The decision to bounce a Fox News correspondent from an Atlanta Press Club debate of U.S. Senate candidates was made by the APC and not because of objections from Democrat Michelle Nunn, an APC official said this morning.
Lauri Straus said the APC dropped John Roberts because his Tweets complaining of a lack of contact with the Democratic campaign raised questions about his impartiality.
On Sunday, in
fellow Fox News correspondent John Roberts, a Georgia resident, spoke of his lack of access to the Nunn campaign. Said Roberts:
"The only problem we've run into is the state of Georgia. For some reason, the Nunn campaign just does not want to talk to Fox News, even though we have been reaching out to them in various ways since about the month of April. We even went over to their campaign headquarters once in person, to talk with their communications team, but they wouldn't come down to see us."
Kurtz then asked the set-up question: Weren’t you suppose to moderate a debate between Michelle Nunn and David Perdue? The APC debate was aired statewide on Georgia Public Broadcasting on Oct. 26. Said Roberts:
"Despite my long track record of having worked for Fox, CNN prior to that, and CBS News before that for 14 years, they didn't like the idea that somebody from Fox would be moderating that debate, so out I went…..
But here’s Straus’ explanation why Roberts lost the debate gig:
Update: Roberts says APC originally told him the Nunn folks complained, and said he would have been an impartial moderator. Via TVNewser:
"The Press Club cited the fact that I had reported this lack of contact on my Twitter feed as 'prior history' with the candidate, concluding that the Nunn campaign might challenge my impartiality as a result. This could not be farther from the truth. Above all else, I strive for fairness in my reporting and would have ensured an absolutely fair and balanced debate between the candidates. The Nunn campaign has chosen to ignore the nation's most popular cable news channel, one that reaches millions of voters in Georgia. That's a decision they have made."
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We are in the pick-your-poison phase of polling in Georgia. The recent ones:
-- Today's SurveyUSA/11Alive poll offers these horse-race numbers: In the U.S. Senate race, Republican David Perdue leads Democrat Michelle Nunn, 47 to 44 percent. In the race for governor, Republican incumbent Nathan Deal is putting space between himself and Democrat Jason Carter, 47 to 42 percent. SurveyUSA assumes a black turnout of 26 percent, which now seems low, given that early voting gives African-Americans a 33 percent share of ballots cast. On the other hand, the Senate poll gives Nunn a 29 percent of the support of white voters. Which means Tuesday could be a very late night.
- NBC News/Marist has David Perdue ahead of Michelle Nunn 48 percent to 44 percent, with Libertarian Amanda Swafford taking 3 percent. Gov. Nathan Deal takes 48 percent to Democrat Jason Carter's 43 percent and Libertarian Andrew Hunt's 3 percent. President Barack Obama has a 41 percent approval rating.
- Public Policy Polling, in a poll commissioned by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, finds the Senate race tied at 46 percent in numbers just out this morning. It also found the "outsourcing" hit to be strongly negative for Perdue and that more than half of voters are "very concerned" about "the Georgia Secretary of State preventing 40,000 voter registration applications from being processed," language Brian Kemp would likely contest.
It also found that more than half of Georgia voters want to scrap the runoff system. What, don't they want more Super PAC ads?
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In a Friday interview with Bill Nigut of GPB's "Political Rewind," Brian Robinson, spokesman for the Nathan Deal campaign, said polling for the Republican incumbent indicated that he would win Tuesday without a runoff. This wasn't news, particularly -- especially given that, even if it weren't so, Robinson would have been obliged to say that it was.
But Robinson wasn't obliged to say this, when asked why Deal has struggled to get above 50 percent in polls:
"I think what you have seen over the last four years and will see over the next four years is Nathan Deal – even though this is his last election, he's never running again – he's going to plant the flag for Republicans and get out in our minority communities of this state, engage with them, listen to them, find commonality with them, so that we can have more minority support in the future. This is an existential problem with Republicans. We've got to appeal to minorities."
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The New York Times' Nate Cohn (writing before the above PPP poll came out) finds Nunn's chances slipping away:
But most polls over the last week or so show Mr. Perdue retaking a lead, with Ms. Nunn now trailing by about two or three percentage points.
Mr. Perdue's gains come from white voters. He now leads Ms. Nunn by about 40 percentage points among whites, up from 37 points in the polls after Mr. Perdue's outsourcing comments were published.
For all of the justifiable focus on the rapid pace of demographic change in Georgia, the reality was always that Ms. Nunn needed to come near 30 percent of the white vote to have a shot at breaking 50 percent, even under the most optimistic scenarios for black turnout. But the most recent polls give Ms. Nunn only around 25 percent of the white vote.
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At the same time, another writer at the New York Times this morning ponders the possibility that nasty runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana could determine who controls the U.S. Senate:
"If control of the Senate rides on a runoff between David Perdue and Michelle Nunn, and I don't say this lightly, there would be over $100 million poured into this state," said Chip Lake, a Republican strategist in Georgia. "There will be microtargeting like nothing we have ever seen in this state. It's scary when you think about it." Both states require a candidate to receive more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
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Here are some of University of Florida number cruncher Michael McDonald's thoughts on Georgia's early vote numbers:
I unfortunately don't have good historical data to compare against to make a projection based on the racial composition of the early vote. So, I'll turn to adjudicating the polls.
The unknown is how much Whiter will the Election Day electorate be? This is the crux of the polling. The polls that show Perdue under 50% have the overall electorate around 30% African-American. Those that show a much bigger Perdue lead, like the Monmouth poll which has Perdue leading by +8, have African-Americans at 25% of the overall electorate. With perhaps a third of the vote already cast at 32.8%, it seems unlikely that there will be so few persons of color on Election Day. My best guess is that this election goes to a runoff.
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Brian K. Pritchard from FetchYourNews.com quizzed former Sen. Sam Nunn on the scourge of outsourcing, calling General Electric -- Nunn used to sit on its board -- the "pioneer of outsourcing." Here's the video:
Nunn's reply:
"I'm not on the board anymore, but General Electric right now is bringing jobs back and General Electric has always had a pillar of jobs here in America. We got a lot of companies that have just gone completely to foreign sources. I'm not against outsourcing, and Michelle said this in her debate the other night. It's a part of the free enterprise system. But when it happens., when you have to have people in Ellijay, Ga. laid off, when you have people in Dalton, Ga., laid off. Dalton has the highest unemployment rate now in the state Georgia is my understanding.
"When you get people all over the state of Georgia laid off. A CEO who has to do that ought to have a little bit of pain, right? At least a couple of tears, a couple of sympathy. But right now, her opponent didn't have that. Basically he was very very proud of that. I don't think I have heard any CEO say they were proud of having sent jobs out of America."
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Let's play 'Follow the Money':
- Americans for Prosperity, the conservative grassroots group tied to the billionaire Koch Brothers, now has spent more than $800,000 this year on web ads, canvassing and other activities to attack Nunn.
- This striking ad below, featuring African-American Republican Elbert Guillory, who refers to Democrats as "overseers," is backed by $150,000 from the Free at Last PAC:
- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund is spending $5,300 on pro-Perdue web ads.
- A group called Independent Women's Voice is spending $23,000 on phone calls for Perdue.
- The National Rifle Association is spending another $11,000 on phone calls for Perdue, bringing its total spending to $678,000.
- The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added $46,000 to its TV buy hitting Rick Allen in the 12th Congressional District. The Dems' tab is now over $2.3 million.
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Bill Lee, a man who once was one of the most powerful members of the Georgia General Assembly, quietly passed away last week. From the Clayton News-Daily:
Lee, who served in the House from 1956 until 1998, died Wednesday…. He was 88.
Although Lee decided to step down from office after the 1998 session, he remained a fixture in the General Assembly for another four years as an aide to Murphy. He retired from work with the legislature in 2002 when Murphy was defeated in a surprise election upset.
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Sure, Jason Carter is a state senator and a grandson of the former president.
But in some ways, he doesn’t have quite the star power of his brother-in-law and campaign videographer, Stephen Reynolds.
The Australian-born Reynolds – who is married to Jason’s step-sister – is a sculptor, painter and music video director. He also performed in the now defunct punk rock band The Surrogate.
You can see him playing guitar with the band here: vimeo.com/15172851
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How is this for tracker relations? After Jason Carter finished greeting voters at the UGA-Florida game Saturday, a campaign staffer handed a camera-wielding GOP tracker an extra ticket to the game. (We're guessing that's why he missed Carter at his next stop in Valdosta).
"Our tracker drove all the way to Jacksonville to see the enthusiasm for Jason's campaign," said Carter spokesman Bryan Thomas, "so the least we could do was get him a ticket to the game."
Not to be outdone, Gov. Nathan Deal's staff has a surprisingly close relationship with the tracker trailing him.
In both cases, we're thinking the Stockholm Syndrome is in play.
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Morehouse College is becoming a hotbed for campaign staffers. Republican campaigns have snapped up many members of the college's new GOP chapter. And several Morehouse grads are playing key roles for Democrats Jason Carter and Michelle Nunn.
Anre Washington, last year’s Morehouse student government president, is Jason Carter’s traveling chief of staff, or “body man.” The 23-year-old Hinesville native says his job is to keep the Democratic candidate “on time and upright.” So in addition to pushing Carter to keep on schedule, Washington makes sure he gets enough to eat.
“Elections are not necessarily rewards for past victories,” said Washington, who served as an intern in U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office and as an aide to Georgia state Rep. Al Williams. “Elections are about the people that you meet.”
Fellow Morehouse alumni Adam McFarland – a student government president in 2009-2010 -- and Richard McDaniel work for the Nunn campaign. Mark Smith, also a Morehouse graduate, interned in Deal’s office and is a Perdue staffer.
Says Carter of the relentless talk about his staffers' alma mater: “If there is any complaint, I might hear about how great Morehouse is too much.”
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You may recall Republican Rick Allen taking an amnesty-related shot at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has endorsed his opponent, U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Augusta. Not unlike Republican Senate hopeful David Perdue, there is some certified bad blood now.
The Barrow campaign passes this along.
"Rick Allen is a typical politician who is losing and desperate in the final days of his campaign. That is why he is falsely attacking the US Chamber, the world's largest business federation" said Rob Engstrom, National Political Director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The Chamber does not and has never supported amnesty, Mr. Allen should apologize for misleading Georgia voters. We support John Barrow because he stands up to the Obama Administration and puts Georgia first."
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