Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for April 25, 2014

On April 25, 1734, James Oglethorpe won reelection to Parliament despite being in Georgia.

On April 27, 1773, the British Parliament enacted the Tea Act, granting a monopoly on selling tea to the American colonies.

On April 25, 1996, Governor Zell Miller signed legislation making English the official language of Georgia.

Senate Bill 519, sponsored by Sen. Mike Crotts (R-Conyers) and Rep. John Mobley (D-Winder), passed the Georgia House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin (135-31). The legislation will set in place a policy regulating the use of languages other than English in most state operations.

 

Campaign Ad Wars

Ed Lindsey has dropped his first television ad in the Eleventh Congressional District race:

Mike Collins in the Tenth Congressional District follows-up on the VanDamme spoof:

http://youtu.be/bNLF0x_yEp4

RollCall talked with Collins and looked at how the race to succeed Rep. Paul Broun is shaping up.

Broun is running for Senate, leaving a wide-open race for his district, which includes parts of the Atlanta suburbs and stretches southeast into the rural exurbs toward Augusta.

Other candidates in the race include state Rep. Donna Sheldon, Baptist Pastor and radio show host Jody Hice, tea party activist Brian Slowinski and retired Army officer Stephen Simpson, among others. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the May primary, the race will head to a July 22 runoff.

The race has been marked by low fundraising – in large part due to the competitive GOP Senate primary in the Peach State.

Collins raised $61,000 in the first quarter of this year, and ended March with $214,000 cash on hand. Sheldon raised $83,000 and ended March with $128,000 in the bank. Hice reported raising $90,000 in the first three months of the year, and had $47,000 in the bank as of March 31.

 

Earlier in the cycle, Collins released a viral video where he spoofed Claude Van Damme’s famous Volvo Ad. The Collins video had more than 45,000 views in YouTube.

National Public Radio ran a story on a Georgia candidate with an intriguing name – John F. Kennedy.

Yes, his name is John F. Kennedy.

The JFK running for state Senate in Georgia was introduced at a recent campaign event like this: “The man, the legend. And, the ‘F’ stands for Flanders, not Fitzgerald.”
John Flanders Kennedy is charming, clean-cut and good-looking, but he’s not from Boston, and he’s no Democrat.

“I grew up in Adrian, Ga., [a] small town of 800 people. We used to watch the Andy Griffith show to see how city folk live,” Kennedy says.
Kennedy is a self-described pro-family, pro-business, pro-Second Amendment Georgia Republican. He does admit to some angst about sharing a name with an icon — really, the icon — of the Democratic Party.
“I’ve been the brunt of a lot of jokes for the last 48 years. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m conservative, and I’ve been conservative all my life, and actually was a Republican in high school in the ’80s when not many people in south Georgia or central Georgia were Republicans, and certainly not many people where I grew up were Republicans,” he says.
It’s not just Kennedy’s name that’s throwing people; it’s also his campaign artwork, ubiquitous along central Georgia roads right now. Three simple bands of red, white and blue with “John F. Kennedy” in a retro typeface.

The political consultancy that Kennedy hired is called the Stoneridge Group and its CEO, Jay Williams, says he absolutely was trying to evoke President Kennedy with the artwork. For an obvious reason. “I mean, how many stories have you done on political campaign identity? The fact that you’re doing one now proves that we’re getting folks talking about him,” Williams says.

RollCall profiles the Georgia Senate race on the Democratic side.

A boom in the metro-Atlanta population over the past decade included a spike among minorities, who are generally more likely to support Democrats. And while the percentage of the white vote decreased from 75 percent to 61 percent from 2000 to 2012, Democrats in the state say there are still more than 800,000 unregistered black, Hispanic and Asian voters.

When asked why Democrats expect to register black voters who stayed home twice when Obama was on the ballot, state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams noted that the Obama campaign did not expend significant resources in Georgia and said there was a lingering perception in the state that he wouldn’t win anyway.

“People who didn’t register to vote for President Obama in 2012 or 2008, they did not have someone coming to their door saying we have a chance to win,” Abrams said. “With Michelle’s race, there will be a concerted effort to register and mobilize and turn out voters.”

National and state Republicans remain skeptical that she can put together a winning coalition of voters, but there is concern that the GOP nominee who emerges from the July 22 runoff will turn out to be someone Democrats can effectively label as far outside of the mainstream.

“It won’t take more than a few ads pointing out Nunn’s first vote will be for Harry Reid for majority leader — and that enables the entire Obama agenda — to end any serious flirtation moderate, suburban white voters will have with her,” said Joel McElhannon, a veteran Georgia Republican consultant. “The only real risk Republicans have of losing is if we nominate someone perceived as too extreme to those voters — so extreme it trumps concerns about Obama’s agenda.”

One path for Democrats outlined in an analysis of demographic and voting data by the Atlas Project, a Democrat-aligned firm, includes improving performance in metro Atlanta and at least matching former Senate nominee Jim Martin, who took Chambliss to a runoff in 2008, everywhere else. It also notes Democrats must take more than 50 percent on Election Day to avoid a runoff, which this cycle would be held on Jan. 6.

I really think that the logo is one of the best I’ve seen recently. Perfect, though it might not work for a candidate with a more conventional name. That story is also one of the reasons I listen to public radio – yes, they’re liberal, but their storytelling is deeper than most others and has a unique voice.

Senator Judson Hill writes at InsiderAdvantage that simplifying Georgia’s tax code can help with economic development in the Peach State.

Reforming or simplifying Georgia’s tax structure is not a new concept. In fact, it’s an issue that has been at the forefront of the Georgia legislature’s priorities for many years. Although the Georgia General Assembly passed tax reform legislation in 2012, our tax structure is remains outdated and needs to be simplified. The 2012 legislation was a big step and benefits many; however, we still have a long way to go. Georgia must be constantly vigilant in considering ways to lower the state tax burden on individuals and businesses if we want to remain competitive. Perhaps the biggest change that should occur is a simplification and ease of Georgia’s heavy reliance on income tax revenue. Some economists believe this to be a major disadvantage to Georgia’s future economic growth.

Several common threads appeared about Georgia’s dependence on the personal income tax. First and foremost, taxing productivity, savings and investments penalizes Georgians who are most responsible with their own money and often create jobs for other people. Also, the complexities in the current state income tax system, including its numerous exemptions interfere with the normal supply and demand for goods and services. A simplified system, therefore, would not only return economic freedom to Georgians, but also makes complying with the tax code easier. With simplification also comes a lower administrative burden on the state to operate its tax revenue system. Perhaps most telling of all, the 9 states that do not have a state income tax are responsible for about 62 percent of all job growth over the last 10 years.

Events Calendar

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Cobb County GOP Women: General Meeting

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Bob Johnson Congress: Physicians’ Roundtable with Representative Andy Harris

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Georgia Association of College Republicans: State Convention

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Fayette County GOP: Family Fish Fry

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GA GOP 2nd & 8th District: GOP Candidate Training Seminar.

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Hall County GOP Women: Breakfast – Candidates for State School Superintendent, School Board, Public Service Commission, and County Commission

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Georgia Association of College Republicans: State Convention

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Paulding County GOP Women: Meeting

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Douglas County Tea Party: Candidate Forum

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Lumpkin County GOP: Local Candidate Forum

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Rep. Austin Scott: 2014 Congressional Art Competition Ceremony

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ADVANCE VOTING: For Primary/Nonpartisan Election Begins

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Bob Barr Congress: Steve Forbes Luncheon

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Karen Handel Senate: Early Voting Kickoff Rally with Gov. Jan Brewer

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Bulloch County GOP: Meeting with John Stone and Eugene Yu

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Forsyth County GOP: Debates – GA State House 24 & GA State Senate 27

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Peach County GOP: Vivian Childs Meet & Greet

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Gwinnett County GOP: 2014 Legislative Update & Ice Cream Sundae Social

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