Out of My League

I think you'd be surprised to hear that I'm blaming my recent absence from the blogosphere on the fact that I was not One Capital Removed this week, but actually reporting for The Union-Recorder from under the Gold Dome. Well not so much Thursday, but definitely Wednesday for the Governor's final State of the State Address.
But maybe that's in keeping with the witty blog title.
Either way you look at it, I'm not sure if we're much more informed following the news items of the week.
Governor Perdue delivered his final session-opening speech Wednesday and the verdict from the peanut gallery was all about the same.
I think this sums up my take on the speech:

"In a 37-minute-long speech that was long on style—quoting at liberty from the works of great thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Alexis de Tocqueville—and short on substance about how he would like legislators to tackle the challenges facing Georgia in the here and now, Perdue gave the General Assembly a pep talk to send them into the session."

But the real meat of the thing won't come out for another hour, when Perdue drops his proposed budget.
I unfortunately missed Perdue's press conference about his proposal for transportation funding because I was in a Georgia Press Association conference across the street from the Capitol. But much like his proposal to tie teacher pay to student performance, most of the heavy lifting will be done by his successor.
As I said above, today is going to be the big news day, and it is already delivering, with Perdue's budget at 11:45 a.m. and, possibly, the announcement of House Speaker David Ralston's committee assignments. Not the committee's he'll be on, of which I think tradition holds that there will be none, but the committee assignments he'll be doling out because he's got that right.
We'll, of course, be interested in this because Rep. Rusty Kidd will be getting his first assignments today.
I'm hoping for Appropriations and Health and Human Services assignments, and maybe State Institutions and Property, but that may make him too much like state Sen. Johnny Grant.
In other news of the day, I'm glad to hear Speaker Ralston has kept his promise to do away with the hawks system. I know I was a doubting thomas on this, but being a contrarian is my job.
I'm off for the rest of the day, so check in with my One Capital Removed approved bloggers (scroll to the bottom) for up-to-the-minute updates on everything that's going on in Georgia Politics, and I'll tell you something you already know later (please keep reading).