Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2008 > November
November 2008
Duty and honor never part-time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The end of a long and polarizing political year draws nigh. Tuesday’s runoff races for the U.S. Senate, a seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals and a seat on the Public Service Commission are all that remain. After that, the nation’s campaign season will have ended.
Through this much-too-long process, the group of Americans whose lives are most thoroughly affected by national election outcomes remain scrupulously uninvolved in partisan politics. Thanksgiving weekend is an appropriate occasion to give thanks to them and for them, and for the democracy their sacrifices preserve.
For three decades or more, this newspaper has participated with the Georgia Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve to honor six exceptional men and women in the enlisted ranks — three from the Guard and three from Georgia-based Reserve units. The honorees are selected by the Guard and Reserve from among three rank categories for their leadership abilities, duty performance and for conduct.
It’s an impressive and representative group. Those honored in the week before Thanksgiving included a group of volunteers you ought to know.
First Sgt. RICKY HALL SR. of Atlanta is a 31-year veteran of the Georgia Guard. Already, he’s pulled six tours of duty abroad — three in the Republic of Georgia, where he helped train Georgian soldiers headed to Iraq in logistics and in equipment maintenance, and three in Iraq, the last with Macon’s 48th Infantry Brigade. In civilian life, Hall runs a warehouse for Superior Printing in Atlanta. He’s been married for 31 years. He and wife Barbara are the parents of four children — two boys and two girls.
Six tours abroad are only possible, he said, “if you have an understanding second part of you, which is your spouse, and you have to keep her informed. You’ve got to have an understanding and strong counterpart; you can’t do it by yourself.”
Pfc. EUGENE RICHARDSON JR. of Smyrna wanted to marry his high school sweetheart, Nicole, and put down roots. So he chose the Army Reserve. The day after his required military training ended, he married Nicole.
For Richardson, the military is a family tradition.
“As a family, we were inspired by my grandfather’s military service; we wanted to follow somewhat in his footsteps. Me, personally, I felt as though the miliary would give me a better chance and a more secure life.”
His goal is to complete a business degree and own a company that provides heating, ventilation and air conditioning services.
Pfc. KEVIN D. GENTRY of Gaffney, S.C., is the first in his family to join the military, and family members have been incredibly supportive, he says. He plans to marry soon, and while he works now in the plumbing department at Lowe’s, his civilian career goal is to own a plumbing company. “That’s what I love to do.”
The military, he said, “helps to make me a better person; it has changed my whole way of life for the better.”
Sgt. 1st Class RICHARD M. COLVIN of Loganville is a high school history teacher and football coach in Walton County, and he has served two tours abroad as a reservist, the first in Bosnia with the Guard’s 48th Infantry Brigade in 2001. “Then 9/11 happened, and a friend and I started looking for a unit we knew would be activated pretty quickly, so we went to” the 310th Psychological Operations Company. In 2002, the unit was indeed called up and posted to Afghanistan.
He credits his wife, Carol, and their family, a supportive school system and other teachers for allowing him to continue to serve. His and Carol’s oldest son, Troy, now in college, intends to join the Marine Corps over the Christmas holidays.
Dad, who could retire from the service, intends to stay on, too. “I kind of want to pass the mantle to him, so to speak. I want to be in long enough for him to get in and get established.”
Staff Sgt. RACHEL J. DRYDEN of Columbus met her future husband, Capt. Christopher Dryden, at Fort Benning, where her Wisconsin National Guard unit had been deployed 13 years ago to replace a regular Army unit assigned to Bosnia. Now the two of them are preparing for duty in Afghanistan with the 48th Infantry Brigade.
Three years ago, they both served with the brigade in Iraq. Their military careers have prompted them to delay starting a family, “but we’re planning on that once we get back,” Dryden said. “That is an incentive to actually make it back. We’ll be there for a year — I hope just a year and that it won’t turn into a 15- or 16-month deployment.”
Sgt. TERRANCE R. ADAMS of Stone Mountain joined the Army Reserve while attending Georgia Southern University three years ago.
“It definitely has made me more responsible, more mature and has given me a sense of pride and self-confidence,” said Adams, an early achiever with an impressive list of military schools he’s attended.
“What I want to do is become a schoolteacher,” he said and, like Colvin, he’s convinced the military experience will help him. “It’s helped me determine where I want to go with my life.”
America’s strength is that while the rest of us debate issues such as how long to remain committed to a ground presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, reservists train, balance civilian careers and military obligations, prepare for deployments and still remain focused.
The republic’s resilence, as this election cycle demonstrates, is that it evolves and strengthens. Less than half a century after the civil rights movement, a man whose skin color was once a barrier to full participation in the American Dream was elected as the commander in chief, the president whose decisions will, literally, affect the lives of the men and women here.
It is a measure of the country’s greatness, too, that the two general officers who stood to honor the six soldiers would, half a century ago, have hit a glass ceiling long before earning a general’s star. And yet they are here, two of them.
Brig. Gen. Anne F. Macdonald is chief of staff of the U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort McPherson. Brig. Gen. Maria L. Britt is commanding general of the Georgia Army National Guard in Atlanta. Both are West Point graduates — Macdonald in 1980 and Britt in 1983. America is, indeed, the land of opportunity, an open and evolving democracy where citizenship is something to be cherished.
To these men and women and to others in uniform who remained scrupulously above politics and focused on the job of preserving our freedoms, thanks.
Permalink | | Categories: Column
On politicians’ pay, parents’ responsibility
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Atlanta’s next mayor should be paid $225,000, up from $147,500, advises one of those commissions that politicians appoint to provide pay-raise cover. Ostensibly the higher pay is to attract better candidates. That assumes, of course, that losers know their worth and won’t qualify for jobs that pay them more. That’s never been documented in politics.
Children are more likely than their parents were to drop out of school. Schools are blamed. Stop trying to solve problems caused by absent and uninvolved parents by trying to pump more money into the same failed models. It’s no longer the teacher’s fault, nor the principal’s. When adults don’t marry and parent their children, a government institution that has them eight hours a day for half the year can’t. Either change the model or conduct a smoking-type campaign to salvage marriage and two-parent families.
Save this headline: “Israeli, Egyptian leaders to talk about peace plan.” And this one too: “Governors, mayors ask Congress for cash.” Both are as durable as my John Deere 4230 tractor.
Money matters. The candidate with the most money won in virtually every race from Congress through the presidency, according to a group called the Center for Responsive Politics. Money won in 93 percent of House races and 94 percent of Senate. Public financing is toast. The best solution now is disclosure of money and of practices that evade full, timely and honest disclosure.
During lunch at a meat-and-three, the television blares. It’s Divorce Court. Almost every commercial is a law firm hustling clients. So does this mean that only the mindless are harmed by medicines or that they’re the ones easily convinced that their ailments or their subprime mortgages are somebody else’s fault?
One of the options for homeowners who bought more house than they could afford, or lied about their income, and were forced to pay the risk-appropriate interest rate is that they now have the chance to get a rate reduction. Yet, the fiscally prudent who sacrificed pleasures to save for a down payment, who bought the house they could afford, who paid their mortgages on time, get nothing. Government should reward people for desirable behaviors that build strong communities. That is, they should get interest rate reductions. Instead, we reward people for scamming the system, thus buying irresponsible behaviors that harm families and communities. A real problem in this country is that social policies reward people for failing to save, or buy insurance, manage their finances or delay gratification. Thus is work — as in, “do a good day’s work for a fair wage” — diminished, as are the consequences of freeloading. Nobody works whose lifestyle requirements are met by not working.
I agree with my colleague, Mike King, that Cobb County is the place to look for well-managed elections and vote-counting — as he notes, thanks to Sharon Dunn and her staff at the Board of Elections & Registration. As a longtime watcher of partial returns from vote-counting across Georgia, Cobb almost always gets it done quickly while Fulton County almost never seems to be up to the challenge.
Headline: “Stomach bug found to be too common.” My sentiments exactly on the winter sniffles, unaccompanied children serving themselves at food bars, reporting on the sexual preferences of entertainers and other celebrities, the can’t-let-it-go assertions by the left of George W. Bush’s alleged incompetence, and liberal commentators telling me what conservatives believe and how to fix the Republican Party.
It’s entirely news to me that Dr. Julie Gerberding is a Bush administration toady — or some such nonsense. The problem is that those who hate Bush would burn at the stake all of his appointees involved with issues — global warming, for example — where they disagreed. The real politics in the CDC occurred before she got there — and that’s when they got into the root causes of social problems, the stuff of liberal arts faculties, not scientists. It’ll be pure vindictive politics if she’s replaced.
Permalink | Comments (93) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Taxing traffic congestion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans are finding a way to tax traffic congestion. The formula is to take a road already built with public money — 14 miles of I-85, starting between Spaghetti Junction to Old Peachtree Road — and levy a tax on one lane. The tax changes based on the level of congestion. The idea is that the tax increases or shrinks throughout the day as needed to keep traffic flowing.
Well, it is one approach to congestion that brings some relief to those willing to pay the tolls for the privilege of enjoying a service that government should be obligated to provide anyway — and that’s congestion relief.
The new taxing system will be made possible with a $110 million grant announced Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters. Georgia is expected to kick in $37 million.
Part of the money will go to buy 36 new buses.
This tax, along with others that might be levied for transportation proposals, should bring genuine, measurable congestion relief — which specifically includes added highway capacity, the choice for 97 percent of us. If the new revenues from the congestion-lane tax are used specifically to give traffic relief that can be measured and documented, fine. If they’re to be diverted to projects that can’t be supported by fares or those that allegedly provide “choice” without lessening demand for highways, this is just a clever way to levy a new tax.
Permalink | Comments (140) | Post your comment |
Sears’ charge on social issue should be cheered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Until one cultural trend is reversed, conservatives have no hope of slowing the march toward big and rapacious government.
We can’t win elections.
We can’t solve the problems of public education.
We can’t solve those of health care, retirement, crime or any other social policy issue.
At the core, the show-stopper is this: In 2007, 28 percent of white, 50 percent of Hispanic and 71 percent of black babies were born to single women.
Start with that abuse, that terrible wrong to children, and society never recovers. It will never be possible to invent a public education system or a parenting network or a criminal justice avoidance and rehabilitation programs that rescue the masses of children intentionally brought into the world without a mother and father in their daily lives.
Clearly all of us have a compelling interest in reversing this tragic abuse of human life.
The chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Leah Ward Sears, who is 53, announced last month that she’ll leave the high court next June. “I’m interested [in] exploring another chapter in my life,” she told AJC reporter Bill Rankin. “I want to see whatever else is out there.” Her decision thrills — and not because I am in occasional disagreement with her judicial opinions.
It thrills because she is poised, as evidenced by her declared interests, to become an important national voice speaking to other institutions — to the media, to the entertainment industry, to universities, to churches and synagogues and to Oprah — on America’s most threatening social issue.
That is, without question, the harm we are doing ourselves and our nation by intentionally abusing children.
The Georgia Supreme Court last week kicked off the first of what Sears and her co-host, Justice P. Harris Hines, expect to be an annual Supreme Court Summit on Children, Marriage and Family Law. Its premise is this:
“The decline of marriage in America has had a dramatic impact on the well-being of our children. Children born out of wedlock are more likely to live in poverty, be incarcerated later in life, suffer from physical and sexual abuse, abuse alcohol and drugs, and engage in early sexual activity and premarital child-bearing.”
The summit, also sponsored by the New York-based Institute for American Values, brought together experts from across the country to talk about marriage and its importance to children.
The plain reality is that a society that creates human life as trophies of sexual conquest, as fond remembrances of past relationships, as a way to avoid the question “why did you get out of bed this morning?” or as a lifestyle-support claim, is in danger of social destruction.
Some figure of prominence with the credentials to gain entry at the top has to come forth to talk about marriage and children, about the harm the upper and middle classes do with the signals they send that marriage doesn’t matter, that men are expendable and that intelligent leadership can devise an acceptable alternative to a mother and father in the home.
I don’t know Sears and I agree on specifics — I suspect not — but she cares. She’s willing to talk about it. She’s not intimidated into silence, as many upper- and middle-class black people are because of an imagined imperfection — a divorce, for example — in their own lives.
A revolution is required, a revolution on the order of the cultural shift across the media, the entertainment industry, schools, government and other institutions that have virtually eliminated smoking as a lifestyle choice.
On the Supreme Court, she’s at a real disadvantage in becoming the needed national figure leading the charge to change the culture.
Her entry into the topic is the law. The legal code is an aspect of it, certainly. But other institutions need to address, too — like, for example, the constant political correctness in newspaper stories that allow us to tell tragic stories of the suffering of children without ever once bothering to ask the question: “Where’s the child’s father?” The implied message is that he doesn’t matter and is not expected to be a part of the solution anyway.
Sears, the first black female chief justice in America, has accomplished much in her life.
The really important accomplishment could be ahead.
Permalink | Comments (130) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Obama should cut capital gains tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If Congress is about to draft an economic stimulus spending proposal that could cost as much as $700 billion, why not “rescue” the auto industry, resort developers, fast-food franchises and the likes of Citigroup? Free money.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that an effective plan would require spending $500 billion to $700 billion, about four times the size of the $1.75 billion proposal President-elect Barack Obama put forth in the campaign.
The stimulus, with a large chunk of spending on infrastructure and “green jobs,” would be “a little like having a New Deal, but you do it before a depression occurs, not after,” he said. Schumer, appearing on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanapoulos,” said Congress could have it ready for Obama by Inauguration Day.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on CBS that a giant stimulus package could contain a tax cut.
The tax cut that’s needed is unlikely to be included, of course. That would be a significant cut in the capital gains, something that could draw investors back into the stock market.
The problem is panic and uncertainty about the tax policies of the new administration. Obama has taken some steps to calm those concerns. His Cabinet appointees, especially at Treasury, are calming, as is the advance word that there’ll be no tax increases in the January plan. Now cut capital gains in half — or better yet, to zero as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has proposed.
Permalink | Comments (79) | Post your comment |
Popularity doesn’t always transfer well
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In 1938 a popular president came to Georgia and urged the defeat of incumbent U.S. Sen. Walter F. George, who’d broken with him over his efforts to pack the U.S. Supreme Court. FDR’s involvement probably assured George’s re-election.
A presumably wiser President-elect Barack Obama has sent his voice instead. Smart move. The odds are against Georgians giving Obama what he wants — another U.S. senator to support his agenda, especially one who could be the decisive vote in blocking filibusters against court-packing or aggressive expansion of government.
Getting too closely associated with the Jim Martin campaign involves real political risk for Obama. Better to send the surrogates for appearances and his voice for radio commercials, as he did in the week just ended. One of those surrogates, former President Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to carry Georgia, knows the inability of popular political figures — including those headed to the White House — to transfer popularity.
Clinton won Georgia in 1992 and came here to campaign for incumbent Democrat Wyche Fowler, who had been drawn into a runoff by State Sen. Paul Coverdell. Though Fowler led by 35,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast, Coverdell won the runoff by 16,000 votes of about 1.2 million cast despite Clinton’s efforts.
A relevant difference between then and now is that blacks were 22 percent of registered voters in 1992 and about 30 percent now. The latter number is particularly significant.
Three Republican members of the Georgia House of Representatives lost to Democrats on Nov. 4. They included Steve Tumlin of Marietta, John Heard of Lawrenceville and Allen Freeman of Macon. In 2004, Tumlin’s district was 26.4 percent black; this year it was 30.9 percent. Heard’s was 21.3 in 2004 and 29.9 this year. Freeman’s was 32.9 in 2004 and 36.5 this year. A fourth, Republican incumbent Robert Mumford of Conyers, conceded a district where the black percentage of registered voters had gone from 32.4 in 2004 to 48.9 in 2008.
White Democrats, meanwhile, are disappearing in districts where the percentage of black registered voters is below 30. Two of them, the veteran Jeanette Jamieson of Toccoa and Charles Jenkins of Blairsville, lost to Republicans this year.
Without question, Martin’s chances hinge on black turnout and primarily black turnout in three counties in Metro Atlanta. Obama won Fulton 272,000 to 130,000 for John McCain. He won DeKalb by 255,000 to 65,000 and Clayton by 83,000 to 17,000.
On Nov. 4, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss got about 1,000 fewer votes than McCain in Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton. But Martin got 23,000 fewer than Obama in Fulton, 21,000 fewer in DeKalb and 7,000 fewer in Clayton — meaning more than 50,000 Obama supporters didn’t bother to vote for Martin while they were standing in the voting booth. Those three counties accounted for more than one-fifth of the votes cast in the U.S. Senate race.
The Democratic base in the state is probably about 40 percent; maybe slightly more. Blacks turning out for Obama clearly boosted the entire Democratic ticket. Obama ran about 6 percentage points better than John Kerry did four years ago; blacks accounted for most all of it since exit polls indicated that he’d run slightly less well among whites than did Kerry.
The uncertainty is whether their passion for Obama inspires them to return to the polls on Dec. 2 to vote in a runoff that features two obscure races ( a runoff for a seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals and another for a seat on the Public Service Commission) and a Democratic candidate who doesn’t stir the masses.
In 1992 Georgia still had a solid state Democratic Party network controlling the state House, Senate and governor’s office and an immensely popular Democratic U.S. senator in Sam Nunn. That advantage no longer exists. Obama has about 25 field offices around Georgia, but that’s not the same.
What it all adds up to is this: Long-term, Republicans have a serious concern. With black registration at 30 percent, the stars could soon align for a charismatic Democrat running statewide. That Democrat most likely is not Jim Martin. He has a high and steep mountain to climb getting voters who were inspired by somebody else to return three weeks later to vote for him.
Permalink | Comments (95) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Tobacco money, Bailout Window, Eric Holder
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Advocacy groups are making their annual claim that Georgia should be spending more on anti-smoking efforts. Yet Georgia is at precisely the national average and smoking by adults here has declined from 22 percent to 19 percent in three years. This line of argument — that dollars should be thrown at programs on the basis of a formula or the availability of free money (the tobacco industry settlement) — is something the governor and legislators really have to resist. The tobacco settlement dollars, amounting to $1.42 billion over 10 years, should be put into the state’s General Fund and spent according to competing needs, advocacy groups and phony report cards notwithstanding.
Hurry. The Bailout Window is closing. Or it is fervently hoped. “Printing billion-dollar sums of cash each time an industry faces turmoil is not an economic solution; it is a moral hazard,” declared U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell). He’s five words short, though. Insert “or state or local government” between “industry” and “faces.”
The likely new Attorney General in the Obama administration, Eric Holder, is the Clinton administration retread who essentially green-lighted the Marc Rich pardon in the last hour of Bill’s term of office, prompting a national outrage. Two questions here: Could a Republican get away with doing that? And, on a somewhat related matter, will it be a scandal if U.S. attorneys are fired? It was when Democrats found campaign-value scandal in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys two years ago.
Anybody surprised at the report by state auditors that the halls of fame created across Georgia are unlikely to be self-sufficient by July 1, the deadline set by the General Assembly? The Golf Hall of Fame in Augusta and the Aviation Hall of Fame in Warner Robins are required to be self-sufficient by that date. Macon’s Music Hall Fame has a 2011 deadline; its Sports Hall of Fame, 2012. John Abbey, who heads the performance audit division, told legislators that without dramatic increases in fund-raising or attendance, they’ll have to stay on the subsidy dole past the deadlines, according to a Morris News Service account by Brandon Larrabee.
A pro-life advocacy group runs a radio commercial that describes Senate candidate Jim Martin as the leader of a “one-man effort” to kill legislation to ban partial birth abortions. If the effort had no followers, how do we know he led? On the campaign trail, the photos accompanying news accounts of “rallies” usually show a few staffers, a few reporters and some stragglers trying to get in out of the cold. Is it a rally if nobody rallies?
Spend no time trying to make sense of campaign commercials. I watched the one that accused Saxby Chambliss of supporting the FairTax and a 23 percent increase in the sales tax that never once mentioned that it would eliminate the income tax and do away with the IRS. Unimportant, I suppose.
President-elect Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain met and agreed to cooperate on issues like global warming, illegal immigration and others. No surprise here. They sometimes sounded alike on the campaign trail.
Headline: “Auto bailout stuck in neutral.” That is the proper gear.
A trade association representing owners of dry cleaners claims a Florida-based gas marketer, Infinite Energy, exploited the panic of Hurricane Katrina to lock them into long-term contracts at inflated prices. How is this possible? Nobody knows the future of energy prices. Gamble on the future and somebody wins and somebody loses. Case closed.
New-housing construction dropped 4.5 percent last month to the lowest level since 1959. If over-building produced excess inventory, as it did, the market necessarily adjusts, as it’s doing. Too many of anything on the market and somebody wins (buyers) and somebody loses (sellers). Another case closed.
Quote of the week from Jim Martin to Bill Clinton: “You have left us a great legacy.”
Permalink | Comments (77) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Change needed in D.C. and Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While pondering the question of what “change” President-elect Barack Obama represents — he sound like Al Gore on global warming, while recycling the Clintonistas back into positions of power — we look elsewhere today for an example of what’s wrong with government.
At issue is, or was, the question of whether automatic cost-of-living raises amounting to 3 percent per year should be given to retired teachers. A proposal put forth by Gov. Sonny Perdue would have required the Board of Trustees to vote on whether to grant the COLAs and if so, by how much. Beneficiaries naturally objected, as they do nationally when any less-attractive proposal surfaces as part of an effort to fix Social Security.
The teachers so intimidated politicians like Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter that they immediately buckled, urging the board to do nothing to change the system, despite the fact that automatic COLAs were never built into the funding mechanism for the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia.
Under pressure, even Perdue tried to pull his proposal. The board capitulated and voted to continue the automatic-COLA practice.
The lesson here is that politicians can’t stand up to beneficiaries, especially to beneficiaries who are well-organized public employees. The need, therefore, is to change the model — to get politicians out of the post-employment benefits business. The way to do that is to eliminate defined-benefit plans for future employees, including teachers, and to switch to defined-contribution plans where, at the end of every day, the employee and the employer are even. The employee owns his retirement account and takes the cash with him when he moves to other employment.
The current system is an invitation to politicians to pander. It incentivizes employees and retirees to game the system for higher benefits than those their financial contributions warrant.
We’ve seen in Washington that politicians never change. The change has to come, therefore, in the structure of the programs. Build a firewall between beneficiaries and politicians with Retirement Savings Accounts, 401(k)s, Health Savings Accounts and others that give control to individual beneficiaries.
Permalink | Comments (60) | Post your comment |
And then there were two…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrats are now within two of having the filibuster-proof Senate that will allow them to shove through anything they want. News from Alaska is that the pork-barreller and convicted felon Ted Stevens has been defeated by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who will be the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate in almost three decades.
Two figures in the Stevens story highlight the Republican Party of the past and its promise of the future. Alaska voters should have kicked Stevens out. Had his defeat given Democrats the 60 votes they need in the Senate to run roughshod over the opposition, I’d not have objected. Too bad he didn’t have the grace to resign after he was convicted of lying about accepting home improvements without paying for them.
He’s the past. One of the GOP’s rising stars, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, stood tall in moving to expel Stevens from the GOP conference and stripping him of choice committee assignments on Appropriations and on Commerce had he won. Until the absentee ballots from Anchorage were counted, it appeared he had.
DeMint held off at the behest of colleagues who urged him to wait until Stevens had actually been reelected before sanctioning him. Now he’s gone anyway. Good riddance.
DeMint is as conservative as Barack Obama and Joe Biden are liberal, according to the National Journal. Obama ranked #1 and Biden #3 as most liberal in 2007. DeMint ranked #1 as most conservative.
Before conservatives can sell their ideas they have to first establish their credibility. Being just another ethically-challenged politician out to loot the treasury for the home crowd — the Ted Stevens model — doesn’t fly anymore. That’s the model that grows and corrupts government.
Permalink | Comments (87) | Post your comment |
Bailout goes from necessary to nightmarish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bailout goes from necessary to nightmarish
That $700 billion financial sector bailout that I supported — and do still, but with an exit strategy — is a nightmare in the making.
Look what’s happened since the first of the month:
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, smelling a bailout handout, joined the mayors of Philadelphia and Phoenix in asking the federal government for money. In a three-page letter to U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Franklin said the city is facing a $50 million budget shortfall, due of course to the global financial crisis.
MARTA “sold” track and rail cars purchased with federal money and then leased them back for 20 to 25 years, a clear ruse to borrow about $110 million from the future for current consumption. The Internal Revenue Service subsequently disallowed the scheme. From taxpayers’ standpoint it was an immoral transaction because what MARTA sold to banks and investors was tax avoidance. Lenders could depreciate the rail cars. MARTA needs relief because the failed insurance giant AIG guaranteed lease payments and without the guarantee, the cost to MARTA and other transit agencies that did the same thing soared. Transit agencies, including MARTA, want the federal taxpayers it tried to hoodwink with the depreciation scheme to replace AIG in guaranteeing payment.
This should be a warning to Republicans tempted to “sell” public property — freeways or other roads, for example. Anything purchased or built with public money should never be used as a gimmick to sell tax loopholes to the private sector. Nor should it be used to steal the quality of life of future taxpayers by forcing double payment — once now and once later — for the same public property.
Fulton County was discovered, too, to have grossly mismanaged a federal housing program for at least the last eight years. As reported by the AJC’s Spotlight reporter Alison Young, some 60 percent of the $10.5 million given to Fulton since 2000 has been challenged by federal auditors.
Young’s report on the Fulton “affordable” housing disaster is timely. And fair warning. Local governments and housing organizations across Georgia will have $153 million to spend under the $700 billion federal financial sector bailout’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. It’s another of those efforts to push money out the door with the lack of oversight and effectiveness that Fulton has established.
The money can be used for adventures that include buying bad loans, managing the repairs and leasing or selling homes. It puts local taxpayers in the position of doing something at the city and county level that those governments are perfectly incapable of doing or managing. Reporter Alison Young has given us a preview of the future. It’s not pretty.
DeKalb County Commissioners are deciding today whether to accept the $18.5 million the bailout bill makes available. They’ll take it, of course, because it’s free money. “We could be getting our citizens into some quicksand we will never get out of,” says Commissioner Elaine Boyer. “The long-term consequences of a program like this could be a nightmare.”
And then there’s the proposed $25 billion bailout of the Detroit-based automobile industry now before a lame-duck session of Congress. Rather than take the $25 billion already allocated as a loan to the industry to develop fuel-efficient cars, Democrats want another $25 billion from the bailout package.
That package, said White House press secretary Dana Perino, “was never intended by Congress to assist automakers or other sectors of the economy. It was solely intended to deal with what is an ongoing credit crisis in our financial sector.”
While it was essential to contain the panic in the financial sector, the consequences of the $700 billion will bedevil this nation for decades to come. It’s a gigantic opening for politicians to meddle, to pick winners and losers, and to create the social programs that nobody can or will hold accountable.
From a fiscal conservative’s standpoint, that necessary intervention by a Republican administration to save the financial system has opened a door that conservatives lack the numbers and perhaps the will to close. We are seeing a disaster in the making, a blending of social policy and incompetence and a mingling of public and private sector business in a way that puts their risk on our tab.
I fear there’s no stopping what the bailout has started.
Permalink | Comments (92) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Let Detroit suffer its fate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let Detroit die.
Management and the United Auto Workers Union made this bed. Washington can’t save them. Somebody will make automobiles that Americans will buy and whether it’s General Motors, Ford and Chrysler or some other combination of companies, the cars that are reliable, fuel-efficient and stylish will survive in the marketplace. Those that aren’t, won’t. Unions that get greedy without regard to the financial predicament of their employers will find themselves priced out of existence. Plain and simple.
“Just giving them $25 billion doesn’t change anything,” correctly asserted U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, on the program Fox News Sunday. “It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning.” It’s chump change for the Big Three.
The danger always of the bailout of the financial sector was that the virus would spread — and it has. Every industry facing economic distress will have the same expectation that Congress will fork over public money to carry them through, even when they’ve simply missed their market or, as in the case of the Detroit-based auto industry, they’re functioning with a marketplace model that’s broken. “They’re a dinosaur in a sense,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Senior Republican on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Meet the Press Sunday. “Companies fail every day and others take their place.”
The problem with public money in private companies is that it puts politicians in the position of dictating corporate decisions on products, services, pay, benefits and other aspects of corporate operations the politicians deem to represent desirable social policy.
Government intervention in the financial sector was necessary to arrest panic. The danger always has been that there’d be no stopping point. The Big Three poses the test of whether government has an exit strategy, whether it can back out of further private sector entanglement, or whether the U.S. is on a high-speed rail to socialism.
Permalink | Comments (129) | Post your comment |
Will Obama start out a loser?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If President-elect Barack Obama wants to start his administration as a loser, he should come to Georgia and campaign to defeat U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss.
It’s official now that there’ll be a runoff. The 3.4 percent for the Libertarian is a reminder that the only message third parties send that’s widely heard is that they can muck up elections.
The GOP standard-bearer came to Atlanta Thursday to make the case that Chambliss is needed in Washington to keep Obama from getting a filibuster-proof Senate. About 2,000 people showed up to cheer him on. Obama surely could get 20,000.
But ultimately Chambliss will prevail. Georgia is a red state. It does not knowingly elect liberals statewide. An extraordinary turnout to help usher in an historic event accounted for the closeness of this U.S. Senate race. It can’t be duplicated for a white guy from Metro Atlanta who doesn’t ring any bells.
It’ll be nice to see all the celebrities come to Georgia, though. I’m holding out for Sarah or for Bobby Jindal, the leaders of the future. They’re the ones who can gin up the excitement. The others are nostalgia.
Obama could certainly draw a crowd and focus attention to the U.S. Senate race in Georgia. But the message, ultimately, is that a national figure (who couldn’t carry this state) can’t transfer his appeal to another candidate.
Incidentally, Thinking Right’s week-in-review is on holiday this week. But for those paying attention yesterday, the John Deere is disassembled by the crack team — and yes, blog contributor @@ was correct, in some cases a woman’s smaller hand would have been a much-prized addition to the team. The morning’s task is to secure a part from a well-stocked John Deere store.
That Palin hoax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Away from the office on the farm in South Georgia, where the task of this day is to reassemble a John Deere tractor, almost none of my conversations are with political junkies.
It was those conversations that told me that Gov. Sonny Perdue’s decision to suspend the gas tax during the first of the gas-availability panics that occurred during his administration was smart politics. My colleagues had pooh-poohed his actions as ineffective grandstanding. That’s not the way it was being seen by non-junkies, though.
In any event, I was shocked to hear it relayed as gospel that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country. I’d not heard that allegation. Now it’s revealed. It was an elaborate Internet hoax foisted off on the mainstream news media. See New York Times story
Throughout the recent political campaign my mailbox was flooded with links to intriguing scoops, from Barack Obama’s birth in Kenya to MIchelle’s dining tab. I was never inclined to use them because I don’t trust sources I don’t know.
The Left hated and feared Sarah Palin and the first order of business was to tear her down, by ridicule, by untruths, by exaggerations and, in general, by any means possible. The hoax is an example.
Obama supporters would, no doubt, argue the same about Obama.
The question: How can you trust information in the blogosphere and, secondly, do you trust information more when it’s reported in the mainstream media?
Meanwhile, the spectacle to watch on the farm today is three guys trying to fix one tractor. The experienced tractor mechanic has bad knees, so he has to sit in a chair and give instructions to the tractor’s owner, a veteran farmer who has arthritis and can’t hold the wrench but can get on the ground and point to the right part, while the guy who knows nothing about fixing a tractor (me) does the work.
This could be a circus.
Find the voter fraud
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Does anybody actually believe Republicans are trying to keep legitimate voters from exercising their right to vote?
I don’t.
It’s another of those scare-out-the-vote campaigns that are the hallmark of Democratic political seasons.
Just as soon as the Georgia runoffs are over, the next order of business should be to conduct a large-scale audit of voting to determine, for example, the extent of fraud and where it occurs.
Republicans are suspicious that Democrats are trying to vote phonies and to vote multiple times. Democrats are fearful that the photo ID requirement intimidates those who are intimidated from voting but, curiously enough, not from renting a movie when they are required to produce proper identification.
Clear it up. The state should conduct a big-league audit of who voted once and who voted twice and who voted fraudulently by absentee. Check the nursing homes and the funeral homes. Give us truth in elections.
Paging Newt. Your party is waiting.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bring on Newt.
He’s available to lead the national Republican Party on its march through the wilderness and there’s nobody better suited to the task.
The reality is that almost half the country is now in the wagon that the other half’s pulling, to borrow a metaphor from former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. It’s not likely that they’ll vote out the party that promises to keep them there and provide better seating and an upgraded menu.
The Flower Children and their offspring are now in power. The challenge for Newt Gingrich and other Republicans is to devise a strategy for convincing everybody on the emerging American commune that individual responsibility is a requirement of citizenship and that self-reliance is a worthy aspiration.
In short, the conservative message has to entice people out of the wagon and to convince them that capitalism is a more appealing option.
Newt was not the ideal Speaker of the House for the long haul, sure. But he is the guy who can lead the party on the journey that started Nov. 4.
The Angry Left’s dream stops here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Looks like Georgia’s the key now to whether Democrats have a full, unchecked run in Washington.
Al Franken’s finding votes in Minnesota. Democrats have gained six already in the Senate, pushing them to 57. Saxby Chambliss is just under 50, thanks to Republicans who thought it necessary to send him a message on spending and on untimely bipartisanship.
State Sen. President Pro Tem Eric Johnson of Savannah defines the stakes. Writes Johnson:
“Saxby Chambliss’ re-election is critical if we want to have hope that the U.S. Senate can block the redistribution of wealth and the dismantling of our military that will be attempted by the next Congress. The Democrats now have 57 seats — 3 short of the 60 required to break a filibuster. They can usually count on 2 moderate Republicans so Saxby could literally be our last hope.” He continues:
“This is not the last election of the 2008 cycle — consider this is the first race of the 2010 cycle where we begin to claw our way back into power with solid principles and integrity. This is Georgia, by God, and we must draw a line in the sand. We will pick our Senators — not Hollywood, Wall Street, the New York Times, or MoveOn.org.”
The runoff’s Dec. 2. The only message to be sent now is that the agenda of the Angry Left, Big Labor and the tax and spending proposals of President-elect Barack Obama sorely need to be checked.
I’m on vacation now but will be back in plenty of time to vote for Chambliss on Dec. 2. If you sat out the General Election, you can still vote in the runoff.
Roast Stevens, toast Handel, mourn loss of competition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican pork-barreller from Alaska, found guilty just before the election of seven felonies involving work done but not billed by contractors on a house he owns, stands shockingly on the verge of re-election. I’m convinced that one of the most pervasive forms of corruption in politics is not reporting improvements made on property politicians own, or getting contracts to provide services or advice to companies or organizations pursuing a public policy agenda.
Secretary of State Karen Handel gets the treatment that partisan Democrats accorded Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and that is to attempt to tarnish her so that she’s no future political threat to them. Conservative women and blacks do have that cross to bear. How about Palin-Jindal ticket (as in Louisiana Gov. Bobby) in 2012? Jindal-Palin works, too. For the record, Handel superbly managed a difficult election where partisans were gunning for something that would gin up Democratic turnout.
After all the partisan election hoopla is past, the General Assembly does need to establish a clear standard, not subject to interpretation, to determine where a candidate lives. A homestead exemption for those who own a home is the highest and best. While they’re at it, they should absolutely eliminate the requirement that members of the Public Service Commission live in districts. There’s no logical reason whatsoever for that provision.
In the Georgia House of Representatives, 16 seats had no incumbent. Of those, only one changed parties — that of Republican Robert Munford of Conyers, who retired knowing that his district had become solidly Democratic. It was, too. Democrat Toney Collins won with 62 percent of the vote. Only four of the 16 were even challenged by the other party. Redistricting software and the Voting Rights Act have virtually eliminated party competition.
Veteran Democratic legislator Jeanette Jamison of Toccoa lost Tuesday in one of those districts that has gone to the other party. She brought a great deal of good common sense as well as institutional, and education, knowledge to Atlanta. She could have switched parties but chose to remain a Democrat. It may have been principle, but probably was just stubbornness.
The left loves John McCain again. Nobody is quite so dear to them as the maverick Republican they once loved who loses.
Georgia State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) and I practiced unity across the great ideological divide — to no avail. We both opposed Amendment 2 and it squeaked by statewide.
A school in Jacksonville, Fla., has twice failed state assessment tests. So what are the adults concerned about? The school’s name. It’s Nathan Bedford Forrest High School.
California voters, despite the state’s Left Coast reputation, can be surprisingly sane. They affirmed that marriage is one man/one woman, and rejected a measure to ease punishment for drug offenders and another to require utilities to generate half of their power from “renewable” sources by 2025. Rejected too was a proposal that would have obligated California taxpayers for $325 million per year for renewable energy research. When voters discover who’s paying the tab for some group’s zealotry, sanity usually kicks in.
No sooner had Barack Obama been elected than the interest groups on the left jumped up to claim credit — or to interpret his win as evidence of the popularity of their cause. The anti-gun lobby is certain it represents a “crushing defeat” for the National Rifle Association. Others are certain it’s a green light for their “clean energy” agenda.
Yes, Barack Obama was elected and Democrats overwhelmingly control both houses of Congress — neither of which makes me happy. But this state survived Lester Maddox. The nation survived Watergate and Bill Clinton’s disrespect for his oath. Far more important and encouraging is news that for the first time researchers have decoded all the genes of a woman who died of leukemia, identifying a set of mutations that may have caused the disease to progress. Lesson: Politics has its place, but it’s not our whole life. And, yes, health care’s expensive: This study alone cost $1 million, and who wouldn’t have paid it?
Permalink | Comments (149) | Categories: Column
Chambliss win vital? You betcha.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Want to see Sarah Palin in Georgia? And if she’s not available, John McCain?
If U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is, in fact, forced into a runoff — something that could be known when Fulton County (Atlanta) election officials deem it convenient to count ballots — Palin and McCain could be drawn here to rally Republicans back to the polls in three weeks.
Democrat Jim Martin would surely, too, attempt to draw President-elect Brack Obama here, too.
Such will be the stakes as Democrats push closer to a filibuster-proof Senate. As expected, Republican Sen. Gordon Smith has been projected as the loser in Oregon, giving Democrats 57 seats, a pick-up of six. Another couple of seats will put them within range of a working filibuster-proof Senate, since Democrats can always count on two or three Republicans, like for example, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (or the defeated Gordon Smith), to constitute “bipartisanship” when needed.
Unbelievably, voters in Alaska may return Ted Stevens, though that may not be known for a couple of weeks. He has a slim lead with about 50,000 votes to count. But that is, too, a seat Democrats could gain. Likewise in Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman has a slim lead over comedian Al Franken with a recount coming in about 10 days.
Georgia, then, could give Democrats such power in Congress that Republicans would be reduced to bystanders. For the first time in three decades, they’d have filibuster-proof control in the Senate. In the House, Nancy Pelosi gained 20 seats with seven races still in doubt, giving her 255, enough to substantially diminish the influence of the more moderate Blue Dog Democrats.
Is this Georgia runoff (if there is one) important to Republicans — and to conservatives across the nation? You betcha.
Congratulations. Now where’s Newt?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is a measure certainly of the greatness of America that less than half a century after the civil rights movement a man whose skin color was once a barrier to full participation in the American Dream is now elected President of the United States.
Rejoice, certainly, that we have come so far in one lifetime.Barack Obama’s election says to every man, woman and child the world over that this is the land of opportunity and citizenship in our republic is something to be cherished. It is an historic occasion.
Time will come to spell out our policy differences. President-elect Obama and John McCain represented competing visions for America and the country has chosen. For those of us who preferred McCain’s vision, the challenge now is to find a unified approach that keeps America strong economically and militarily.
That challenge is less daunting if Democrats have not come to power with a filibuster-proof Senate. They’re close with some U.S. Senate races still undecided. Too much power would tempt the majority to push through judges who see the courts as instruments to preferred outcomes and to push through legislation harmful to job creation.
The country will be much the stronger and far more unified if the President-elect is able to stand up to his party’s left wing and govern, as Bill Clinton did, as a moderate.
As for Republicans, the loss is occasion to reexamine the party’s message. There’s probably no better person to lead those conversations than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has a knack for reinterpreting conservatism without undermining core principles. Plainly a majority of the country has grown comfortable with big government. The challenge is to find and articulate a course that will wean them from dependency.
That’s work for another day, though. The American people spoke Tuesday and their choice is to be honored and respected. Barack Obama has won the right to pursue his agenda.
Wait no more…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It appears Barack Obama has won.
He’s picked up Iowa, Ohio and New Mexico, states won by George W. Bush four years ago. It’s certain that he’ll win California and Washington. Ultimately, the outcome in Florida and Virginia, even if favorable to McCain, won’t be enough.
All of us should pray that Barack Obama is more moderate than conservatives believe and that the associations of his past are not his counselors of the future.
Pray, too, that if indeed he is tested in the first six months, as Joe Biden predicts, or whenever it comes, that he’s up to the heavy responsibility that now falls on his shoulders.
Permalink | Comments (73) | Post your comment |
Waiting, waiting for Florida, Virginia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Virginia and Florida. Those are the states that matter now — and, without question, it’s a good sign for John McCain that neither has been called.
The loss of New Mexico is big. Pennsylvania has been a blue state since 1992 and McCain had hopes, given Barack Obama’s pledge to wreck the coal industry. But in the end the Philadelphia machine was simply too much. It remains a blue state.
McCain takes Georgia, as predicted. Fulton , Clayton and DeKalb are not yet in and those are traditional Democratic strongholds. But two networks have predicted a McCain victory — and given the numbers he’s rolling up in GOP strongholds like Cherokee County and throughout rural Georgia, that seems a safe call.
My Republican friends were not particularly upbeat during dinner. They, too, are waiting for Florida and Virginia. But some of their criticism of the McCain campaign led to the obvious conclusion that they think he’s in real trouble. The next hour or so should tell. ABC’s projection of Ohio for Obama make Obama look inevitable.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment |
It’ll be a bad night if….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The exit polls, once again, can be a problem. John Kerry ran about 5.5 points better in the exit polls than he did in actual votes. The explanation was that his voters were more likely to participate in the polls.
That said, however, we’ll know that it’ll be a bad night for John McCain if networks are confident enough to call states early. One plugged-in Republican tells me the key to what pollsters and the political parties look for can be found in 24 key precincts in five states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
They’ll be looking for the answers to three questions:
Is something called the Bradley effect in play? The theory is that some whites, fearing the perception that they are voting on the basis of race, lie to pollsters and overstate their support for a minority candidate. That supposedly occurred in the 1982 California gubernatorial race, which Tom Bradley lost after leading in the polls.
Are the numbers moving unpredictably? An example would be blacks supporting McCain in unexpectedly high numbers or married women supporting Obama.
Finally, the question they’ll be asking is whether new voters are showing up in unexpected numbers. They’re an unpredictable lot.
If the answers are “no, nothing unusual’s happening” the networks will be inclined to early predictions. If something is, they’ll be more cautious, explains my plugged-in friend.
For me, an early call on Florida and Virginia or Pennsylvania for Obama would set me up for a very unpleasant evening.
I’m off for a gathering of Republicans, many of whom have who have planned, run and won bigtime elections. Many of these folks were present four years ago when the exit polls convinced the country that Kerry had won. Their mood is not necessarily an indicator, therefore, of how the evening will go.
I’ll report back later.
Permalink | Comments (35) | Post your comment |
Predictions from conservative gathering
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Election Day a number of conservative journalists — yes, we exist — gathered with some like-minded political junkies for an extended visit to talk about Georgia, the future of the conservative movement, and whether John McCain has put it together.
Here are some of the conversation topics:
Is Georgia in play? Yes. An early clue as to whether Barack Obama can put it together here will come from Cobb County and from Gwinnett. If Obama comes out of those two counties with 45 percent of the vote, it could happen. The consensus of the gathering was that McCain wins Georgia, 51-48.
A runoff for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. The senator had said in a conversation last week that his lead over Democrat Jim Martin was widening. While he did not offer numbers, the group gathered today thinks he’s in good shape. A late poll had him at 48 to 39 for Martin and 5 for the Libertarian, according to one of commentators present.
The only Congressional race that prompted a great deal of discussion was the 8th in Middle Georgia, where incumbent Jim Marshall is being challenged by Republican Rick Goddard. At issue was whether the Chambliss turn-out-the-vote effort in his old House district could pull Goodard over the top. If there’s a sleeper upset, it’s here.
In the Georgia House and Senate, little change is expected. The betting is that the Georgia Senate finishes the day unchanged at 34-22 GOP, while in the House Democrats make a net gain of only 3 seats. One Democratic race thought to be in play is State Rep. Jeanette Jamison of Toccoa, the former chairman of the House Education Committee. Concern was expressed that State Reps. Thunder Tumlin of Marietta and Allen Freeman of Macon, both Republicans, could be in real trouble.
In the crowded race for the open seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals, bet on a runoff between Tamela Adkins, a Gwinnett County family practice lawyer, and either Atlanta lawyer Bruce Edenfield or former State Sen. Perry McGuire.
McCain or Obama? The group was evenly split.
A filibuster-proof Senate? No.
And your predictions?
Permalink | Comments (50) | Post your comment |
Beware of bad exit polls.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The McCain campaign and those of us who remember the exit polls four years ago that predicted a John Kerry victory are united in saying don’t jump to conclusions early.
As with the pre-election polls, the exit polls are used by supporters of Barack Obama and by their commentators as evidence of his inevitability. But, as the McCain camp takes pains to point out, there are some reasons to be skeptical of exit polls.
Why? They’ve tended to overstate the Democratic vote in individual states and nationally, especially in high-turnout and high-interest elections like the one in 1992 and 2004, says McCain pollster Bill McInturff. Furthermore, he notes, Obama supporters are more likely to participate in exit polls.
Adding to doubt about their reliability is that they’re influenced by age, race and gender of those who ask the questions of exiting voters.
And, too, in Georgia 35 percent of the registered voters have already cast ballots. It’s not certain that those who voted early and those who voted today are voting in the same pattern.
One warning, though, to McCain supporters in Georgia. Early indications are that turnout is lighter than expected in some Republican stronghold precincts.
Permalink | Comments (140) | Post your comment |
Waiting and waiting for election results?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Begins now the wait… It could be Friday before we know who won Georgia, opines the shrewd analyst of all things political, Randy Evans, an Atlanta lawyer and member of the State Election Board.
Three reasons, he says:
Long lines could mean that some vote-counting won’t start until after 9 p.m. Polls close at 7, but those who are there can vote, however long it takes.
Some 242,522 absentee ballots have to be counted, starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day. The counters are sequestered. If there are questions of improper voting, or outright fraud, ballots can be challenged. This year 2.2 million votes were cast early, a figure that includes the absentees. In the George W. Bush-John Kerry race four years ago, 422,485 early votes were cast.
Finally, notes Evans, “there are the provisional ballots and the challenged ballots.” If somebody shows up without proper photo ID, for example, he casts a provisional ballot and has 48 hours to produce proper identification. Disputes to clear up eligibility can be time-consuming. If it’s close, Georgia may not know the results for days, he says.
With early voting and with the prospect of a historic outcome, blacks will undoubtedly vote in record numbers. Four years ago about 72 percent of black registered voters cast ballots; for whites, it was about 80 percent. Traditionally blacks, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, turn out in lesser percentages than whites. That surely won’t be the case this year.
The impact could make for close races. In 2004, Bush won Georgia by almost 550,000 votes out of the 3.3 million cast. He defeated Kerry here 58-41, carrying 133 of Georgia’s 159 counties. Kerry carried 26, primarily Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, a pocket of poor rural counties in Southwest Georgia and a smattering of counties running from Columbus, through Macon to Augusta.
Georgia gave Bush his second-highest vote margin, second only to Texas, where he won by 1.7 million.
Making up 550,000 margin for the conservative is ordinarily unlikely in Georgia, a state that has not voted for the Democrat in a presidential race since 1992. Bill Clinton won then by 14,000, but only because Ross Perot pulled 300,000 votes here. The lesson for Third Party voting is: Never again. The consequence of voting for protest and message candidates is that they don’t win — they enable the election of the less desirable candidate.
Ordinarily a known liberal can’t win statewide in Georgia. But that is changing. Blacks are on the verge of constituting 30 percent of registered voters. That’s usually the indicator of whether the electorate will chose a Democrat or a Republican. With a few exceptions, state House and Senate districts that are 30 percent black in registered voters are represented by Democrats.
Had Democrats done a better job of recruiting candidates, today might have been a big day. Instead, even with highly motivated Obama voters flocking to the polls, there’ll be no significant results to show for it under the Gold Dome.
At present Republicans control the Georgia House with 106 of the 180 seats. Democrats have 73. One vacancy exists. But 142 of the 180 seats — 81 Republican and 61 Democrats — are uncontested in the general election. Of the 38 that are, only four are open seats. Republicans are likely to lose seats, probably about five to seven. One Republican seat in Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale, now held by Robert Mumford of Conyers, was abandoned without a fight because new residents had given it a solid Democratic majority.
In the State Senate, too, Republicans will retain control and it’s unlikely that more than one or two seats will be seriously contested. The GOP has a 34-22 majority. Only 18 seats are contested, 13 Republican and 5 Democrats. Many of the Democratic challenges are in solidly-Republican districts where they have no hope of winning.
In the Congressional races, the one that’s most competitive is in Middle Georgia, in the 8th Congressional District, where Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall is being challenged by the former commanding general of Robins Air Force Base, Rick Goddard. It’s a winnable district for a Republican, but about a third of the district’s registered voters are black and turnout will likely favor Marshall.
Those who have voted already, stay home. It’s one vote per person, not one vote per county or one vote per name.
Everybody else, go. Prove the pundits wrong.
Permalink | Comments (124) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Remember 2004? It ain’t over.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Go vote.
As the polls were closing on election day four years ago, I sat with a group of George W. Bush campaign officials and supporters listening to reports of exit polls delivering the bad news. Bush was defeated. John Kerry had won the presidency.
Didn’t happen, of course. Within hours, the gloomy crowd of election night had turned jubilant.
It could happen again tomorrow night. Admittedly, the RealClearPolitics.com average of national polls puts Barack Obama up by 6.9 percentage points. But an Investor’s Business Daily poll released Sunday shows it to be a two-point lead, which is within the margin of error. Vote Tuesday.
Much has been made of the surge in early voting by presumed Democrats. But unless there’s massive fraud and people are voting more than once, it matters not one whit whether voters stood in line to vote early or whether they show up on Tuesday. As for me, I’ll vote Tuesday for John McCain and Saxby Chambliss. And I’ll cast my one real and 16 fraudulent ballots against Amendment #2, which invites Georgians to hand over our school taxes to politicians to dole out to favored developers.
I’ve been surprised incidentally at the number of people who suspect or believe that widespread fraud is committed in elections. The case has never been stronger for cross-checking county-to-county and for a foolproof voter ID system. Voters are on the verge of losing confidence in the integrity of the voting system — something ACORN has hastened nationally.
Here’s the last-minute charge: Vote. Pull it out for John McCain. And for goodness sakes, don’t let the Democrats get a filibuster-proof Senate. If they get it, we’ll get every social program and tax increase that Barack Obama has promised — and a judiciary that tilts left for another generation.
.JPG)
Services »
