that 53 police and 27 fire vacancies won’t be filled, as Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin did, you gotta believe it’s a game. To be cut, too, are 20 public defender jobs and 13 in the solicitor’s office. When I’m asked to cut my budget by 2.5 percent, I propose not paying the water bill, the gas bill and parking the car I drive to work.
A nation cannot be safe from terrorism if its people think asking them a security-related question is an outrage, or worse, a reason to sue. This is what passes for a major revelation in today’s politically correct, touchy-feely world: From The Associated Press, this first paragraph: “The Justice Department’s former top criminal prosecutor says the government’s terror watch list has caused thousands of innocent Americans to be questioned, searched or otherwise hassled.” Goodness gracious. Can this nation survive in a world where people really are trying to kill us?
We really are becoming a nation where the elite in academia and the media are guerrillas determined to destroy corporations they don’t like —- tobacco, insurance, “predatory” lenders and oil, for example. An example is a report from Harvard researchers purporting to show that tobacco companies have “manipulated” menthol levels in cigarettes to keep customers. Imagine the crime of that. Any chance that manufacturers in any other industries might have “manipulated” other products —- say coffee or other beverages or the accessories in automobiles —- to keep customers? In this country we criminalize and demonize what we don’t like and employ unexamined buzzwords, like “smart-growth,” for things we do.
The state gets a single bid —- about $3 million less than it paid —- for a six-acre tract near Atlantic Station. What to do? Wait for full value. No commission required for this wealth-building advice.
Atlanta lawyer Randy Evans, friend and counselor to Newt Gingrich and a number of other high-profile political figures, is a class act. When the former Bush administration press secretary died, Evans created the Tony Snow Family Trust at the Wachovia bank in Bowie, Md., to help cover education and other expenses for Tony and Jill Snow’s three children. Donations can be made to: Center for Health Transformation, Attn: Tony Snow Family Trust, 1425 K Street N.W., Washington, DC 20005. At his death, Snow was working through the center on a cancer project with former Democratic VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
Blaming Southern foods and “metro Atlanta’s car-crazy culture” for obesity is the same as blaming guns for crime. The CDC finds the South to be the nation’s fattest region. People make choices. They are responsible. Not the fried chicken, gravy, fried pies or biscuits. How long will it be before some do-gooder suggests shutting down all-you-can-eat buffets?
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Tough break becomes ‘better off’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Note to readers: Jim Wooten’s next new Thinking Right entry will post Friday morning.
In a world where no industry is immune from competition or from changing technologies —- as newspaper reporters and editors across America are now discovering —- Georgians like Roy Braswell of Sandersville are worth knowing.
All of us have a tendency to notice economic transformation when it affects us, or the people we know.
But owing to global competition, a lot of folks employed in manufacturing have been dealing with major and unexpected change in their lives. That’s why Roy Braswell is instructive. Those who handle it well, and even prosper from it, like Braswell, have a strong work ethic, a positive outlook and a determination to bounce back, playing the hand they’re dealt.
Braswell was 57 when he started over. Except for delivering The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Augusta Chronicle to about 100 customers in Washington County and a brief stint in a home-canning plant in his youth, Braswell gave 38 years of his working life to one employer.
In April of 2005, rumors that the plant would close became an official 60-day notice. Lapp Insulator Co. closed its Sandersville plant.
Braswell did start over. Attitude and the strong work ethic that had kept him loyal to one employer for 38 years prompted a new employer coming to town to hire him even before he graduated with honors at the age of 59 from Sandersville Technical College.
He was hired by Trojan Battery Co. as a maintenance technician months before graduating. “The job I have now, I hate to say it, but if they had closed down earlier and I could get the job I’ve got now, I would be a lot better off,” he said.
When the plant closed, he and other workers had a chance to go back to school, relying on state and federal assistance. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go back to school. You’re old and you can’t remember and stuff. I just didn’t want to fail when I went back, that was the main thing. [At Sandersville Technical College] they worked with you. You had good instructors; they were wonderful.
“Once the first quarter was over, I kind of enjoyed it. I had always wanted to go back to school, and the plant closed and there was the opportunity. They don’t come along much.
“I grew up in Davisboro and I have been here all my life. My mother is still here. She kept asking me what I was going to do. I kept saying, ‘Something will come along; it might not be making the same amount of money, but I always thought I could get a job, and it wouldn’t be working at Wal-Mart being a greeter.
“I always had the feeling that I could find me a job. That’s what kept me going. … My truck was paid for; our house was paid for. … All the while I was in technical school, I never thought I would be working in the field I was studying. … I went on four or five interviews. I knew they were probably looking for somebody younger.”
Over the 38 years with Lapp, “I go to work every day. I always put my schedule around my job. I always tried to be on time; I was very seldom late. Mama raised us like that. I reckon it’s something she put on us. If you were a Braswell, you’ve got to be on time. My sisters are that way, too.
“In the neighborhood, we had pretty good friends. On the street we stayed on, everybody looked out for everybody else. It was a neighborhood thing. Everybody on the street did good, some of them better than us. They went to college and things. We had a small elementary school and the teachers knew everybody. You didn’t go out and embarrass your mama and your daddy.”
Though his job went away just short of his retirement eligibility, Braswell holds no ill-will. “It did not dawn on me, not for no bad feelings,” he said. “I’m sure it was a business decision. It wasn’t like that they came in one day and just took my job because they want to take my job.”
A strong work ethic.
A positive outlook.
A strong determination to bounce back.
Playing the hand you’re dealt without bitterness or blame.
That’s Roy Braswell.
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Despite hype, Obama won’t carry Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What happened?
The throw-the-rascals-out sentiment never materialized at the polls last Tuesday. Incumbents won.
Clayton County voters pitched a fit about a sorry school board and the local system’s possible loss of accreditation. And when it came time to do something about it, only one in five bothered to go to the polls.
The lesson from last Tuesday?
For one, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is more secure than I’d previously thought. Part of it is that both Republican and Democratic incumbents fared well.
The same was true for incumbents in the Georgia House and Senate. A loss or a runoff here and there, but through the primary, it’s an incumbent’s year. And Clayton. Passionate people did nothing to follow through.
A primary is not a presidential election. People who register now may indeed turn out in November for a historic event — the first general election with a black man as a major-party nominee.
But, stripped of the hype, it seems even less likely that Georgia could be in play for Barack Obama or that this will be anything other than the usual strongly contested presidential election. Those who are most excited about the Obama candidacy — the young — are historically no-shows at the polls.
Among Democrats, with the heated presidential primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton on Feb. 5, turnout by black females ages 18-24 in Georgia was 22 percent. For white females of that age group who voted Democratic, it was 7 percent. Among black males, it was 16 percent; among white males, 6 percent. Among Republicans, it was 7 percent for the category; 12 percent for white males and females.
The point is that registering young voters and actually getting them to vote are entirely different matters.
There’s some indication, too, that the much-publicized Obama surge in voter registration is hyped. The “surge,” so far at least, is consistent with the 2004 presidential year, according to information posted by Secretary of State Karen Handel’s office.
Between January and June of this year, new registration by black females (41,995) grew by 4.8 percent. Between January and June of 2004, black female registration grew (35,100) by 4.9 percent.
Same time period for white female registration growth: 44,644, or 2.5 percent this year; 42,060, or 2.5 percent in 2004.
For black males: 30,844, or 5.1 percent this year; 29,037, or 5.9 percent in 2004. For white males: 39,820, or 2.5 percent this year; 41,934, or 2.8 percent in 2004.
In June-to-June comparisons this presidential year, the percentage increase for black females was 9.0; for black males, 9.7; for white females, 5.0; and for white males, 4.8.
In June-to-June for the 2004 presidential year, it was 8.3 for black females; 9.9 for black males; 4.5 for white females; and 4.8 for white males.
The standout category is women — and that’s not a category that clearly favors one party over the other. Single women gravitate to the Democratic Party, married women to the Republican.
The “surge” of registrations this year is routinely put at 300,000. That’s somewhat misleading in that presidential years attract voters who don’t go to the polls in intervening years. Of the 300,000 about 107,000 fall into that category. The actual number of new active voters, according to Handel’s spokesman, is 193,585. Currently active registration is 4.74 million; in July 2004, it was 3.91 million.
George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in the state by about 550,000 votes in 2004. The last Democrat to carry Georgia was Bill Clinton in 1992. He won by a 14,000-vote margin because independent Ross Perot siphoned off 300,000 — one reason no disenchanted conservative should abandon John McCain for Bob Barr.
The primary point to be made here is that a gap exists between political hype and reality. We’re being spun. It is shaping up to be, well, a typical presidential election year — hyper and partisan. Georgia is not in play, the hype notwithstanding.
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Buts, wayward beagle, King kids
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Henceforth the word “but” will be standard issue in weather school. It could rain for 40 days and 40 nights, “but” Lake Lanier’s still down and the drought’s still on. Just so you don’t forget and think it’s OK to water your lawn. No news can be good news in times of crisis.
I’ve no idea what this means. It’s a version of Grady CEO Pam Stephenson’s quote. But here goes: “I’ll never apologize for being Jim Wooten.” Huh? And this, too: “I wouldn’t have signed an unfair contract.” Unfair to me? Unfair to thee?
Democrats, divided for months over whether to offer the first black or the first woman for president, have a solution to their dilemma. The Green Party has chosen Cynthia McKinney.
Raul Castro is one word away from being a free-market capitalist. Addressing Cuba’s parliament, he said: “Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income.” Change the word “income” —- a step in the right direction —- to “outcome” and he’s one of us.
Dang. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki turns out to be a Nancy Pelosi Democrat. The clue is in the headline: “Iraq handing out cash to citizens on the streets.” She’s proposing another round of “stimulus” rebates to add to the deficit since the first one worked so well.
The King children need not be embarrassed around me about their squabbling and all. I’m unplugged. Today, tomorrow …
Not surprising that a beagle that disappeared in New York five years ago showed up in Atlanta. It’s been that way with people for 30 years. Why not dogs?
The ball’s in your court, Congress. Both the president and Congress have to act to lift the ban on expanded offshore exploration. Bush did. Thanks. And it may or may not be a coincidence that the price of oil dropped $6.44 a barrel the next day. When buyers —- or speculators, as Democrats prefer to call them —- think we’re serious about doing something, they’ll react in anticipation. It’s now up to Congress to follow suit.
In the week’s elections I am cheered and dismayed. Cheered that the lone remaining veteran of World War II still in the General Assembly —- state Rep. John Yates of Griffin —- won re-election with a primary victory. Dismayed that the conservative cause lost a stellar performer, state Rep. Jeff Lewis of Cartersville, who lost by 186 votes.
You gotta hand it to U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens). He has solidified his support in a staunchly Republican 10th Congressional District about as quickly and well as I’ve seen a politician do. He defeated state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem, the majority whip of the Georgia House, 71 percent to 29 percent, carrying every county.
After Tuesday, the entire Cobb school board that proposed to spend $75 million to provide laptop computers to every middle school and high school student, as well as the superintendent who recommended it, will be gone. Veteran school board member Betty Gray —- who opposed the laptop deal —- lost to David L. Morgan, husband of state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, in the Democratic primary. He’s an interesting guy and a good addition to the board. Morgan struggled mightily with the Atlanta school board in an effort to create a charter school, Achieve Academy.
Comparing the Gwinnett straw poll today on MARTA to the referendum nearly 40 years ago is meaningless. Different county, different people. Once again in unison: Dirt’s permanent, people aren’t. Which is why it’s foolish to assign personality traits or values to place. I hate it when those in neighboring counties to the south speak of my county, Cobb, based on the stereotypes of yesteryear. Same with Gwinnett.
Voters in Clayton County should be embarrassed. After all that hoopla about the schools, turnout was 21 percent. The problem is not photo ID. It’s potential voters who make noise expressing their anger. And then are missing in action on election day.
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Obama words, Obama words, Obama words..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama is a guy who picks up words and phrases from Category A and Category B briefing papers so that he sounds knowledgeable but says nothing.
An example comes from Wednesday’s panel discussion on national security at Purdue University. Part A is understandable: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element of our nuclear policy.” OK. Fair enough. That’s a defensible policy position, even though the idea of a leftist community organizer from Chicago making those decisions makes me exceedingly nervous.
The trap I fear is that he’d be so eager to produce results that he’d give away the store in return for promises and illusions. But I’ll grant that he’ll have access to some adults, like Sam Nunn, and may be persuaded by more seasoned counsel.
At the Perdue session, after offering one phrase from Category A of the National Security Dialogue, Obama turned to Category B and said this:
“The danger … is that we are constantly fighting the last war, responding to the threats that have come to fruition, instead of staying one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century.”
Walk down the street. Stop a liberal and/or a wino. Ask him about the problem in the military’s conduct of war. All together now: The problem is “that we are constantly fighting the last war” blah, blah, blah.
I will note that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pursued a small force/high mobility strategy in Iraq that was not an example of the tendency to fight the last war — and he got creamed by the critics, including John McCain, who argued for a much larger force.
Anyway, I’d defy anybody to take Obama’s charge that we should respond “to the threats that have come to fruition instead of staying one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century” and translate it into a policy that conveys anything. It’s just words from Category B.
Where now for Jones, Martin?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the morning’s light, the Democratic race for the U.S. Senate nomination to oppose incumbent Saxby Chambliss shows two candidates in need of money.
DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones needs money to consolidate and turn out his base in rural and urban areas with sizeable percentages of black voters. Those include Clayton County (Jonesboro), Bibb County (Macon), Burke County (Waynesboro), Chatham County (Savannah), DeKalb County (Decatur), Dougherty County (Albany), Douglas County (Douglasville), Henry County (McDonough), Liberty County (Hinesville), Muscogee County (Columbus), Newton County (Covington), Richmond County (Augusta), and Rockdale County (Conyers).
This is not intended as the slight it sounds like, but Jones runs really well in areas outside Metro Atlanta where he is slightly less well known. It was a blow-out win for him in Albany, Augusta, Macon, Savannah and Columbus, as well as in Metro Atlanta areas that are trending Democratic: Rockdale, Douglas, Henry and Newton. In pockets of Cobb and Gwinnett he ran well, too. He owns Clayton.
The key for Jones, then, is to find or buy some of that youthful energy and excitement that drove Barack Obama’s successful campaign. Tap in to “hope” and “change,” motivate the young, organize turnout in the areas cited and he’s in. It’s a tall order, but possible.
Jim Martin needs money, too, for a different kind of campaign. He draws more broadly across the state, with no real concentrations of voter support sufficient to pull him through. He needs a major media campaign, which is costly.
Martin needs money for media. Jones needs money to put feet on the ground.
Dale Cardwell, the number three finisher with 16.1 percent of the vote, tapped into something with his “no PAC-money” pledge. He ran a strong race for a newcomer, even outside the Atlanta media market where television viewers and potential voters got to know him as an investigative reporter.
He’s actually the better gauge of anti-Washington sentiment than is either Jones or Martin. Two counties are particularly interesting. One is Chattooga County (Summerville) at the top of the state and the other is Ware County (Waycross) at the bottom. Both are independent “let me be” counties where people like their government small, affordable and unintrusive. In Chattooga, Cardwell appears to have beaten both Jones and Martin, though one precinct remains out, with 1,226 for Cardwell, 457 for Jones and 1, 208 for Martin. Cardwell was strong thorughout northwest Georgia, which tends to be more conservative than the rest of the state. In Ware, Cardwell beat Martin, 206-192, though Jones carried the county with 385.
So where to Cardwell’s voters go? Hard to say. A guess would be that half stay home unless there’s a local runoff. Martin and Jones split the rest, especially if Jones is able to make the case that he’s the more conservative.
Martin is probably slightly advantaged for the runoff. Supporters of Josh Lanier and Rand Knight will go to him and Jones will have a tough time generating the excitement he needs to pull his voters back to the polls. Low turnout in any of his key counties would be deadly to his chances of winning the nomination.
Jones needs to concentrate on about 15 counties. Martin needs to work on the other 144.
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Early prediction: Jones, Martin in Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Update/10:56:
State Sen. Jeff Chapman will survive a tough challenge in the Brunswick area of the Georgia coast, but two female senators won’t be so lucky. Both Nancy Schaefer, (R-Turnerville) and Gail Davenport (D-Jonesboro) will have runoffs.
Schaefer bought her trouble by indecision. She announced that she’d leave the State Senate to challenge U.S. Rep. Paul Broun in the 10th Congressional District. Then she changed her mind. Meanwhile, she’d drawn two challengers — and she’ll finish the night in second place. Not smart politics. The district will never be safe for her. Indecision can be costly.
Davenport drew four challengers, including former state legislator Gail Buckner. Davenport’s leading, but with less than 43 percent of the vote. Not a good sign for a secure political future.
Update/10:23:
Despite the debacle that was this year’s General Assembly and U.S. Congress, it’s not turning out to be a throw-the-bums-out year. All incumbent members of Congress will win their primaries and only a couple of legislative races make news.
One is in Bartow County where 16-year incumbent Jeff Lewis was defeated tonight by Paul Battles by about 185 votes. Blame that one on the feud between the Speaker and the lieutenant governor that kept the legislature from delivering results on tax relief and transportation. Lewis is a top-notch legislator and a good conservative. This is a real loss.
Another good young conserative is also in a real battle. State Rep. Steve Davis of Henry County leads challenger Trea Pipkin by about 125 votes with 95 percent of precincts reporting. Henry is another county where taxes and transportation are big issues. His district is one Republicans will have a tough time holding in another cycle or two. It’s trending Democratic.
The loss of Davis and Lewis would make this a really bad night.
Update/9:52:
One of the two Georgia Democratic congressmen targeted by the GOP, John Barrow of Savannah, will turn back his challenger, State Sen. Regina Thomas of Savannah. in the 12th Congressional District. That district stretches from Savannah to Athens to Augusta and while it should be a safe district for Democrats, it’s one either party can win — with the right candidate.
Barrow will face John Stone, a former senior aide to the late Charlie Norwood and to Max Burns, the last Republican to win in this district. Stone’s leading now in a three-man race with 57 percent of the vote.
In a good year, Republicans could pick up this seat.
Update/8:41:
With just about a quarter of the vote tallied in the Republican primary in the 10th Congressional District, incumbent Paul Broun is likely to retain his seat in Congress. The challenger, up-and-coming state legislator Barry Fleming is not running nearly as well in his end of the district as he needs to. Broun has 72 percent of the vote — and strength in places not yet reported.
Broun has a Democratic challenger, but it’s a heavily Republican district. He’ll be back in Congress next year.
Posted/7:59:
Early returns don’t tell us much — but it is clear, as expected, that in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, it’ll come down to DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones and former State Rep. Jim Martin of Atlanta.
The three counties that matter most in determining the outcome are DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton. Throw in Macon, Augusta and Columbus and we’ll know the outcome.
For now, returns are scattered throughout the state. Martin is, no doubt, the favorite of the Democratic establishment, but Jones is running well in most places reporting early. My hunch, based on these returns, which account for less than 1 percent of the precincts, is that Jones will wind up in first place. Right now, Martin’s leading with about 46 percent of the vote to 28 for Jones.
Is it possible for Jones to win without a runoff? Maybe. Returns from Greene County along I-20 in east Georgia are interesting. With 2 of 10 precincts reporting, Jones has 117 votes to 41 for Martin. Greensboro, on the north side of I-20, has a black voting majority.
I watched the last Democratic debate involving these candidates, such as it was. Real low-key. Nothing there to boost turnout, though I’ve got to say that Vernon Jones probably performed best. If people outside Metro Atlanta were just beginning to pay attention, he likely picked up some votes.
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Development must hinge on road capacity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Until Georgia embraces a transportation plan that actually fixes traffic congestion —- that is, one that gets us moving rather than one that offers so-called “alternatives” —- city and county officials should follow this rule:
Do not zone or approve density greater than the carrying capacity of existing or funded roads.
Even before gas reached $4 a gallon, overdevelopment under the guise of creating “live-work-play” projects had begun. The problem, however, is that most high-density zoning in areas served by inadequate road networks diminishes the quality of our lives. Unless people actually confine their movements to the vicinity of the high-density area, the net result is that traffic’s made worse.
The city of Atlanta, for example, has been active in approving apartments along Marietta Street between downtown and the King Plow arts complex —- without adding street capacity. In three years or less, it’ll be a nightmare. That, I think, is by design —- planned inconvenience for the purpose of forcing residents onto buses. That’s fine for those who live, work and play entirely on bus or rail lines and have unlimited time to invest in getting there.
For the rest of us, though, a policy of deliberately inconveniencing metro Atlantans to effect the lifestyle changes that planners prefer conflicts with our sense of the role of government. Government should serve us as we wish to live —- and use our tax dollars to provide the schools, fire and police services, and roads and sewers that we need.
Some clearly prefer high density —- and that should be approved in areas with sufficient road capacity or next to rail.
Gov. Sonny Perdue and the state Department of Transportation are in the process of developing a statewide transportation plan. As it stands, there’s insufficient money available to fix congestion. The state, therefore, has to have a plan that —- for metro Atlanta, anyway —- measures congestion and allocates the dollars to those solutions that provide the greatest gridlock relief for the tax dollar spent.
Don’t give me “alternatives” that are, in reality, no such thing. Providing “alternative” ways of getting from Point A to Point B —- from Marietta, for example, to downtown Atlanta —- is an alternative only for the relative handful of people who want to move between those two points at the times service is offered.
There’s a tendency, a political inclination actually, to throw together something from every advocacy group’s wish list in a regional or statewide transportation plan. That’s easy. It is, frankly, what legislators did in trying to pass a statewide sales tax this year. And if that’s what Perdue and the DOT ultimately decide, they will bring forth a plan that is the worst of government —- spending our money without solving problems, in this case fixing congestion.
A congestion-relief plan should unlock gridlock on a cost-benefit basis. The greatest mobility for the largest number of people at the least sum. Tax dollars should be spent efficiently and deliver results.
One concern here is that state officials will spend substantial sums on “alternatives” —- commuter rail or other boutique transportation adventures —- while underfunding capacity improvement. Or, more likely, use public dollars to fund the exotics while inviting the private sector to build toll roads.
Toll roads are a part of the solution, no doubt. But every available dollar should be spent buying relief that’s real.
Zonings and rezonings currently under way will, otherwise, make congestion worse and make metro Atlanta far less desirable as a place to live. State officials have to get ahead of congestion.
Ron Sifen, a County Commission candidate in Cobb County, is one of those who advocates public policies to stop approving development projects that exceed the capacity of roads and other infrastructure. It’s an idea whose time has come.
Unless road improvements are approved and funded, or unless there’s existing capacity, city and county officials shouldn’t approve projects that make mobility worse. On a road that links two or more developing cities or counties, capacity should be apportioned by the state DOT. When new capacity is added, new rezonings should be allowed.
Fix congestion. Don’t make it worse. No games. Fix it.
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New financial world dawns today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The morning’s headline are likely to make this a rough day on Wall Street: “Feds will offer lifeline to 2 mortgage giants.” The huge Bear Stearns financial services firm essentially disappeared in a single weekend. Can Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be next?
Yes.
Will they? Probably not. But hang on for the ride. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury will act, as the feds did with Bear Stearns, to prevent a collapse of the function Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac performed. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that Congress will be asked on an expedited basis to provide additional credit to each company beyond the $2.5 billion each has now. The two hold or guarantee about half of the $12 trillion in U.S. mortgages.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing finance system and must continue to do so in their current form as shareholder-owned companies,” he said.
Maybe. It certainly is desirable that both continue as shareholder-owned, but with far greater federal oversight and regulation. Ordinarily I’m not one to urge more regulation. But here it’s clearly warranted.
Both are private corporations but they operated as high-flyers because investors commonly believe that, as government-sponsored companies, the feds will step in to bail them out in the event of financial distress. Indeed that’s happened. As taxpayers we’re trapped.
Lenders poured money out the door fueling a speculative real estate market. The result was that standards tanked. People who never should have been borrowing, who could not afford the homes they bought or who just flat lied about their ability to repay got loans. No hard questions.
The media has focused attention on “subprime” loans because it’s easy to compare interest rates and argue that some poor soul is the victim of “predatory lenders.” That was, as they say, the tip of the iceberg.
The real problem was that there was no accountability anywhere at any level. The front-line brokers could cut corners because they got the commissions and vanished. Lenders weren’t all that concerned because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would take the loans. Fannie and Freddie packaged them up as securities and passed them on to investors who believed that the pool was large enough to cover a few bad loans and, besides, the feds would come to the rescue if need be. They all got fees and commissions and passed junk down the line.
The bet here is that the market’s about to finish off its policing responsibilities. The collapse of Fannie and Freddie is unthinkable and the feds can’t — and won’t — allow it to happen. The role the two perform is a vital one. Some private-sector entities have to perform it — with strict oversight and capital requirements, more competition and a full understanding by the companies, as they evolve in the marketplace, that there’s no promise, real or implied, that taxpayers will bail out the private sector’s financial recklessness.
We’re stuck today. The feds have no alternative but to act, as they did with Bear Stearns, to prevent panic. But tomorrow is another day.
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Both spenders, but one isn’t fixated on past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Grievance activist Jesse Jackson returned from campaign exile this week to the enormous benefit of Barack Obama, demonstrating that in war and politics an adversary’s blunders can deliver great victories.
If the largely vanished Al Sharpton can now find occasion to resurface for the purpose of putting daylight between himself and the Obama campaign, as Jackson did, the campaign’s prospects of appealing to working-class whites will be greatly enhanced. Both are the tired old relics of a bygone era who prosper by denying change. Same world, same problems, same solutions. More government.
Obama offers more government, too, in virtually every speech. Nothing comes without a substantial price tag. But it is of considerable value to Obama, as he attempts to reach working-class whites who peeled away in droves through the late primaries, that Jackson disapproves in memorably crude terms. That is a gift for which the candidate should send thank-you notes.
Jackson’s complaint before an open microphone on Fox was that Obama sometimes seems to be “talking down to black people” in churches when, as he said later on CNN, “the moral message must be a much broader” one. “What we really need is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care.”
Either Jackson is not paying attention or objects on style points. Obama does have a knack for recognizing that the world has changed, even when he gets to the solutions that Jackson would offer. An example is a very nicely done Father’s Day speech delivered at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side that was highly critical of men who don’t father their children.
Fathers are critical, and too many are missing, he said. “They have abandoned their responsiblities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.
“You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children.”
Those children — 69.3 percent of black, 46.4 percent of Hispanic and 24.5 percent of white babies are born to unmarried women — suffer greatly. “Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime,” Obama preached, “nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behaviorial problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
At the end, as he always does, Obama has a more-government solution, elements of which have merit.
In getting there, though, he could be construed by Jackson as “talking down.” Black professionals and opinion leaders, with rare exception, are silent (Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears is an exception) on the harm adults are doing their children, primarily because the Old Guard that Jackson represents has a vested power interest in insisting that discrimination and too few government programs are the primary problem.
After Jackson apologized, an Obama spokesman took the opportunity to note that the candidate “has spoken and written for many years about the issue of parental responsibility, including the importance of fathers participating in their children’s lives” in addition to jobs and justice issues. Jackson specifically chided Obama in the Fox open-mic conversation for his stand in support of President Bush’s faith-based initiatives. It’s heresy, of course, for any liberal to suggest that there might be an alternative to more government. Obama didn’t exactly commit that crime.
He did, however, embrace the idea of faith-based organizations using public money to provide services for the needy. “The challenges we face today,” he said earlier this month, “are simply too big for government to solve alone.”
Under Obama it would be expanded government. That’s a given. Always. He thinks social service spending was too little under Bush and proposes a $500 million-per-year program for summer tutoring, something faith-based organizations could do.
Both Jackson and Obama are for more government. The difference is that Jackson’s world is fixed in yesterday.
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Planet Obama, 1920s gem, voter ID
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Everybody noticed it the moment Barack Obama wrapped up his party’s nomination. He’s changed. One of the week’s political stories, taking note of a mechanical problem on his campaign plane, informed us by way of a typo that “Obama and his staff switched to another planet to complete the trip.” It is a wise man who switches from the planet he was on during the primaries.
The Georgia General Assembly should “fine” Grady Hospital $750,000 for the $1.2 million contract its old governing board gave State Rep. Pam Stephenson, its interim overseer. Subtract it from future grants to the hospital or to Fulton and DeKalb, whose appointees approved the contract. The contract will pay Stephenson about that much for not getting the CEO job.
More signs that the South is gone. It’s an Associated Press story headlined “Rinsing chicken in sink can spread bacteria.” No Southern cook, cook’s helper or child of a cook reached first grade without knowing that. We wonder why government grows large. Simple. People have lost the ability to cope, to fend for themselves, even in their homes.
Count me among those pleading with the Georgia Tech Foundation to preserve the Crum and Forster building on Spring Street. It’s one of the prettiest buildings left in downtown/Midtown Atlanta.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets Barack Obama halfway. Speaking in Malaysia, Ahmadinejad said despite testing missiles that can reach Israel, “I assure you there won’t be any war in the future” against the U.S. or Israel. Besides, he coos, Iran’s no threat to Israel. “You should know this regime will be eventually destroyed and there is no need for any measure by Iranian people,” he responded when asked whether he has called for its destruction. Smart guy, Ahmadinejad. Knows that a President Obama would grasp at any ameliorative —- thus buying him time to develop nuclear weapons. Between Nov. 5 and Jan. 19, Israel may need to act.
Good grief. The Bush administration had an absolute right to edit the proposed testimony of CDC director Julie Gerberding before Congress concerning global warming. Experts disagree. Neither she, nor U.S. attorneys, fired or otherwise, are free agents authorized to make policy on their own. They serve at the will of the president. When I’m president, I decide whether my appointees put more emphasis on public corruption or on something else. And if one group of experts on a policy issue disagrees with another, I decide which prevails as policy. Don’t try to criminalize disagreement.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but as a resident of Dunwoody, the threat by DeKalb commissioners to bring suit to block incorporation would prompt me to vote yes.
How in the world does 85-year-old U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob get the fun cases —- like, for example, the suit filed by a gun rights group against the city of Atlanta? It’s just a hunch, but I’m guessing Atlanta wins. A hearing on GeorgiaCarry.org’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the city from arresting licensed gun carriers at the airport is set for next Friday. Shoob’s famously liberal.
Land around Centennial Olympic Park has an average value of $4.8 million per acre. A 1/3-acre lot sold in December for $6 million. So tell me: Why should taxpayers continue to subsidize development there —- as they do with tax allocation districts, an issue on the ballot Tuesday in Gwinnett County and on the ballot statewide in November as a proposed constitutional amendment? Redevelop blighted neighborhoods, yes. Beyond that, a corporate giveaway.
Michael Vick vs. the Pit Bulls. Dogs win.
Vote Tuesday. With photo ID. Can anybody not now know? Oh, I suppose. Some have no clue what causes AIDS, that cigarettes can cause cancer, or that the “underage female” on the Internet offering to meet for sex is a cop.
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Jesse is Obama’s Sister Souljah
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama is either lucky, living right or the beneficiary of the proper alignment of the stars.
Within a week he’s gone from being the flaming, unelectable George Soros liberal to a center-drifting candidate actively repositioning himself toward the mainstream. By October it’s possible that he could be to the right of John McCain on some issues and in agreement on others — the war in Iraq, for example. Really, all Obama has to do is become McCain’s sound-chamber twin and he wins. He’s far more eloquent — with the teleprompters, at least — and he inspires a celebrity’s cult-like following. Mirror McCain’s positions, with a little vagueness here and there to appease the Red Guard of the Democratic left, and glitz wins.
The point is that the Obama of March and the Obama of October will be very different. If campaign handlers can better-script Michelle Obama and keep Barack from rambling off topic, the stars — or rather the states — could align for him.
Jesse Jackson, either accidentally or intentionally, gave Obama a major boost this weekend while speaking before a Fox network microphone he allegedly thought had been turned off. Jesse Jackson is a performer who can smell an open microphone with greater precision than a Georgia state trooper can smell a stash of marijuana in a closed trunk. Besides that, he’s been before so many that he knows they’re never off. Methinks his gift to the Obama campaign was to be Obama’s Sister Souljah.
Speaking to another guest after a Fox News Channel interview Sunday, Jackson said that Obama’s “lectures” at black churches about moral issues amounted to “talking down to black people.” Jackson thinks Obama should be talking about “what we need really” and that is “social justice and urban policy and jobs and health care.” The usual litany of the left.
Before the open microphone on Sunday Jackson had also said of Obama that he wanted to exercise a procedure routinely performed on some farm animals. Upon hearing that Fox intended to air the remarks, Jackson called Obama to apologize. The candidate “will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other and of course accepts Reverend Jackson’s apology,” said Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton.
Jesse Jackson is a polarizing figure who routinely alienates the voters Obama needs to attract if he is to win. In this instance, he’s done Obama a great favor. In very dramatic fashion, he’s put daylight between the modern civil rights reenactors and Obama.
The Democratic candidate has found his Sister Souljah. It’s Jesse.
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Obama a flip-flopper? Shut your mouth.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC cartoonist Mike Luckovich, reflecting the angst of Democrats — or at least those who dominate the primary election process — has Barack Obama standing out of a hole in the ground against the outline of the earth. The Demo donkey expresses alarm: “So where do you think you’re going?” the donkey asks. The cartoon is entitled “Journey to the Center of the Electorate.”
As usual, Mike captures the mood of the Democratic base which is, indeed, quite alarmed that Obama may be veering from la-la land, from the Planet of the Extreme, closer to the mainstream of public opinion, to, gasp, electability.
Obama took pains Tuesday in Cobb County to calm the fears of those on the fringe — rejecting claims, for example, that his views on an arbitrary withdrawal date from Iraq, and on other litmus test issues for the Left, are softening. Last week he’d said he might “refine” his views based on conversations with commanders and with facts on the ground.
When asked about that at McEachern High School, Obama said he has consistently argued that “once we were in, we had to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.” Is that the same as a 16-month deadline for surrender/withdrawal? Presumably, but one should not expect to pin the messiah. Obama said his position has been for a “phased withdrawal, a phased redeployment.”
Anybody who thinks he has moderated positions, he said, has not been paying attention. He rejected “this whole notion that I am shifting to the center or that I’m flip-flopping on this or that.”
“You know,” said Obama, “the people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”
Ah, but they have. That’s one of the problems Obama has as he seeks to find the mainstream. The constituencies and interest groups that dominate the primary selection process, have been listening. They know the code. When Obama suggests that he might refine his position based on reality and on the country’s actual national security interests, the anti-war base freaks, pulling in others from the fringe.
The plain fact is that most of those on the left never wanted war for any reason, primarily because they saw it as a distraction, and a money diversion, from efforts to create new domestic entitlements like HillaryCare. They’ve been seething for seven years, growing more and more embittered with every troop deployment, that they are being delayed from their true mission in life by George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.
So, yes, Obama must “flip-flop” when he has taken positions, like those on Iraq and on taxes, that enabled him to sail through the nominating process, but are sure defeat in November.
And, by the way, pause today to salute Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They’ve taken Congress to 9 percent approval ratings, lowest in history. Surely the kinder and gentler George Bush will act in the national interest and allow the two of them to be photographed with him in a effort to raise their approval rating and to restore confidence in national government. It would be the post-partisan thing to do.
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Obama tries to make Georgia seem in play; it isn’t
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The presidential candidate of symbolism and empty phrases comes, symbolically, to a school in Cobb County on Tuesday to demonstrate that he attracts a crowd in a Republican county that’s commonly identified as “suburban.”
He will draw a crowd. Cobb, and especially areas north of I-20 to McEachern High School, where Barack Obama is scheduled, are drifting solidly Democratic. As with Obama’s decision to go to St. Paul, Minn., the site of this year’s Republican convention, to declare himself the Democratic nominee, it is all about symbolism.
The symbolic message here is that Georgia is in play.
Fat chance.
If Obama wins Georgia, he’ll occupy the White House.
He won’t, despite the surge in registration and the enthusiasm he engenders among Democrats.
Obama’s coming here despite the fact that Sen. John McCain’s leading by 10 percentage points in the latest poll, said U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson on Monday, because “obviously there are problems in Pennsylvania and Ohio.” Republicans are starting a television blitz in those two states and in Michigan and Wisconsin, other battleground states, pointing out that on energy, he has no new ideas or solutions.
The Rasmussen poll that Isakson cited “shoots holes in the rhetoric that Georgia is in play,” he said. “They realize how solid the South has been in the Republican corner since 1992, and they’d like nothing else than to crack a Southern state.”
By campaigning in a county routinely identified as solidly red —- and that does still have a Republican majority, though it’s shrinking, as it is in other counties close to Atlanta —- Obama makes a statement that he intends to challenge the GOP in the South. That would force McCain to campaign here, since he cannot afford to lose a single state in the region.
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who is on the ballot for a second term this year, said Obama is drawn to Georgia both to raise money and because more Democrats than Republicans voted in the state’s presidential primary. Chambliss noted that Obama has routinely supported higher taxes. The higher capital gains taxes Obama supports would have affected 600,000 Georgians in the 2006 tax year, he said, while raising the payroll tax to fund Social Security, as Obama suggests, would have hit 800,000 small business owners in the state, Chambliss said. “Tough economic times is not the time to talk about raising taxes,” he said.
Unless McCain finds a way to alienate those who would otherwise support him —- that is always possible —- Obama’s positions on taxes, his desire to substantially grow government, his opposition to exploration for new domestic supplies of oil and worries about his national security credentials make him unelectable in Georgia.
For core supporters none of that matters. His eloquence, coupled with a promise to represent change, as every individual defines it, is sufficient. They cannot be shaken. Inconsistencies don’t matter. Facts of his inexperience don’t, nor do exaggerations, claiming, for example, that he passed legislation where he was actually a bit player.
But as Georgians come to know his record —- something Chambliss and Isakson are attempting to help McCain highlight —- they’ll peel away. Georgians are occasionally surprised by the leftward drift of politicians they elect, but they do not knowingly choose candidates with the ideological bent of Barack Obama.
So welcome to