Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that historian Jon Meacham has been weighing in on speeches that Joe Biden has given -- including the acceptance speech the president-elect delivered Saturday night in Wilmington, Del. From the NYT:
Mr. Meacham's 2018 book, “The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels," has long served as a touchstone for Mr. Biden, who read it and has reached out to Mr. Meacham in the past to discuss passages he liked.
…Mr. Meacham is currently not expected to join the administration. But his role helping to craft Mr. Biden's biggest addresses has shades of the presidential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s relationship with President John F. Kennedy. Mr. Schlesinger worked for Mr. Kennedy's campaign and as a member of his White House staff.
Last month, Biden visited Warm Springs and, in a speech with FDR themes, offered up the closing theme for his presidential campaign. On the day before, we’d been swapping texts with House Minority Leader Bob Trammell of Luthersville, whose district includes much of Meriwether County.
Trammell mentioned something that struck locals as unusual. Historian Jon Meacham had been spotted flying into Roosevelt Memorial Airport in Warm Springs, he said.
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COVID-19 cases have spiked across the country, and Georgia is back in the red zone. In an op-ed in today’s AJC, Dr. Carlos del Rio, professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health, says its time to return the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back to prominence before it’s too late.
At minimum, he writes, the CDC and its scientists should be allowed to give daily briefings on the pandemic. A taste:
We cannot wait until Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20 to make these changes, given the leadership vacuum that has developed around managing the pandemic. With little more than 60 days until a formal transfer of power, waiting to re-establish the CDC's role in the pandemic could put us in a situation where the U.S. becomes overwhelmed by COVID-19. If that occurs, the path to normalcy shrinks significantly and becomes even more distant into the future.
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On Thursday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed that he was self-quarantining after coming into contact with someone who had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Now comes this word from the Senate Democratic Caucus:
Our friend and colleague Senator David Lucas (Macon) has been hospitalized with COVID-19. His wife Elaine Lucas is quarantining at home. We wish him a speedy recovery and ask you to keep him, Elaine, and their entire family in your hearts and prayers.
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Andrew Yang must have really freaked out Georgia Republicans.
The former Democratic presidential candidate’s announcement that he would move to Georgia to stump for his party’s U.S. Senate candidates triggered a sharp GOP backlash that’s still playing out.
The latest example came Thursday when Georgia GOP chair David Shafer sent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger a letter urging him to crack down on the “apparently organized effort to encourage outsiders to temporarily move to Georgia to unlawfully register and vote.”
It asks Raffensperger to require county elections officials to report each new voter registration filed before the Dec. 7 deadline and to investigate whether each intends to live in Georgia.
“The Georgia Legislature never intended for non-Georgians to dilute the voices of Georgians in our elections,” he wrote.
State elections official Gabriel Sterling addressed the issue, too, during a Thursday press conference. He told reporters the state welcomes those who are here permanently.
“But if you don’t intend to be a resident, and you are here for politics -- don’t try it,” he said.
Yang, for his part, urged folks to calm down. He’s still coming to Georgia, he said on social media, but not planning to register to vote here.
“To be clear I am heading to Georgia to get out the vote, canvas, knock on doors and let people know how important the special Senate races are,” he wrote on Twitter. “I do not plan on voting myself - I already cast a vote in NY. On to Georgia!”
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The nation’s cybersecurity agency, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has weighed in on the issue of the integrity of the recent election:
"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.
“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
The bold type on that final sentence, for emphasis, was all theirs and worth remembering as Trump supporters gather for “stop the steal” protests in Georgia and elsewhere this weekend.
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While President Donald Trump was raising doubts about Georgia’s new voting machines on Thursday, we heard from a Republican frequently seen at the state Capitol -- who pointed out a particular phenomenon.
All Republican members of Congress from Georgia, including its two senators, are pushing Trump’s message that he hasn’t yet lost his re-election bid. Statewide officials -- such as the governor, lieutenant governor, the secretary of state and House speaker -- are far more skeptical. Quiet, but skeptical.
It’s the difference between those who must win a November general election, and those whose horizons are no higher than a May primary, we noted.
And if you’re in Washington, our source replied, “you’re one degree closer to the wrath and destruction of a vindictive, short-sighted president.” More on that here.
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When is a “scoop” not a scoop? A Daily Beast story citing two Democrats saying Stacey Abrams is likely to run for governor doesn’t quite meet that criteria.
The former gubernatorial contender is widely expected to wage another campaign against Gov. Brain Kemp in 2022, as we’ve reported since days after her defeat.
Getting bypassed as Joe Biden’s running-mate, as we wrote in August, likely cemented the rematch.
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About $45 million has been spent on the airwaves so far in Georgia’s twin runoff races. And millions more has been reserved through the Jan. 5 contests.
By contrast, the entire 2014 campaign for U.S. Senate -- an open seat won by David Perdue - cost about $75 million. This contest could exceed that sum by Thanksgiving.
