Fresh Loaf

A just-released Rasmussen poll says Roy Barnes is running neck-and-neck with his long-trunked opponents in the 2010 fight for the West Paces Ferry lean-to — and that at the moment, the Peach State’s gubernatorial race is a “toss-up.”

The rundown:

• “Congressman Nathan Deal is barely ahead of Barnes 43% to 40%”

• The former governor is “just three points behind Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel 42% to 39%.”

• Barnes “runs dead even with Georgia’s fire and insurance commissioner, John Oxendine, with each earning 41%.”

• “The Democrat continues to run best against State Senate President Eric Johnson, leading him 40% to 38%.” [ed. We've corrected Rasmussen's typo. Johnson resigned from the Senate to focus on his campaign.]

The polling firm says these most recent numbers show a bump for Barnes, who trailed Deal, Handel and Oxendine last month. (It also means Oxendine might have change his talking points. For months, he’s touted himself as the only Republican who could beat Barnes.) Margin of error on this poll was 4.5 points, so take from it what you will. Here’s Rasmussen’s release about the survey.

(Screenshot from Rasmussen)

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Marketing wizard Neal Horsley visits Atlanta

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Neal Horsley, who last year won our hearts when he admitted to once having sex with a mule, is taking it easy in Fulton County jail after allegedly threatening Sir Elton John.

According to the AJC, Horsley’s been charged with “making terroristic threats, criminal defamation and using the Internet to disseminate threats” after he appeared outside the singer’s Buckhead condo holding a sign that read… let’s see what it said here…oh yes, “Elton John Must Die.” Horlsey then uploaded a video of his zany intown adventure to YouTube, where it’s surprisingly been voted as one of the site’s most disliked clips.

John’s comments in a February PARADE interview — “Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems” —  pissed off Horsley enough to make him drive from his Carrollton home to protest in Atlanta.

In the video, Horsley says he wasn’t making a threat or issuing a “fatwa.” — he and the unnamed gent who also appears in the clip say they’re just noting that all men must eventually die and that John should repent.

After the jump we’ve embedded Horsley’s video. Fair warning: It features some pretty graphic language.

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The “unofficial” husband-and-wife ticket of House Minority Leader Dubose Porter and  newspaper executive Carol — he’s running for governor, she’s running for lieutenant governor — appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday. Host Alisyn Camerota tripped over the pronunciation of our beloved Milledgeville, which leads us to believe that Fox News doesn’t care about rural Georgia and is in bed with Big Business. Discuss.

Fox’s video embedding feature is all screwed up, so we’ll just paste a screenshot of the interview. Click on it and view what has the potential to be either an exciting moment in Georgia political history or an excellent reality show.

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John Oxendine, the insurance commissioner and GOP gubernatorial candidate currently leading the polls, must be having a great day.

In 2003, Fortune ran a short article about a speech Oxendine delivered to auto-insurance managers. The AJC’s Jim Galloway posted a snippet from the piece:

First, Oxendine said, those managers ought to be wary of the 12 states in which the insurance commissioner is elected — Georgia is one of them — because “we are different.” Details: “We are a pain in the butt. We are very high-maintenance…. I am not a professional regulator, I am a politician…. I’m going to do what I think is going to get me reelected.”

Oxendine does believe, he says, that insurers are entitled to a fair and reasonable profit: “I am not one of these Socialists never ever going to give out a rate increase.” But, he said, “you need to realize that you have to find a way to always make me look good in front of the voters.”

As for campaign contributions, he noted he wasn’t allowed to take them from insurance companies, but money from individuals is entirely acceptable. And gettable: “I’m the incumbent. You all are going to give me money because you’re afraid not to.”

Let’s keep these pearls of wisdom coming!

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The “Der Untergang” parody takes on John Oxendine, the GOP gubernatorial candidate who’s leading the polls, and Georgia Republicans’ chances in 2010 if he wins the nomination.

(H/T to Georgia Liberal)

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John Oxendine

Kudos to Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine — the leading GOP contender to fill Gov. Sonny Perdue’s shoes — for keeping his name in the news!

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.

Westmoreland said Oxendine, a Republican candidate for governor, called him about an investigation into Southeastern U.S. Insurance, where Westmoreland served on an advisory board in 2003 and 2004. He said Oxendine told him that his name was found in company documents.

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.

Oxendine denied trying to pressure Westmoreland. He said politics had nothing to do with the call.

No follow-up statement from the Oxendine camp yet, just a tweet telling followers to watch radio talk show host Herman Cain tonight for some sort of response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Icarus at Peach Pundit is calling this latest news story the “beginning of the end” for the GOP gubernatorial candidate’s campaign. Jim Galloway says this confrontation could split the state’s GOP — and he wonders if any other elephants are ensnared in the Insurance Commission investigation that prompted Oxendine’s call to Westmoreland.

(Courtesy John Oxendine Governor 2010)

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The first gubernatorial debate of 2010 took place in Athens on Tuesday, but featured only GOP candidates (and not all of them at that — The Ox was a no-show, as he was probably home giving his boys the gun-safety training he’d neglected earlier).

Anyway, the next debate is this coming Monday and all candidates have been invited. It’s the final event capping the Georgia Municipal Association’s annual Mayors’ Day Conference. Why the confab is called Mayor’s Day I can’t understand, because it’s three days long.

The debate itself is also a lengthy affair, running from 1:45-5 p.m. Actually, it’s two full debates — one for Republicans and one for Dems, but both moderated by Matt Towery, the former GOP lawmaker who now runs Insider Advantage.

The GMA has invited 11 candidates in all, and apparently has already nailed down eight confirmations, including Roy Barnes, Carl Camon, DuBose Porter, David Poythress, Nathan Deal, Karen Handel, Ray McBerry and Austin Scott.

Carl who? I wondered that myself. A little research shows that Camon, a Democrat,  was the first black mayor of Ray City, Ga. Does that help?

Oh, the conference is in the Atlanta Hilton downtown, but I don’t know if it’s open to the public. Which makes me wonder if this whole election nonsense couldn’t be simplified by adopting Thunderdome debate rules: Two men enter; one man leaves!

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UPDATE: The paper now says the man was actually “sprayed” in the leg — not the face — and that the shooter was Oxendine’s 13-year-old son. Jim Galloway’s got the incident report here.

Presented without comment, which really is another way of saying “here’s another weird story involving John Oxendine.” From the AJC:

A man hunting with Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Oxendine was “sprayed” in the face during an organized quail hunt in Dade County on Sunday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

Oxendine, the sitting state insurance commissioner, was hunting with his children at a quail hunting preserve when someone accidentally fired their shotgun and an unnamed adult “was wounded superficially,” Oxendine campaign spokesman David Crim said. Oxendine was not the shooter or the person wounded, Crim said.

(deep exhale) According to the AJC, neither Oxendine nor his sons had hunting licenses, which could be a no-no even though they were on private property. A campaign flack told the paper that the quail hunting preserve where the incident took place is partly owned by the insurance industry executive who was linked to questionable campaign contributions that Oxendine received last year and later returned.

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'Thank you for that question. Yes, I believe Georgia needs jobs and low taxes.'

Nearly all the pachyderms vying for the GOP gubernatorial nomination will lock tusks in a epic battle of wits and platitudes tonight at 7 p.m. on the University of Georgia campus.

From WNEG-TV, the local TV station that’s broadcasting the sold-out event sponsored by the Clarke County Republican Party:

All seven gubernatorial candidates were invited to participate in the Athens debate. Confirmed candidates attending are U.S. Representative Nathan Deal, ex-Secretary of State Karen Handel, [ed. former] president pro tempore of the state Senate Eric Johnson, state representative Austin Scott, state Senator Jeff Chapman, and businessman Ray McBerry. State insurance commissioner and candidate John Oxendine reported that a scheduling conflict will prevent him from participating.

Damn liberal media always finds a way to push out the Ox.

According to the WNEG-TV’s press release, metro Atlantans can watch the debate live on CBS Atlanta and cbsatlanta.com. 640 WGST will also broadcast the battle of the elephants.

(File photo by Joeff Davis)

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On Jan. 6, news broke that U.S. Congressman Nathan Deal of Georgia quietly delivered on a promise to ask President Obama for a copy of his birth certificate. A Deal staffer told CL that the congressman — who’s also a GOP gubernatorial candidate — merely informed Obama that constituents were concerned, but believers in the “birther” conspiracy theory went wild.

“We MUST be getting close as members of Congress are now asking Obama the same question we have been asking for 2 years. WE ARE VICTORIOUS!”
— “Candor7,” on Jan. 6 at the far-right FreeRepublic website

“Obama and [Chief of Staff] Rahm [Emanuel] or the powers that be could easily have the corrupt Hawaiian officials produce an official documents. The [New World Order] controls everything then why cant they do this?”
— Anonymous commenter, on Jan. 6 at conspiracy theory hotbed GodLikeProductions.com

“Congratulations, Rep. Deal. You have now boarded to crazy train. Next stop, Loony Town.”
— “katahdin,” on Jan. 6 at the more level-headed Washington Independent

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'A stack of crisp $100 bills begins to topple at about this height'

Roy Barnes, the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial candidate who was famously pilloried in the Worst Cartoon of 2009, sure knows how to raise cash for campaign.

The Barnes campaign today said the former governor raised $2.7 million in the last six months of 2009 — none of which, it says, came from registered Georgia lobbyists. More than 90 percent of contributions were in-state. And two-thirds came from first-time contributors.

As the AJC’s Aaron Gould Sheinin notes, Barnes’ total in just six months is nearly double what John Oxendine, who’s consistently led the GOP candidates in polls, raised between April 2008 and June 2009. “Rat” trumps Ox!

Regardless of whether Barnes can keep up the pace or not in the months ahead, he (and challenger David Poythress) enjoy an advantage over other Democratic hopefuls. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker and House Minority Leader DuBose Porter are prohibited by state law from groveling for cash during the legislative session, which starts on Jan. 11. Barnes and Poythress, however, can keep asking for funds.

Other potential tenants for the West Paces Ferry bungalow have until Friday to file fundraising disclosures with the State Ethics Commission.

(File photo by Joeff Davis)

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'Hey, Mr. President. I know you're busy, but…'

Nathan Deal: Man of his word.

Last November, the Georgia congressman and 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate said he planned to ask President Barack Obama for a copy of his birth certificate so all this birther nonsense could be resolved once and for all. Deal told the AJC’s Bob Keefe: “I have looked at the documentation that is publicly available and it leaves many things to be desired.”

Well, after several unreturned phone calls to Deal’s campaign HQ and congressional office before the holidays, we can now report that the lawmaker kept his word. Kind of.

Deal Chief of Staff Todd Smith today told CL that the congressman sent Obama a letter in early December that addresses constituents’ concerns about the president’s birth certificate. Smith says the White House acknowledged receiving the missive.

However, Smith says, Deal didn’t request Obama’s birth certificate — the letter was about the hullabaloo that’s erupted about the document’s authenticity.

(more…)

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'On the one hand, I could stay in office and regulate cosmetologists and chiropractors…'

After three years on the job, Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel says she’ll resign to focus her energy on her 2010 gubernatorial bid.

From the AJC:

“The people of Georgia need to know I am all in for the governor’s race,” Handel said. “This decision allows me to focus 100 percent on becoming the Republican nominee and winning in November.”

Handel said she  is resigning to steer clear of any potential accusations that she is using her office to benefit her campaign. The Secretary of State’s office oversees election and voting issues.

By stepping down, Handel also gains an edge when it comes to raising funds. Georgia law prohibits state lawmakers and elected officials from groveling for campaign cash while the General Assembly is in session. Earlier this year, Eric Johnson resigned his state Senate seat to focus on his gubernatorial campaign.

The AJC says Gov. Sonny Perdue will name Handel’s replacement. In the meantime, the “The Georgia State Board of Hearing Aid Dealers and Dispensers,” which the secretary of state oversees, will run wild and inflict great damage upon Georgia.

UPDATE, 3:30 p.m.: After the jump, some “kind” words from GOP gubernatorial hopeful John Oxendine’s campaign and Gary Horlacher, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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All five major Republican candidates in Georgia’s 2010 race for governor have embraced Twitter as a means for sending short, timely messages to supporters. But, judging from their November tweets, some are more successful at staying on-message than others. (BTW: Ex-Gov. Roy Barnes doesn’t tweet — yet.)

“Thanks to Sahar & the Henry county GOP for standing up for freedom. Their Family Freedom Fest was a huge success.“

“Great victory for our GA Dawgs! Athens is a great place to be on game night!”

“Just toured the 4th largest port in U.S. Our Savannah port is a technological marvel and a gateway to the world.“

— U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Gainesville, on Nov. 14, 15 and 17

“Fantasy football: 8-1 in one league and 6-3 in the other. I love football!!!“

“A sad day for the Bulldawg Nation with news of the passing of UGA VII, UGA VI’s Loran’s Best.“

“Donny won dancing w stars … So awesome!!! I luv Donny!!”

— Secretary of State Karen Handel on Nov. 10, 19 and 24

“One year until 2010 elections. Looking forward to the Atlanta Tea Party at the Capitol tonight. I hope to see you there.”

“Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson. Poised to make NASCAR history.“

“I highly recommend “Blind Side”. Tybee resident Sandra Bullock should get Oscar nomination for true football story filmed in Georgia.”

— Former state Rep. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah, on Nov. 2, 15 and 22

(more…)

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Christmas time is the right time to think about those less fortunate in the world. Chief among them: Roy Barnes, the former Georgia governor who’s set his sights on returning to office in 2011.

On Monday, Dec. 14, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Andrew and Carolyn Young and John and Nancy Williams will honor Barnes at fundraiser at TWELVE Atlantic Station. Minimum contribution is $250. If you’re in the giving mood and want to shake hands before the celebration, you can become a sponsor starting at the low, low price of $1,000.

The list of dignitaries and bold-faced names include former U.S. Congressman and Atlanta attorney Buddy Darden, Gwinnett County developer Wayne Mason, REM manager and Athens attorney Bertis Downs, DeKalb County Commissioners Lee May and Connie Stokes and many other city and metro Atlanta bigwigs.

Should be a good time! The festive invitation is pasted after the jump.

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Is an endorsement really an endorsement if you give the nod to two candidates from the same party who are running for the same seat?

From GOP gubernatorial candidates Eric Johnson and John Oxendine’s Twitter doohickeys:

Whatever, Johnson posted it first! Eat that, Ox©!

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First we had John Oxendine’s “innovative” commercial in which a giant bull destroyed homes and slaughtered a mutant rodent at Turner Field and Buford Dam.

Now there’s an ad pillorying the leading GOP gubernatorial candidate. Tagline: “The Ox. At least he went to college.” That’s an obvious (and not entirely accurate) jab at Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who’s also running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. She recently said she attended night college classes, but didn’t earn a diploma.

Regardless, flash animation lives on in Georgia political campaigns. Huzzah!

(H/T to Andre Walker at Blog for Georgia)

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Rasmussen reports that John Oxendine still leads candidates battling to become the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee. According a telephone survey conducted by the pollster, 27 percent of likely Republican primary voters favor the state insurance commissioner.

The Ox’s© lead, however, has shrunk by four points — and the number of undecided voters has grown. Rasmussen says many likely voters still haven’t formed an opinion about the candidates — which isn’t surprising for a contest that’s still 10 months away.

Here’s how the other pachyderms stack up:

Twelve percent (12%) prefer Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, while nine percent (9%) like Congressman Nathan Deal. Handel and Deal were tied at 13% each in the previous survey.

Rounding out the list is State Senator Eric Johnson, State Representative Austin Scott and conservative businessman Ray McBerry, each with three percent (3%) support among primary voters.

Seven percent (7%) favor some other candidate, and 35% are not sure. The number of undecided voters climbed four points from two months ago, suggesting that the race is far from decided.

That “other candidate” favored by seven percent of poll respondents could easily be a Libertarian. Pray to God it’s not this guy. Rasmussen will release details on the Democratic gubernatorial candidates tomorrow.

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Yay! The new issue of The Beacon, the North Fulton weekly newspaper that made headlines for its Obama-in-the-crosshairs cover, has been delivered to my computer screen!

What’s this? A profile of Georgia Secretary of State and 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Karen “Bring It On” Handel? I wonder how it’ll start.

“I’ve had to fight for everything my whole life,” says Georgia Secretary of State and GOP gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel. “So this is no different.”

And so begins perhaps the most glowing profile you will ever read about Karen Handel, from now until the day you die.

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John Oxendine

On Oct. 15, GOP gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine e-mailed supporters to alert them to a “vicious attack” by “homosexual activists” at local gay weekly Southern Voice regarding his defense of marriage between a man and a woman. He asked supporters to help him fight the “gay lobby” — by donating money, of course.

“The radical homosexual activists over at Southern Voice have launched a vicious attack on me — by name — for my defense of traditional marriage in America. These homosexual activists join a long and growing list of those on the radical Left who are, by their very attack, acknowledging who the true conservative is in this campaign and who they are afraid of.”
— Oxendine, in an Oct. 15 e-mail to campaign supporters

“Those who are engaged in homosexual behavior are people—who need love and forgiveness, and who need to understand the love of God.”
— Oxendine, in an Oct. 9 e-mail to supporters

“So sacred is your marriage that when your baby Jake is born, you immediately put him in a starring role in one of your campaign ad commercials? No way is that exploiting the family, right?”
— Southern Voice news editor Dyana Bagby, in the Oct. 12 blog post that raised Oxendine’s ire

“Marriage has not, in fact, ‘always been’ between ‘a man and a woman’ — for most of the period of the Old Testament, from which Oxendine and his brethren like to quote a certain passage from Leviticus to condemn us, marriage was between a man and several women.”
— Southern Voice Editor Laura Douglas-Brown, in an Oct. 15 response to Oxendine’s plea for funds

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Yesterday afternoon, the five or six Georgia journalists who still have jobs received an email from the John Oxendine campaign.

On Thursday night, the email said, the 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate would release a “‘new media’ advertisement” hitting Roy Barnes. A campaign spokesman said the ad “demonstrates John Oxendine’s commitment to using innovative, cutting-edge genre to communicate serious messages in creative mediums.”

The release included this hilarious paragraph:

The [event where the ad will be released] is being held at an undisclosed laser-tag facility and is closed to the public. After viewing the commercial, the volunteers will enjoy pizza and laser-tag.

Reporters were under strict orders not to publicize the advertisement until its formal release tonight at 7:20 p.m. Reporters complied. Not out of respect, really, but because we didn’t care.

This, my friends, is the cutting-edge technology, all four minutes of it:

If you don’t have the patience to listen to the man with the slow drawl talk about “Obama liberals” and choppy animations of “The Ox” headbutting a rat all the way to ole socialist France,  then we’ve provided screenshots for your enjoyment after the jump.

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State Sen. Jeff Chapman, R-Brunswick, confirms via email that he’s added his name to the long list of elephants who hope to be Georgia’s next governor.

Chapman’s efforts to protect Jekyll Island from what many called inappropriate development won him fans from both parties. His stance on that issue also irked plenty of people, including members of his own party, as the deal was proposed by well-known GOP fundraisers. Chapman recently voiced his support for more serious water conservation measures.

Jim Galloway notes that this might be a bit of a disheartening news to Johnson, who most likely enjoyed the strongest coastal Georgia support of any of the candidates.

The state lawmaker’s opponents for the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination include state Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton, Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, state Sen. Eric Johnson of Savannah and U.S. Congressman Nathan Deal. Oh yeah, and Ray McBerry of McDonough.

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Last week, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine was touting a Rasmussen poll that indicated he was leading the GOP race for governor — with a solid 10 months to go before the primary, mind you.

Well, now the Ox is trumpeting another poll, this one by San Diego-based Strategic Vision, that again shows him with a comfortable lead. According to the results, Oxendine is polling at 39 percent — more than the five other Republican candidates put together. The undecideds come in at about 25 percent.

Just like last time, Oxendine’s campaign manager Tim Echols claims his candidate is “humbled by these results,” which I don’t believe for an instant.

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Don't worry, bears. John Oxendine hears you!

No, not those bears! (Update – Or even these bears.)

Back in May, we posted a video in which Republican gubernatorial candidate John “I have enough guns in my house to take over a small Caribbean country” Oxendine said, if elected, he’d run Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers out of the state. Go and watch the clip, it’s nice and creepy.

This morning, Oxendine went even more public with his vow. He echoed his pledge to run abortion providers out of Georgia. He signed the Right to Life pledge. He’s been doing all the right things. But he’s not editing!

“If elected, I will use the power of the Governor’s office to create an environment where abortion providers will not want to do business in Georgia any longer,” said Oxendine, now the proud dad of a new baby boy. “The Oxendine Administration will enforce existing laws and use the state Constitution to put Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers out of their grizzly business.”

Planned Parenthood, you’ve been exposed as the bear-smuggling heathens we all knew you were. For shame.

(H/T to Dash Riptide at Peach Pundit for the catch, Bears photo courtesy Wikipedia)

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Laura Douglas-Brown of the Southern Voice points our attention to Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel’s rather blunt stance on gay marriage, expressed several months ago in her “bring it on” campaign video.

Surprise! The GOP gubernatorial candidate opposes the idea and will fight efforts to show respect to gay men and women who’d like to enjoy the same legal rights as straight people! Including divorce!

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