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Thursday, November 6, 2008
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?
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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.
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