On Tuesday afternoon, the Rev. Jesse Jackson had just finished going over his agenda for a three-day meeting of his Rainbow/PUSH organization in Atlanta, when the topic shifted to sports.
Specifically, to the Monday night NFL game in which Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdulla, a Muslim, was penalized 15 yards when he knelt to pray after scoring a touchdown. Said Jackson:
Apparently the NFL agrees. Hours later, it declared the penalty a mistake. From the New York Times:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, had asked the N.F.L. early Tuesday to clarify its policies "to prevent the appearance of a double standard."
As for Jackson, his Atlanta conference begins Thursday and will focus on issues such as transportation (Anthony Foxx, the U.S. secretary of transportation, is on the agenda) and voter registration. A Thursday gathering in Clayton County, to push that county’s bid to join MARTA, is on the agenda. Said Jackson:
"You couldn't have had the Atlanta Falcons and the North Carolina Panthers behind the Cotton Curtain – or the Olympics in Atlanta. Or the new industries, the Boeings and the Hyundais, the Hondas, the Toyotas. Even a climate where people like Jimmy Carter could leave Plains, Ga., and not be hampered by the stigma of being a Southerner.
"Those walls have been pulled down, and yet in spite of that, there has been a huge backlash against the progress."
Jackson gave specific mention to state Rep. Stacey Abrams tussle with Secretary of State Brian Kemp over her voter registration project, and said he would be advocating an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect voting rights.
“States continue to pile up various schemes to undermine equal voting for all Americans,” he said.
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The leaders of Morehouse's newly re-chartered GOP chapter have become very, very popular. We told you last year that Republican bigwigs hoped the group's revival could form a new vanguard for the party.
Leo Smith, the GOP's head of minority engagement, told us much of the chapter's executive team has been snapped up by one candidate in particular. That would be Senate hopeful David Perdue.
"It's great. Some of them will become candidates in the future," said Smith. "They're organizing events, running events and getting opportunities. It's very exciting."
Perdue spokesman Megan Whittemore said the Morehouse students are volunteers and interns, and many have been working for the campaign since before the May primary.
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Today marks a year since the partial shutdown of the federal government, and Democrat Michelle Nunn's campaign does not want you to forget it. Republican David Perdue was not in office, of course, but gave his public blessing to Sen. Ted Cruz and the Obamacare showdown strategy.
The Democrat's campaign, in a forthcoming press release, lays out "the 16 worst ways the shutdown hurt Georgians and the country," in honor of the shutdown's 16 days. No. 1: "The shutdown removed up to $324 Million from Georgia’s Economy."
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Yet another Oct. 1 anniversary is the rough rollout for Obamacare, which is the message Republicans are hoping you hear today. The National Republican Senatorial Committee put together a video targeting Democratic incumbents for their support of the law -- meaning Michelle Nunn is not on the hit list.
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West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is heading to those red states where President Barack Obama is not much help to Dems. Politico reports that, after going shooting with Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, Georgia is on the centrist Manchin's list.
Though his plans are still being finalized, Manchin mentioned Georgia, North Carolina and Arkansas as places he'd want to campaign for Michelle Nunn and Democratic Sens. Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor, respectively. Those states might welcome a Democrat who famously shot through a copy of a Democratic cap-and-trade bill in a television advertisement.
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Libertarian Senate hopeful Amanda Swafford got the Time magazine treatment as "the woman who could keep control of the Senate up for grabs." From Jay Newton-Small's piece:
Small government has hardly been a theme in the race between Republican businessman David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn, who are competing to fill retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss's seat. The two have spent millions firing at one another: Perdue accused Nunn of funding terrorists through her work with the Bush Family Foundation and Nunn said Perdue lost jobs and discriminated against female workers as CEO of Dollar General.
"If that nastiness continues in a run-off, the folks responsible for the run-off will probably just stay home," Swafford says of her supporters. "And they will have to find new voters in order to win and they will be exceptionally hard."
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The anti-abortion National Right to Life is sending out $44,000 worth of mailers on David Perdue's behalf, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission.
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And now for one last anniversary. What better way to celebrate Jimmy Carter's 90th birthday than to give to his grandson's gubernatorial campaign?
That was the pitch - or series of pitches - that the Democrat's campaign sent to prospective donors yesterday. First, the campaign sent a note in the birthday boy's name urging supporters to dig deeper for his campaign. "I appreciate all you’re doing to support my grandson," he wrote. "It means a lot to me and Rosalynn."
Then came a note attached to Jason Carter's name reminding backers that today is his grandfather's birthday. "I know it would make his day to know that he was able to help my campaign in a big way," the younger Carter wrote.
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On that same topic, check out our colleague Jill Vejnoska's piece about the ex-president's birthday bash.
Here's a snippet:
That's easy.
Plains.
"Our kinfolk, our neighbors, our childhood friends still live here," Carter explained last week in a phone interview from "the only home we've ever owned" — the modest ranch house he and Rosalynn built in Plains in 1961, some eight years after his father's death caused him to reevaluate his own life and come home from his promising career as a globetrotting Naval officer. "In every respect, we feel like this is where we belong."
The feeling is mutual in this small southwest Georgia town of maybe 700 people nestled near Americus.
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Our AJC colleague Jim Denery put together this quiz about Jimmy Carter's life.
See for yourself how you do:
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The fundraising quarter ended last night, a fact many readers were likely reminded of again and again with cloying political campaign emails. The Washington Post has a fun story about Democrats' wacky pitches that includes this nugget about Atlanta's own Rep. John Lewis:
The DCCC hoped to raise $75,000 from Lewis's pitch. As of Tuesday night , donors had forked over more than $80,000.
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