BEST FROM THE BLOG: POLITICAL INSIDER
These are some of the many items readers could find this past week in the Political Insider blog on AJC.com. Look there for breaking news and to gain insight about Georgia’s political scene.
Talk about a 180. Grovetown’s 13-year-old C.J. Pearson, who became a conservative star for his YouTube denunciations of President Barack Obama, has a new favorite presidential candidate: arch-liberal Bernie Sanders.
The onetime chairman of “Teens for Ted Cruz,” Pearson announced last month that he was no longer conservative. And Wednesday he said he had shifted all the way to the “democratic socialist” Sanders, essentially the polar opposite of his previous choice.
Conservative WSB Radio host Erick Erickson is not amused, writing in a post directed at Pearson:
So stop embarrassing yourself, shut up, and go live life. Pay attention to politics, but also pay attention to movies, sports, girls, your parents, your preacher, and your surroundings. Come back when you are eighteen, your voice has deepened, and you’ve passed your final growth spurt. Because about the time you stop growing externally, that’s when you really start growing internally. Your body takes the intellectual nutrition you are consuming now as a kid and grows it into the man you will be. Social media attention is not intellectual nutrition.
Right now you are a kid. If you want fame on social media that bad right now, the man you grow into is going to be twisted up with shallow roots. You’re going to get blown over in a breeze. So get off social media and go play.
Pearson shot back on Twitter, making light of Erickson’s stunt in which he literally shot holes in the New York Times over its gun control stance.
Instead of attacking me, let's discuss. I'd even take on @EWErickson. But, promise Erick, don't shoot holes at me. Not cool. —DANIEL MALLOY
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Cassville freshman and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, has not endorsed a presidential candidate, but we can take one off the list — Donald Trump.
As Loudermilk said on Fox Business Channel on Tuesday when asked about Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.:
“I think I understand what his sentiment was, is that most of the terrorist attacks in this nation in last several years have been by radicalized Muslim extremists. But we have a freedom here, freedom of religion. We have a constitution that every person who takes an elected office here in this nation, and every member of Congress and the president swears to one thing, that we will uphold the constitution.
“I think his remarks were irresponsible, but we live in an era where you can say anything and get away with it. …
“I think it’s hurtful for the [Republican] Party. I think it’s hurtful for the brand.”
But Loudermilk, when pressed, would not call for Trump to drop out of the race:
— DANIEL MALLOY
The ballot for Georgia’s March 1 presidential primary is set, with 13 Republicans and four Democrats competing in the SEC Primary.
The lists submitted to Secretary of State Brian Kemp from the Georgia GOP and Democratic Party of Georgia are as follows:
Republicans: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum and Donald Trump.
Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders and Michael Steinberg.
To answer your questions: Michael Steinberg is a lawyer in Tampa Bay that we had not heard of either, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore’s legions of fans will have to write him in. —DANIEL MALLOY
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