Late yesterday, two supporters of Bob Barr in the 11th District GOP runoff announced they would hold a 10 a.m. press conference today to call attention to what they say is rival Barry Loudermilk's "consistent pattern of embellishment of his military service."
Larry Mrozinski is a former 11th District candidate who has endorsed Barr, and a retired U.S. Army colonel. Also at the presser will be Bill Stanley, a Vietnam War helicopter pilot who recently penned a letter-to-the-editor,
that included these lines:
I went to his website for further clarification and to see what aircraft he flew. His bio had a photo of him in an Air Force flight suit, sitting in the cockpit of a small aircraft, and another in the uniform of an Air Force enlisted man. I read his bio, which stated he served as a communications operations specialist in Texas, Hawaii and Alaska.
Loudermilk served in the U.S. Air Force from 1984 to 1992, rising to the rank of staff sergeant, the candidate has told us. While in campaign speeches he speaks of his experience as an “aviator,” Loudermilk says his flying experience has been as a civilian. He obtained a pilot’s license in 2008.
And that picture of Loudermilk in an Air Force jumpsuit in a small plane? He was a spotter for search-and-rescue missions.
In anticipation of today’s press conference, we asked Loudermilk to provide us with his military resume, which arrived this morning. Look through it yourself:
Updated: This morning's Barr press conference in Smyrna was monitored by the AJC's Jeremy Redmon, who reports that neither Mrozinski nor Stanley were satisfied with the above summary released by Loudermilk. They demanded official paperwork.
The Loudermilk campaign responded by releasing Loudermilk's discharge paperwork. Click here to read.
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While we're on the topic of congressional hijinks, the 10th District campaign of Republican runoff candidate Mike Collins has been passing around this YouTube video of what it says is evidence of sign-stealing and misrepresentation by the campaign of rival Jody Hice:
The response from the Hice campaign spokesman Nick Derajtys:
"To support his charges, Mr. Collins has unfortunately chosen to release a video that he personally committed not to use in public to protect the safety of the family involved. The homeowner reached out to his State Representative, Tom Kirby, and asked for his help in securing a commitment from the Collins campaign to protect his family by not releasing the video. Representative Kirby made the call in March and Mr. Collins personally committed not to use the video. Since the video involves a Hice volunteer knocking doors in a neighborhood and acting at the homeowner's request, there is no reason for Mr. Collins to use the video that he committed not to use.
" At the time, Collins campaign staffers in a black Tahoe with Florida license plates were aggressively following, indeed stalking, the Hice volunteers…."
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Cobb County GOP chairman Joe Dendy has sent us this website link to a June 7 debate of the Republican runoff candidates for state school superintendent, Mike Buck and Richard Woods.
Dendy's people have done an excellent job of breaking the debate into question-by-question segments, vastly reducing the time you have to sit in front of your computer to get a sense of the candidates.
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Greg Bluestein, our man in Jerusalem, says the Georgia trade delegation currently wandering Israel has some bold-faced names. Gov. Nathan Deal and his wife Sandra brought along a few top aides, including Chris Carr, his economic development guru, and Brenda Fitzgerald, head of the Department of Public Health.
Attorney General Sam Olens is there as well, as is University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby. And Israel Consul General Opher Aviran, who is based in Atlanta, is also on board.
Carr’s bringing several of his deputies along, including Pat Wilson, his chief operating officer; Tom Croteau, his deputy commissioner of global commerce; Kathe Falls, his international trade director; and Abby Turano, the chief of protocol.
The delegation includes Shai Robkin, the head of the Atlanta-based America Israel Business Connector; Joel Neuman, a Coca-Cola vice president; Chris Carpenter, a veteran Democratic attorney; Sally Levine, the head of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust; Georgia Power chief executive Paul Bowers; Jay Neely, a Gulfstream attorney; Marty Kogon, the president of Pull-A-Part; Robert Hendricks, a McKesson vice president; Hala Moddelmog, the Metro Atlanta Chamber's new president; and Seth Cohen, a bigwig with the Schusterman Philanthropic Network.
One person who isn't on this list but dropped in briefly is InternContinentalExchange founder Jeff Sprecher, who was in Israel on business and saw on this blog that the governor's team was here, too.
He said his wife, one-time potential Senate candidate Kelly Loeffler, wanted to join him, but was tied up with other plans.
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File this under Life's Great Ironies: On the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, which saw three college students murdered in Mississippi for registering black voters, six-term U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., is attempting to salvage his career – by wooing African-American voters.
An update from the Associated Press on today’s vote:
But there's potential for confusion as the tea party groups cite another Mississippi law that says a voter can participate in a party primary only if he intends to support that party's nominee in the general election. A federal appeals court ruled in 2008 that the law is unenforceable. The ruling came in a case in which Democrats sought to block Republicans from crossing over in primaries.
A McDaniel supporter filed a lawsuit Monday in McDaniel's home county citing that law, but it was not clear if a judge would consider the suit before polls open Tuesday.
Mississippi's attorney general, a Democrat, and secretary of state, a Republican, issued a joint statement Monday saying: "A person lawfully in the polling place may challenge a voter based on party loyalty only if the voter openly declares he does not intend to support the nominees of the party whose primary the voter is participating in."
About 9 out of 10 white voters in Mississippi said they supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, and more than 9 of 10 black voters said they supported Democratic President Barack Obama, according to an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and other news organizations. Still, Cochran is supported by some black Democrats, including Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs and state Sen. Willie Simmons.
Simmons told the AP on Monday that he voted in the Democratic primary June 3 and can't vote in the GOP runoff Tuesday, but he has campaigned for Cochran by making phone calls and sending letters to black churches citing the former Appropriations Committee chairman's support of Head Start and historically black universities.
"Sen. Cochran himself did not even ask me to support him," Simmons said. "I volunteered to support him because of the things he has done in the Senate."
Simmons said that while some black Mississippians quietly vote for Republicans in general elections, they might be reluctant to publicly declare their intentions by going to a Republican table to request a ballot on primary day.
"This election is going to put them in a position where they have to do two things that is unusual for them," Simmons said. "First, they have to pull out an ID and show it. And, second, they have to vote in a Republican runoff."
Simmons said if a poll watcher cites the unenforceable law about not voting in a primary unless intending to support the nominee in the general election, "that could lead to intimidation."
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