Fresh Loaf

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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Georgia’s top conservative political blog gets funnier with each passing day. Perhaps not intentionally.

Peach Pundit chief Erick Erickson revoked contributor Andre Walker’s front-page posting privileges Saturday. Erickson says Walker violated one of Peach Pundit’s most important rules:

Says Erickson:

[W]e have never tolerated and won’t tolerate the use of expletives like the F word in front page posts. We may say the word, but we try here to keep the posts family friendly. I’d redacted the word from Andre’s post and apologize to those of you who encountered it in your reading.

What did Walker say that so offended Erickson?

Walker wrote a post Saturday quoting Erickson’s notorious April 30 outburst – the one where Erickson called retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter “a goat fucking child molester.”

Peach Pundit chief Erick Erickson

In other words, Erick banned himself.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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As reported yesterday in the AJC, Gwinnett County police raided the wrong Lawrenceville home in an attempt to break up a suspected methamphetamine distributor. Andre at Georgia Politics Unfiltered spoke with state Sen. Vincent Fort about the issue.

The Democrat lawmaker who represents parts of Atlanta — and who also received one write-in vote for Cobb County Tax Commissioner on Nov. 4 (!) — introduced legislation last session that would’ve banned the use of “no-knock” warrants statewide.

State Sen. Vincent Fort (D – Atlanta) reacted to the article detailing the mistaken raid of John Lewis’ home saying the incident would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.

“This is just the reason why we need a statewide law restricting no-knock warrants,” Fort said.

More insight and info is over at Andre’s.

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A recent Democracy Corps poll focused on Georgia shows a slight 46-44 margin for John McCain over Barack Obama and a 48-44 margin for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss over Democratic challenger Jim Martin.

But it was a question about the 2010 Governor’s race that caught my eye:

(more…)

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Polls continue to show U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss with a tight race against Democratic nominee Jim Martin:

From SurveyUSA:

Four weeks ago, when SurveyUSA began tracking the Senate race in Georgia, Chambliss, who is running for his second term, led Martin by 17 points. Two weeks ago, before the candidates debated, Chambliss led by 2. Today, in polling conducted entirely after the 10/09/08 debate which included all three candidates, little has changed.

18% of Georgia voters say they have already voted; among them, Martin leads by 4 points; among those likely voters who have not yet voted, Chambliss leads by 4. Votes are counted in 22 days; any outcome is possible.

(Hat tip to Andre Walker at Georgia Politics Unfiltered)

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Andre Walker at Georgia Politics Unfiltered points us to a WMAZ (Macon) poll conducted by SurveyUSA that says U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss now leads Democratic nominee Jim Martin by just two points.

This latest poll seems to confirm the numbers released by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) yesterday that showed Chambliss leading Martin by just three points [Source: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, "New Georgia Poll Shows Martin Within Three Points Of Chambliss", September 29, 2008].

U.S. Senate – Georgia

Saxby Chambliss (R) – 46%
Jim Martin (D) – 44%
Allen Buckley (L) – 5%
Undecided – 5%

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Just an update: Matthew Cardinale, who broke the story about blogger Andre Walker’s payments from U.S. Rep. David Scott, responded late last night to my inquiry about Walker’s own response to his story.

Walker argued yesterday that Atlanta Progressive News, where Cardinale is news editor, was being hypocritical because APN took campaign ad money from three candidates it endorsed.

Here’s Cardinale’s response:

Dear Ken,

… These were all ad purchases. Creative Loafing sells ads too, right?

The difference is our readers can see exactly who is advertising when the ads run and if they feel ads affect content they can take that into consideration.

To insinuate ads affect endorsements, our recent slate of endorsements laid out a number of principled issue positions with which we made our decisions.

Also, Atlanta Housing Authority can advertise on our website if they want to (really, we’ll take their money), but we’re not going to all of a sudden stop investigating them. David Scott can advertise too and he’s still a corporate centrist.

(He’s referring to AHA and Scott because APN’s written critically about both of them.)

I pretty much agree with Cardinale — though you could accuse me (as one commenter to my last post basically did) of saying so because we take ads. Just as Matthew said about APN, ads don’t affect what we write in our articles — though what we report has occasionally affected advertising. Around this whole conflict of interest standpoint, ads at least have the benefit of being right out there for everyone to see, so they can judge for themselves if they feel as if a story matches a special interest; payments from political candidates might be disclosed on campaign reports, but how many people pour over them?

‘NOTHER UPDATE: Andre Walker posted a mea culpa of sorts on Georgia Politics Unfiltered this morning. I apologize that this is coming so late. As noted elsewhere, we had awful Internet problems today in the office, which kinda hampered things.

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The Atlanta blogger who got in hot water this morning for taking money from politicians is accusing his accusers of doing much the same thing.

“This just another case of the pot calling the kettle black,” Georgia Politics Unfiltered’s Andre Walker said in an e-mail about Atlanta Progressive News.

APN reported early this morning that Walker received payments from U.S. Rep. David Scott’s campaign (apparently for designing a website) and also ran favorable coverage of Scott. Decaturguy blogged last year that Walker had set up a website for Vernon Jones and also covered Jones’ Senate campaign.

But Walker sent campaign disclosure reports to CL showing that APN received a total of $575 for ads from politicians whom the website endorsed: Angela Moore for Georgia secretary of state in 2006, Able Mable Thomas for the fifth congressional district this year, and Donzella James, who ran against Scott in the 13th congressional district this year. (more…)

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— It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t know how I feel. GriftDrift has posted another installment of “My Morning Wooten” and … he says Wooten makes sense. WTF? Thankfully, by the end he’s poking at Wooten for pulling out the usual canard about the liberal media. There. All’s right with the world again.

— Over at Good Will Hinton, there’s a podcast interview with S.E. Cupp, co-author of the book Why You’re Wrong About The Right: Behind The Myths. The stereotypes Cupp hopes to debunk? “Republicans are racist, we’re humorless, we hate the planet, we’re stupid, we’re religious fanatics, we aren’t cool,” Cupp tells Hinton.

— Do we need to create a code of ethics for the blogosphere? A.man.I at My Urban Reporter discusses the news reports that Atlanta political blogger Andre Walker (Peach Pundit, Georgia Politics Unfiltered) is on the payroll of U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Atlanta), yet wrote multiple posts about Scott without disclosing their relationship. A.man.I points out, and I second, that’s an ethical no, no. See also CL editor Ken Edelstein’s post on the issue.

— Tondee’s Tavern has a report from Ed, who is in China for the Olympic Games and laments the censorship he’s already faced with Internet access.

—  Amy Smart received an invitation from Gov. Sonny Perdue to attend his annual fish fry and, as she writes on Georgia Women Vote!, she’s not really amused since Sonny’s “Go Fish Georgia” program is fully funded while schools are facing budget cuts.

— Things have been a little quiet on the Dora-Blog. But now Bubba Rich laments that the bad times have come back to Doraville, that touch of country in the city.

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SEE UPDATE here.

A leading Georgia political blogger is being accused of conflicts of interest for doing work for politicians and failing to disclose it. The issue raises a couple of broader questions about ethical standards for political bloggers.

Atlanta Progressive News released an investigative article early this morning that details work done by Georgia Politics Unfiltered’s Andre Walker for U.S. Senate candidate Vernon Jones and incumbent Congressman David Scott, as well as a long list of favorable posts on Scott.

(more…)

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