Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for October 8, 2015

The Chicago Fire began on October 8, 1871. A completely different kind of Chicago Fire is underway now. Here’s a great story about how a catcher whose hitting is mediocre at best is leading the Chicago Cubs into the postseason.

On October 8, 1895, the Liberty Bell arrived in Atlanta for the Cotton States Exposition.

The famously–cracked 2,000 pound pealer left Philadelphia on seven trips between 1885 and 1915. Each time it came home with more cracks. It turned out the men hired to guard the Bell were taking liberties, literally: chipping off pieces and selling them as souvenirs.

Cheering crowds greeted the Bell in Atlanta. A two–mile parade took it to Piedmont Park, where 50,000 people lined up to see it.

Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Georgia Historical Society have an interesting video on the Liberty Bell’s trip to Atlanta. You can view a photo of the Liberty Bell Parade at the Atlanta History Center.

Polling released on October 8, 1976 indicated that Democrat Jimmy Carter won the second debate against President Gerald Ford by a 50-27 margin.

On October 8, 1981, former Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter visited with President Ronald Reagan at the White House before heading to Egypt to represent the United States at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Long-time Atlanta Braves pitcher Phil Niekro won his 300th game on October 8, 1984, though he wore Yankees pinstripes for that game.

The first C-5A airplane arrived at Robins Air Force Base on October 8, 1997.

On October 8, 1998, the United States House of Representatives voted 258-176 to authorize an impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton.

President George W. Bush issued an Executive Order establishing the Department of Homeland Security on October 8, 2001.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

2008 Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley, who sent that year’s Senate race into a runoff, will run again in 2016 against incumbent Republican Johnny Isakson.

Democrat Sanford Bishop told the AJC Political Insider he will run for reelection in the Second Congressional District.

Head on down to Perry, Georgia for the Georgia National Fair if you’re itching to vote for your Presidential candidate while he or she is still in the race ahead of next year’s March 1 SEC Primary. Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s “Peanut Poll” starts today when the Fair opens.

Starting Thursday, a daily straw poll at the Georgia National Fair in Perry will show the relative support of the Republican and Democratic hopefuls among fairgoers.

Nicknamed the Peanut Poll, it amounts to a row of Mason jars and a ground pea given to visitors to the Secretary of State’s booth in the Georgia Grown building, one jar for each candidate from both parties. Fans will drop their goober into the jar of the candidate they support, or in the “undecided” jar.

Eating the peanut may illustrate another sentiment but probably won’t be counted.

Then at 5 p.m. each day, Secretary of State Brian Kemp will invite a guest to announce the standings. The results will also be reported on Kemp’s Facebook and Twitter feeds where voters can post their own photos and comments.

“The Peanut Poll will provide candidates a great opportunity to further their cause, meet Georgia voters face to face, and sample a large selection of fried foods,” Kemp said. “The road to the White House goes through Perry, and it’s paved with peanut shells.”

Speaking of peanuts, our friends and neighbors in the Palmetto State have lost 70% of South Carolina’s peanut crop this year to flooding from the hurricane, according to GrowingGeorgia.com.

Hillary Clinton has announced her Georgia Presidential Campaign team with over 60 elected officials, party activists, and community organizers.

Republican Presidential Candidate Ben Carson will be selling and signing books on Saturday, October 10th at 7 PM at Books-A-Million, 5900 Sugarloaf Parkway, Lawrenceville.

As DeKalb Turns

A group called Reform DeKalb has called for a “Red Out” at tonight’s Town Hall Meeting called by iCEO Lee May to show report for removing May from office. The Town Hall meeting is from 6:30 to 8 PM at Maloof Auditorium, 1300 Commerce Drive, Decatur, GA 30030.

State Senator Emanuel Jones is also calling for iCEO Lee May to resign his office.

Adding fuel to the fire, it appears that iCEO Lee May took cash loans from an employee and then promoted the employee.

DeKalb County interim CEO Lee May’s credibility has come into question after he assured the public that he never told his special investigators about taking a loan from a subordinate, when a recorded conversation shows he did.

In that same conversation, he admitted promoting the subordinate despite a lackluster work ethic, which May tolerated, according to an investigator’s notes.

May denied the conversation took place in a news conference Wednesday, where he slammed the results of former state Attorney General Mike Bowers’ six-month, $850,000 corruption investigation. Bowers hit back by releasing three pages of notes from an interview between May and investigator Richard Hyde, then publicly calling the county’s top leader a “liar.”

This [AJC] reporter heard audio of a snippet of that conversation with Hyde. The investigator asks May if he ever took a loan from aide Morris Williams, and May replies, “… I may have, you know, said, ‘Hey, can I borrow a couple hundred dollars?’ … It hadn’t never been more than a few hundred dollars.”

A DeKalb County water employee picked up more than $2000 in cash from at least one homeowner in a scam threatening to cut off her water for an unpaid water bill.

“[the DeKalb employee] said they started this new door-to-door service for customers with extreme high bills,” water customer Angela Sheffield said.

Sheffield told Belanger former DeKalb Watershed employee Christopher Jackson first came to her door in May and pressured her into giving him a cash payment toward her overdue water and sewer bill.

“He said if you don’t then we will pull your meter and you can’t have any service until you pay your bill in full,” Sheffield said.

Sheffield said she gave Jackson about $2,300 over the past five months.

She contacted Channel 2 Action News when she realized the money was not being credited to her account.

“We don’t have people going door to door collecting for water bills,” Burke Brennan said with DeKalb County.

Commissioner Nancy Jester has proposed the first step to reforming issues raised in the Bowers report on corruption in DeKalb County.

Commissioner Nancy Jester, who was not named in the Report of the Special Investigators to DeKalb County, is the first DeKalb County Commissioner to introduce substantive positive policy solutions to address The DeKalb County Corruption Crisis.

This is the first of several reforms Commissioner Nancy Jester will introduce for a vote by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners:

Whereas, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners has an obligation to establish policies that promote financial stewardship and safeguard taxpayers resources; and,

Whereas, the Report from Special Investigators Bowers and Hyde demonstrates that internal controls in DeKalb County Government are weak and ineffective at preventing financial, contracting, and human resources fraud and abuse; and,

Whereas, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners should take immediate and decisive action to direct the Administration, including the office of the CEO, the CFO, the Director of Human Resources, and al Department heads, to adopt robust and meaningful internal controls with redundant checks for all expenditures, contracting, and human resources actions;

Now, therefore we, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, do herby order the CEO, CFO, the Director of Human Resources, and all Department Heads to immediately implement internal controls that include requirements for the signatures of Department Heads and the CFO attesting to the validity, legality, and appropriateness of every expenditure, contract execution, and hiring action under penalty of termination and fines if found to be illegal, unethical, or without sufficient documentation.

#TBT

For today’s Throwback Thursday, we thought we’d revisit this time in the 2008 Republican Presidential Primary, with an assist from RealClearPolitics.com.

At this point in the 2008 Republican Nomination campaign, Rudy Giuliani was the dominant candidate, with polls showing him leading from +2 to +12 for the October 4-7, 2007 period. He would dominate the polls through most of December, when Huckabee began showing some strength before McCain rose to the lead, eventually winning the nomination and losing the White House.

In 188 polls between October 2006 and his collapse in December 2012, Giuliani lead in 169, with 5 ties, 8 showing Fred Thompson in the lead, 3 McCain leads, and 3 for Huckabee.

So what happened to Giuliani? Strategy happened. Very, very bad strategy. Rudy put all his chips on winning Florida and Super Tuesday, and ignoring Iowa and the other early states. The problem was that by the time the Primary circus made it to Florida, Giuliani was out of the race for all intents and purposes, and came in a disappointing 3d place in the Sunshine State.

Does this mean that Donald J. Trump is headed down the same path to political defeat that his fellow brash New Yorker pioneered in 2008? By no means. But it does illustrate how a dominant candidate early on can put himself out of the race by making bad strategic decisions. Sic Semper Tyrannis New Yorkus?