26397 is a young male lab; he looks out of pen 114 waiting for his family to come get him and save him from being euthanized. They aren’t coming. During a recent four month period, 744 cats and dogs were euthanized at the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter. This young male lab can go home with you for $30 adoption fee and a $60 vet fee. Citizens 55 and older adopt for free and pay half the vet fee for a total of $30. Gwinnett County employees adopt for free and pay only the vet fee. Adopt this dog and email me and I’ll reimburse the adoption fee.
Georgia Politics, Campagins, and Elections for August 201, 2012
Tomorrow is the primary and nonpartisan judicial runoff election. Polls will be open from 7 AM to 7 PM.
A warning to campaigns who are considering a last minute attack based on your opponent’s apparent failure to file a campaign contribution report that was due six days before the runoff — the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission website appears to be lagging in making timely-filed reports available when searched for.
The best story about runoff craziness comes to us from Glynn County, where a magistrate judge had to tell a preacher to behave.
The Rev. Ken Adkins became the only person in Glynn County Friday who can’t call a school board member a fool.
In issuing two good behavior warrants against Adkins, Magistrate Steven Morgan forbade him from using Facebook and other means to call school board member Venus Holmes “a fool” or a “runaway slave” or tow truck driver Robbie Tucker a “child molester” in his work for two local campaigns. It was, however, a mutual good behavior warrant, which forbids Holmes and Tucker from doing anything to harm Adkins.
“Political discourse or not, this has crossed the line,’’ Morgan said before issuing the warrants.
Adkins’ lawyer Robert Crowe argued that he was just expressing his political opinion.
But Morgan stuck with his ruling saying, “You are not to call [Tucker] a child molester unless you’ve got proof of it. You can’t call [Holmes] a runaway slave or a fool.”
But as a result of Morgan’s order, Tucker’s and Holmes’ election opponents both said they are withdrawing from the races.
Republican Darlynne Rogers was running against Holmes for the District 5 seat on the county school board. Tashawnta Wells is in Tuesday’s Republican runoff against Tucker for the District 5 seat on the County Commission. Adkins was advising both in their campaigns.
Also gone off the rails is Loree Anne Thompson, spokesperson for the Doug Collins campaign for the Republican nomination for Ninth Congressional District. At a forum held by the South Hall Republican Club,
The setup of Tuesday night’s forum was different than in the past. Candidates were not asked questions; instead, they were allowed to speak for a set amount of time and follow up with a shorter statement after their opponents had their say.
With or without the format, signs the campaign season is beginning to wear on the candidates’ composure were visible early in the meeting.
The first surfaced when Martha Zoller, candidate for the U.S. House 9th District seat, addressing the video- and audio-recorded statements opponent Doug Collins’ campaign has used against her, said she felt “sorry for the poor little intern” who Zoller said had to sit and watch her talk for “hours and hours.”
Then, Zoller said that the intern only found “two minutes” of ammunition for the campaign. The statement prompted Collins’ campaign spokeswoman Loree Anne Thompson to interrupt Zoller’s speech.
“It was a lot more than two minutes, Martha, I can promise you,” Thompson said.
Thompson’s interjection was immediately followed by a shout from a woman in the front of the room, “Why don’t you shut up?”
As Zoller made her closing statements, Collins’ himself interrupted, saying statements Zoller was making about a vote of his were “not true.”
Earlier in the week, Loree Anne Thompson had emailed out Martha Zoller’s cell phone number asking recipients to call Martha and ask her loaded questions. I consider this a cheap, unprofessional attempt to harass the opponent.
So then, Loree Anne Thompson turned to harassing me because I had the audacity to notice what she did. Thompson sent me a self-serving “response” that I declined to publish or write about. Then after calling me three times, she emailed me this:
Todd, I’ve called you 3 times today with no response. This doesn’t take into account the multiple number of times I’ve called you on this campaign with – wait for it – no response. I’ll be HAPPY to talk with your editor about your inability to communicate with anyone on the Collins campaign, and by the looks of it you probably speak with Martha pretty regularly.
How dare you try to throw me under the bus, and then refuse to update a comment I freely offered you regarding the subject.
When you want to be a responsible journalist and include both sides of the story – give me a call.
The manure spreader and what the Augusta Chronicle calls “a cartoonish splatter of mud” certainly deserve dishonorable mention in any discussion of runoff craziness.
Maybe the runoff fever is understandable when candidates put so much time, money and effort into it.
Dennis Reese was one of three men mired in a contentious Tift County Sheriff election. He says there is a lot of work that goes into it.
“It can be very overwhelming financially, mentally, even physically. A lot of people don’t even realize that it can be very overwhelming,” Reese said.
Between speaking engagements, knocking on doors, and waving from the street, many sacrifices had to be made including a good night’s sleep.
“I probably got anywhere from five to six hours,” Reese said. “I was always constantly going, constantly thinking, preparing the next day if I had a speech, going down my list of who I am going to see tomorrow and the next day. So, it’s really never ending.”
That never ending schedule has kept many candidates with their feet planted on Tift Avenue for long hours.
For seemingly months, candidates have occupied street corners during their campaigns- so much so that tax commissioner candidates have joked that they should start charging property taxes there.
Dennis Reese lost to Steve Wood and Gene Scarbrough who are in Tuesday’s run-off.
If Cobb County Commissioner Woody Thompson meant to suggest that moms won’t have time to serve in elected office, he might just find out whether they have time to vote in runoff elections.
In recent Marietta Daily Journal article, entitled “Thompson touts experience on job,” Thompson pointed out that Cupid is 35 and he is 65.
The paper stated, “Thompson also questioned whether Cupid, a married mother of two young children, would have time to dedicate to the job.”
Cupid, who graduated with an engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and will graduate with graduate degrees in law and public administration from Georgia State University in December, has two sons and is married to her college sweetheart, Craig Cupid.
Cupid responded to Thompson’s claim of experience as a commissioner, saying “Having a lot of years on the commission board does not equate to having a lot of results or being effective. I think that people want to see more results.”
She called Thompson’s comments that a mother of two young children may not have time to dedicate to the job of commissioner “a slap in the face.”
And she was quoted in the article saying, “While I was in school, I worked, I had children, I was very involved in my community and was more visible than he was. So what was Woody’s excuse?”
On Friday, Cupid’s campaign sent out an e-blast encouraging South Cobb residents to go vote and adding remarks about Thompson’s mother comments.
Governor Nathan Deal recorded a robocall for Doug Collins that has been sent to likely runoff voters. In Hall County, Deal received more votes in the 2010 primary runoff election than were cast for all candidates in the primary itself. I’m not aware of another example of that ever happening.
In the Second Congressional District Republican Primary Runoff between Rick Allen and John House, Dougherty County reports only 29 ballots cast during early voting. Chatham and Effingham County elections officials also report little voter interest.
The Augusta Chronicle examines the voting records of the candidates in runoff elections this year.
Only two – District 5 incumbent Commissioner Bill Lockett and school board member Patsy Scott – made it to the polls every time.
Lockett, retired from careers in the military, U.S. government and board of education, said he was stationed overseas during much of the civil rights era but recalled the sacrifices his parents and others made as a reason to always vote.
“We knew people that lost their jobs because they chose to vote, and there were even people that made the ultimate sacrifice … I don’t want their work to go down in vain,” said Lockett, who – like Scott – is unopposed for re-election and voted in 31 of the 31 opportunities he had.
A strong work ethic also sent him to the polls every time, Lockett added.
“In too many instances we choose not to vote, then complain about the decisions made by elected officials,” he said.
All four runoff slots in Gwinnett County judicial election belong to women, with Emily Brantley and Pam Britt facing off for State Court and Kathy Schrader coming in with a healthy 2-1 margin over Tracey Mason Blasi in the runoff for Superior Court.
My predictions for Gwinnett County: Emily Brantley for State Court and Kathy Schrader will open up her 2:1 margin to win the Superior Court race. Schrader is my client, so there’s that, but watch the margin and see if it doesn’t actually increase.
Gwinnett County Commissioner Mike Beaudreau faces perennial candidate Tommy Hunter in the runoff election for District 3.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer calls Senator Don Balfour the poster boy for the ethically-challenged and misquotes Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams saying that proponents of limiting lobbyist gifts to legislators were limited to “media elites and liberal interest groups.” I’m pretty sure it was Speaker David Ralston who is credited with that last statement.
The seven-candidate Republican Primary for Jackson County Sheriff has been winnowed to Janis Mangum, a 23 year-veteran of the Sheriff’s office, and Ramone Gilbert, who worked in the Hall County Sheriff’s Office for 24 years before he retired.
Madison County voters will choose between incumbent sheriff Kip Thomas and former sheriff Clayton Lowe; Julie Phillips and John Sartain meet in a runoff for Coroner.
Murray County voters return to the polls on Tuesday for the Republican primary runoff for Sheriff between Gary Langford, a 38-year law enforcement veteran who served with the Chatsworth Police Department, Murray County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia State Patrol and Wyle Keith Pritchett, a patrol officer for the Eton Police Department who also worked at the Resaca Police Department and Murray County Sheriff’s Office. Democrat incumbent Howard Ensley will meet the winner in November’s general election.
In Whitfield, incumbent Clerk of the Superior Court Melica Kendrick was forced into a GOP primary runoff against Susan Miller; no Democrat qualified for the office. More information on that Clerk’s race is available here.
Political Science
Dalton State College President Emeritus Jim Burran will give talks about “Southern Politics” twice this week.
He will speak at a Coffee & Conversation program in Chatsworth on Thursday, Aug. 30, and at a Lunch & Learn program at DSC on Friday, Sept. 7. Both programs are hosted by the Dalton State Foundation.
“Georgia’s 1966 campaign for governor proved one of the most interesting in the state’s history,” Burran said. “This was the first time since Reconstruction that a Republican candidate emerged as a legitimate contender. It was this campaign that thrust future President Jimmy Carter into the limelight. And it was this election that put restaurant owner Lester Maddox into the governor’s chair.”
Apparently, the South is no longer solidly Democratic. Who knew?
The “Solid South” was a political fact, benefiting Democrats for generations and then Republicans, with Bible Belt and racial politics ruling the day.
But demographic changes and recent election results reveal a more nuanced landscape now as the two major parties prepare for their national conventions.
Southern strategists and politicians say results will turn again this year on which party and candidates understand changing demographics and voter priorities.
New citizens, birth rates, and migration patterns of native-born Americans make high-growth areas less white, less conservative or both. There is increasing urban concentration in many areas. African-American families are moving back to the South after generations in Chicago, New York or other northern cities.
Young religious voters are less likely than their parents to align with Republicans on abortion and same-sex unions. Younger voters generally are up for grabs on fundamental questions like the role of the federal government in the marketplace.
Virginia grew from 7 million people to 8 million from 2000 to 2010, according to the census. North Carolina went from 8 million to 9.5 million. Both states were 65 percent white, a drop from 72 percent in each state. Native North Carolinians made up 58.6 percent of the population, a proportion that topped 70 percent two decades ago. Virginia is now half transient or immigrant.
“The North Carolina that Sen. (Jesse) Helms ran in was certainly different than today,” said GOP campaign strategist Brian Nick, referring to the cantankerous five-term Republican senator. Nick worked for Helms’ successor, Republican Elizabeth Dole.
My own mentor, Dr. Merle Black at Emory, discusses negative campaigning and changes in technological delivery of campaign manure.
