Fresh Loaf

The last time he ran, he was clobbered by a little-known challenger with a fraction of the funding. It’s been nearly eight years since his name appeared on a ballot. And the state became decidedly redder in the meantime.

By most standards, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes should be a political has-been.

But the reality is that, during the months he spent deciding whether to try to get his old job back, Barnes was seen as the 800-pound gorilla lurking over the governor’s race. Now that he’s officially thrown his hat into the ring, he’s almost universally viewed as the instant front-runner — insofar as that term has any real meaning a full year before the Democratic primary.

On the face of it, the celebrated re-run of Roy Barnes is arguably evidence that the Georgia Democratic Party is in a woeful state. When a defeated former governor — even one with legendary charisma and proven fundraising ability — can set aside his elder statesman duties and immediately vault to the front of the pack running for the state’s highest post, that doesn’t speak well for his party’s depth of electable talent.

Still, there’s reason to believe that the Barnes candidacy could help give the Democrats their best shot at recapturing the Governor’s Mansion, as well as several other statewide seats. And even if Barnes isn’t his party’s nominee, says Emory political science professor Alan Abramowitz, “It looks like the Democrats have a decent shot at winning back the governor’s office.”

Continue reading “Roy Barnes’ bid for governor reshapes the political landscape”

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Newt Gingrich received the glossy treatment from the New York Times Magazine this weekend.

The former Republican House Speaker wants to become a guiding light for the once powerful political party that’s trying to find its way.

On a possible 2012 run for president:

Gingrich said he was focused on building his own movement, his party of the American people. “Now, if in that process I end up helping to shape the ideas and the language and the solutions that for a long period of time define the choices in America, then I’ve succeeded,” he said. “If in that process personal ambition leads to the presidency, that’s fine, but it’s a secondary achievement, I think.”

I said I doubted anyone could be elected president if he actually felt that way.

“I think I’m closer to Benjamin Franklin than to George Washington,” Gingrich told me. “I’m a contributor to my country and to my times. If it turns out that there’s a moment when it makes sense to run, then I’ll run. But if I end up never being able to run, then it won’t devastate me.”

Not a lot of new Newt news there, but it’s worth a read. Even if only for the mental image of Gingrich blurting out “The 1913 Girl Scouts’ Manual!” while discussing steel plants closing.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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State Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-ACORN, has proposed legislation that would allow counties to band together and levy a one-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects. Metro Atlanta bigwigs favor this approach. Mullis’ legislation would make the 10-county metropolitan area one region.

(Hat tip to Georgia Legislative Watch)

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Jesus, this never ends.

Yesterday, state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chicamauga, was blasted by ACORN, the controversial grassroots organization that was accused of voter registration fraud during last year’s presidential campaign, for the lawmaker’s resolution that urges the Internal Revenue Service yank its tax-exempt status. ACORN said it didn’t have such status.

There was much guffawing. But blogger Anita Moncrief says Mullis was right.

Sentator Mullis was correct in calling for ACORN’s tax exempt status to be revoked because it does have one, it just happens to be registered in the name of Project Vote. Civil RICO charges filed on January 7, 2008 allege what the liberal voter registration world has known for years. The complaint details a report done by ACORN’s own lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley. The complaint also quotes part of the document that was leaked to the New York Times.

There’s lot more to Moncrief’s argument, which can be viewed through the link. (Click that little word “says” up there. Success!)

Updated to reflect a comment below.

(A big tip of the hat is due to Jason Pye, who along with Chris Farris, is providing great Gold Dome coverage this session at Georgia Legislative Watch.)

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Charles Jackson, ACORN’s communications director, sends this prepared statement regarding a resolution filed yesterday by state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chicamauga, urging the IRS yank the grassroots’ organization’s tax-exempt status.

ACORN says there’s just one problem — it doesn’t have such a status. ACORN President Maude Hurd says Mullis “indicates his ignorance” with the resolution.

*ACORN Response to Ga. Senator’s Legislation: Organization has no tax-exempt status *

On Jan. 13, ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement on Georgia State Sen. Jeff Mullis’ legislation urging the Internal Revenue Service to no longer allow ACORN to keep its tax exempt status.

“Senator Mullis is just throwing around an old John McCain talking point. He would do better focusing on the issues of working families in Georgia, like jobs or foreclosures.

ACORN is proud of our work to help low and moderate-income citizens become apart of the electoral process. More than 900,000 voters – mostly minority and low-income — have cast ballots since 2004 through ACORN’s voter registration efforts.

ACORN has never been charged with falsifying any voter records. There has been a small fraction of the 13,000 temporary workers we hired to try to defraud ACORN by turning in bogus cards. ACORN has a zero policy for employees deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality control procedures identifies this is happening, the person is fired and turned into elections and law enforcement officials.

As required by law and legal advice, ACORN turned in all signed applications for final verification to be determined by election officials. This extensive Quality Control process held up well in the face of politically-motivated attacks and unprecedented media scrutiny. Though this fact was not always widely reported, most of the forms that Boards of Elections found to be problematic had already been flagged as such by ACORN’s own staff.

Senator Mullis indicates his ignorance by calling for revocation of ACORN’s tax-exempt status; the organization does not have such status.”

(Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider reminds us that Mullis was one of the earliest supporters of John McCain, the former presidential candidate who accused ACORN of “maybe destroying the fabric of democracy in this country” with its controversial voter registration drives.)

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Denis O’Hayer, a 33-year news veteran and one of the state’s best political reporters, is joining local NPR affiliate WABE 90.1 FM.

Starting on February 2, O’Hayer will locally host Public Radio International’s The World from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., NPR’s All Things Considered from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and American Public Media’s MarketPlace from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. These programs present a mix of local, national and international news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and features on business and economics.

During his 11-year tenure with WXIA-TV, O’Hayer regularly covered local affairs, politics and government – including the Georgia Legislature. He also served as a reporter and anchor for election coverage on 11Alive, My ATL TV and 11Alive.com.

“Denis brings with him a wealth of experience as one of Atlanta’s brightest and most competent reporters in the business,” said John Weatherford, Public Broadcasting Atlanta Senior Vice President and General Manager. “His career in television and radio will complement the station’s efforts to continue to deliver reliable news and information. Our entire news department is looking forward to working with Denis.”

…

“I am thrilled to work with WABE,” O’Hayer said. “The station has established itself as the city’s public radio station and provider of news. The station has a strong credibility all its own, and I’m looking forward to this new journey.”

If you don’t recognize his name, you can rest assured you’ve seen O’Hayer’s face before. He’s the scrappy guy with the gray beard.

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State Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, filed legislation today that urges the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

If you recall, the grassroots organization pissed off cable news pundits and right-wing Internet trolls during the 2008 presidential election for alleged voter fraud.

From the state Senate press office:

“An organization that chooses to undermine the integrity of our nation’s election process should not be entitled to tax exemption benefits,” said Sen. Mullis. “The excessive amount of evidence against ACORN engaging in fraudulent activity demands that the organization to be held accountable for taking advantage of hardworking taxpayers, and I call on the IRS to ensure that justice is executed in this case.”

The grassroots organization runs a large voter registration drive focused on minority and low-income communities, and during the 2008 presidential election came under fire for submitting voter registrations to 11 states with false information. ACORN has been accused of submitting the names of deceased persons and the names of 15 members of the Dallas Cowboys on registration forms in Nevada. In Ohio, one person stated that he signed 73 voter registration applications over a five-month span through ACORN, and in Connecticut, ACORN submitted a registration card for a seven-year-old girl that contained a false birth date.

Sen. Mullis is calling on the IRS and the Secretary of the Treasury to launch a full-scale investigation into ACORN’s fraudulent activities, and is urging the IRS to remove the organization’s tax exemption status.

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In a sign that the presidential race has tightened and the contest is narrowing to just a few battleground states, the New York Times reports today that the Obama campaign has pulled ads in Georgia.

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As you may have read on state politics websites and in news reports today, some of the documents from Speaker Glenn Richardson’s divorce have been unsealed after government gadfly George Anderson sued.

Just got my hands on ‘em AND…they’re pretty tame. No mentions of alleged trysts or cloakroom deals for natural-gas pipelines.

What they do show is that the case was a political hot potato in Paulding County. It went from judge to judge, with each one recusing himself from the case, until it ultimately returned to Paulding County Superior Court Judge James Osborne, who according to the documents was the “only remaining judge in the the Paulding County Circuit to which this case can be assigned.”  Osborne, who originally sealed the documents, is a former law partner of Richardson’s.

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Bob Barr’s Libertarian bid for the presidency could put Georgia in play for Barack Obama, the New York Times quoted U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson as saying over the weekend.

“If Barr got 8 percent, and you’ve got the higher African-American turnout from Barack Obama, then you’d have a significantly close race in the state,” the Georgia Republican told the Times in an article published Saturday.

That differs from the line of most local Republicans, who’ve generally pooh-poohed the potential Barr effect. But several polls have shown Obama surprsingly within 10 percent of John McCain in Georgia, and Barr with support as high as 8 percent — presumably drawn from libertarian-leaning conservatives who’d otherwise back McCain.

Barr, a former uber-conservative congressman from the north Atlanta ‘burbs (who gained true fame as a Creative Loafing columnist), was dissed by Bush, Rove and the Republican establishment during redistricting earlier this decade when he was lumped into an unfriendly district dominated by a more lockstep party mate. He doesn’t seem to bothered by the prospect of harming McCain’s chances:

“ ‘Well, gee, you might take votes from Senator McCain,’ ” Mr. Barr said this week, mimicking one of the complainers, as he sat sipping Coca-Cola in his plush corner office, 12 stories above Atlanta. “They all said, ‘Look, we understand why you’re doing this. We agree with why you’re doing it. But please don’t do it.’ ”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Although 58 percent of Georgia voters chose to re-elect President Bush in 2004, the president’s approval rating is a mere 35 percent in the state now, according to a recent poll by Strategic Vision. The rating still puts Georgia well ahead of Bush’s national approval of 26 percent — the lowest of his presidency, according to Newsweek.

An overwhelming 81 percent of those polled don’t view Bush as a “conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan.”

Still, the president’s unpopularity does not translate into support in Georgia of the Democratic-controlled Congress. Only 19 percent of respondents approved of Congress’ performance.

Most Georgians are moderately satisfied with their senators, with Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson earning approval ratings of 50 percent and 52 percent, respectively.

With more than 100 Georgia service members killed in the Iraq war, the desire for troop withdrawal is high: About 45 percent of Georgians support a withdrawal of troops within the next six months, the poll shows.

The company polled 800 people who are likely to vote, and the poll has a margin of error of 3 percent. In other results:

— Gov. Sonny Perdue enjoys an approval rating of 55 percent.

— Hillary Clinton (29 percent) enjoys a slight lead over Barack Obama (26 percent) for the Democratic presidential nomination.

— Fred Thompson (25 percent) enjoys the lead for Republicans over Rudy Giuliani (20 percent).

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