Oh, the latest, last-minute turns in the special, Tuesday election for the House District 80 seat. Brookhaven does know how to throw a party.
We’ve already told you about
on J. Max Davis, the former mayor of the new city and therefore the leading candidate. Allegations about sexual harassment, misuse of an aerosol can of Lysol, and a cover-up, etc.
This morning, the following was posted on the Facebook page of Catherine Bernard, another Republican in the race:
"The campaign office was broken into last night. Still waiting to get inside and see what's missing."
Brookhaven police Major Brandon Gurley confirmed the break-in at Bernard's campaign office in the 4200 block of Peachtree Road.
The race to replace Mike Jacobs, a Republican, may have at least one more surprise. One of us on Sunday moderated a forum for candidates in the races for House Districts 48 and 80. In the Brookhaven portion, only two candidates showed: Democratic attorney Taylor Bennett and Republican attorney Loren Collins. Davis and Bernard cited other commitments.
After the event, we overheard some talk within Bennett's Democratic circle that an effort to emphasize early voting was paying off. We’ll know for certain soon enough.
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Over the weekend, our AJC colleague Aaron Gould Sheinin reported that House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, wants state lawmakers next year to adopt a "pastor's protection act" to ensure no church leader can be forced to perform a same-sex wedding. From the article:
One read on this would be that Ralston is worried enough about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that he thinks the legislation is necessary.
Another, more cynical take might be that Republicans in the state Capitol anticipate another grueling fight over state Sen. Josh McKoon’s “religious liberty” bill next year – an election year. If S.B. 129 remains frozen in place, opposed by Georgia’s business community, then the speaker’s “pastor protection” bill would give lawmakers something to point to when they go home to woo voters.
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker formally entered the GOP race for president this morning with this YouTube video:
Walker has an appearance in Buckhead scheduled for Wednesday.
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We told you earlier this month about a group of government-affairs specialists who had left Dentons, formerly known as McKenna Long & Aldridge, to establish their own operation under the auspices of the Greenberg Traurig LLP label.
Dentons has been quick to plug the gap. From the press release:
Jeff Hamling has most recently served as the Vice President of State and Federal Affairs for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to US Congressman Tom Price (R-GA).
James Richardson is a strategic communication and public affairs professionals with broad experience as an advisor for national Republican candidates and office holders, such as former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and Presidential candidate and former Governor of Utah John Huntsman. Most recently, Richardson served as Vice President of Public Affairs for a digital and online communications firm.
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The gnashing of GOP teeth over the rise of billionaire Donald Trump as a presidential candidate has something in common with the concurrent hoopla over Confederate symbolism.
In each case, you have Republican leaders, who are closely watching the nation’s demographic shifts, clashing with a GOP base that either doesn’t see that numeric future, or doesn’t care.
The New York Times conveyed the split without even trying on Sunday. Its dispatch from Arizona:
Mr. Trump had less to say about immigration, the topic on which his comments have garnered so much attention, than about those who have criticized him. For more than an hour, he ticked through a list of businesses and candidates who have tried to censure him since his long-shot campaign began three weeks ago, and made light of their practices and intelligence.
"How can I be tied with this guy?" Trump said of Mr. Bush, whom many consider the Republican front-runner. "He's terrible. He's weak on immigration."
Then there was a magazine piece from Howell Raines, who earned his stripes covering the civil rights movement back in the day. One paragraph:
In a sense, it's the reverse of what happened in the South after the passage in 1965 of the Voting Rights Act. For some time, a coalition of moderate white Democrats and newly enfranchised black voters won victory after victory in the old Confederacy. But then, white flight to the Republican Party, driven by the regional appeal of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, wiped out many of those gains, although some major cities still have black mayors. Now we're seeing a new coalition politics, in which Hispanic, black and Asian voters are joined by Democratic-leaning younger whites who, unlike older white voters, do not care about dog-whistle issues.
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U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, caused a stir at San Diego's Comic-Con over the weekend as he promoted his autobiographical graphic novel series.
Mimicking how many fans dress up as their favorite superheroes, Lewis donned a trench coat to play ... himself, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
More images and backstory can be found here.
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