Per Lucid Idiocy and David Poythress:
We wanted to remind you that tonight the Democratic Party of Georgia is hosting the first televised Gubernatorial Debate of the 2010 primary election.
It will be held in Athens at the PJ Auditorium, located in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Some last minute seats may be available, but you must arrive no later than 6:30 PM to be seated, and the debate begins at 7:00 PM.
For those of you who can't be in Athens tonight, it will be aired live on WNEG-TV (Athens), WGCL-TV (Atlanta) and WALB-TV (Albany). It will air on WRDW-TV (Augusta) at noon on Saturday. WMAZ-TV (Macon) will air it online tonight, as well as on Saturday at 7:00 PM. We encourage you to check your local listings.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Related to the Post Below: Ox is at it Again
At least Oxendine has the courtesy to hit the flashing blue lights when he's cruising around you on Georgia highways.
The Georgia Interblogs are lighting themselves up with this story in yesterday's AJC about Oxendine politicking down and dirty with Congressman Lynn Westmoreland.
From the AJC:
The Georgia Interblogs are lighting themselves up with this story in yesterday's AJC about Oxendine politicking down and dirty with Congressman Lynn Westmoreland.
From the AJC:
"U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said Monday that he believes Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine used an investigation into a failed insurance company in an attempt to pressure him to take a low profile in the governor’s race.As you can tell by the fact that you're reading this here, Oxendine didn't keep his word....
"Westmoreland said Oxendine never said anything explicit, but the congressman said he felt a message was being sent. He said Oxendine said to him repeatedly that he would try to keep his name from becoming public as a favor."
Rasmussen: Voters Trust Collective Conscious of American People More than U.S. Government
Again I say, what is America coming to?
Maybe it's just the city slicker who grew up in Atlanta traffic in me, but I've never had an abundance of confidence in the sprawling masses zooming by me, eating their cheeseburgers and shouting into cell phones at 75 mile per hour.
Not to say this is some kind of binary relation where the balance of that confidence was placed in phony on the left or the phony on the right who just happened to have convinced 50 percent plus one of area voters to send him or her to swampland, or the Gold Dome for that matter.
From the story on Rasmussen Reports:
Maybe it's just the city slicker who grew up in Atlanta traffic in me, but I've never had an abundance of confidence in the sprawling masses zooming by me, eating their cheeseburgers and shouting into cell phones at 75 mile per hour.
Not to say this is some kind of binary relation where the balance of that confidence was placed in phony on the left or the phony on the right who just happened to have convinced 50 percent plus one of area voters to send him or her to swampland, or the Gold Dome for that matter.
From the story on Rasmussen Reports:
"Polling conducted from January 18 through January 24 found that 76% of voters generally trust the American people more than political leaders on important national issues. Seventy-one percent (71%) view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors. On each question, a majority of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters share those views.
These results help explain why most voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and most think that neither political party understands what the country needs.
“The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right or the center. The American people want to govern themselves," says Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “The American attachment to self-governance runs deep. It is one of our nation’s cherished core values and an important part of our cultural DNA.”"
Monday, February 1, 2010
Fight Over Transportation Spilling Out of state Capitol Complex
AJC's Political Insider is saying that Perdue is now colliding with Congressman John Lewis over the state's inability to lockdown federal monies for high speed rail.
Forgoing Critical Thought on Regina Thomas' Chances in the Primary, Savannah Morning News Picks Barrow in 010 General Election
I had meant to say something about the John Barrow political mailer I received just about first thing in the new year. It gave a county by county breakdown of the federal grants he has locked down for the 12th District.
But this came up in my Google Alerts and I think it'll be just as easy to link to this.
The piece takes a look at his voting record and comes to this conclusion:
Right now, it appears that Barrow's likely Republican challengers include Carl Smith and Jeanne Seaver. It appears Republican COL. Wayne Mosley, M.D. has dropped out of the race.
But this came up in my Google Alerts and I think it'll be just as easy to link to this.
The piece takes a look at his voting record and comes to this conclusion:
"Republicans grouse about liberal GOP officials they call RINOs - Republicans In Name Only. These days, as least, Barrow is almost a DINO - or Democrat In Name Only.
Sure, that miffs liberals, who backed former state Sen. Regina Thomas against him in the 2008 Democratic primary, as they do this year.
She got 24 percent in 2008, so that base looks covered. And the more she attacks his positions, the better he may look to general election voters.
It will take a dynamic challenger to knock off Barrow, who, by the way, soon likely will report a $1 million-plus campaign till. So far, neither GOP candidate is being confused with the Charisma Kid."
Right now, it appears that Barrow's likely Republican challengers include Carl Smith and Jeanne Seaver. It appears Republican COL. Wayne Mosley, M.D. has dropped out of the race.
A Transportation Blunder?
Although you can't read the story without penetrating the paywall, you can see from Insider Advantage's homepage that Dick Pettys thinks the state Transportation Board's action to reinstate accrual accounting may be a sizable miscalculation.
Now I haven't read Pettys' story either, but some conversations I had last week (before the other shoe dropped on the state's mental health system issues) led me to the same perception.
I don't gather that many under the Gold Dome disagree with the desired outcome, but it is the way the Board is going about doing it.
Chuck Clay, a former state Senate minority leader and current lobbyist for one of Georgia's largest transportation contractors C.W. Matthews, said the state's leadership cannot delay in finding a way around this constitutional question because it wants to argue about why it happened in the first place.
"We cannot jeopardize this because we are getting into a dispute," he said. "For the good of Georgia—not GDOT, the Governor or the legislature—please let these people sit down and get behind the effort [to resolve this issue]. Because once that [federal roads] money goes to Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, it cannot go back to Georgia. It is not simply sitting in an envelope in Washington with Georgia’s name written onto it."
I had seen this earlier Friday, and Clay mentioned it when we talked. There is a Senate Resolution to place a referendum on the ballot to amend the state constitution to allow the practice of signing multi-year transportation contracts without having the entire cost of the project in the treasury at the time.
This seems like the best thing, but on an issue like this, I imagine it's going to take quite a get-out-the-vote effort for people to mash yes on this one.
Now I haven't read Pettys' story either, but some conversations I had last week (before the other shoe dropped on the state's mental health system issues) led me to the same perception.
I don't gather that many under the Gold Dome disagree with the desired outcome, but it is the way the Board is going about doing it.
Chuck Clay, a former state Senate minority leader and current lobbyist for one of Georgia's largest transportation contractors C.W. Matthews, said the state's leadership cannot delay in finding a way around this constitutional question because it wants to argue about why it happened in the first place.
"We cannot jeopardize this because we are getting into a dispute," he said. "For the good of Georgia—not GDOT, the Governor or the legislature—please let these people sit down and get behind the effort [to resolve this issue]. Because once that [federal roads] money goes to Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, it cannot go back to Georgia. It is not simply sitting in an envelope in Washington with Georgia’s name written onto it."
I had seen this earlier Friday, and Clay mentioned it when we talked. There is a Senate Resolution to place a referendum on the ballot to amend the state constitution to allow the practice of signing multi-year transportation contracts without having the entire cost of the project in the treasury at the time.
This seems like the best thing, but on an issue like this, I imagine it's going to take quite a get-out-the-vote effort for people to mash yes on this one.
Another unexpected expense under the Gold Dome
In another interesting, yet not exactly germane, note from Macon's General Assembly bureau, it appears that the walls are falling down in the Capitol Building.
At least now we know that Milledgeville isn't the only thing state government is allowing to crumble these days.
ATLANTA — Large pieces of plaster from a top floor of the state Capitol came crashing through a tile ceiling last month, smashing a computer and table in a legislative office below.
The chunks of plaster fell during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, and no one was in the office at the time. Legislative secretaries returned to work to find state Rep. Mickey Channell’s office in a shambles — gaping holes in the ceiling, smashed furniture and plaster on the floor.
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