Reactions to Michelle Nunn Senate Announcement

Georgia Republican Party

Ms. Nunn,

Welcome to the race! We appreciate your willingness to offer yourself up for public service and look forward to creating a stark contrast between your far left-wing beliefs and those of your Republican opponent.

Even though the General Election is more than a year away, you can rest assure that the Georgia Republican Party will make your campaign for the United States Senate our priority, and we will work daily to remind Georgia voters how out-of-touch you and the Democratic Party are with their values and convictions.

We wish you safe travels as you venture outside of Atlanta on your tour of the state. Don’t forget your map!

National Republican Senatorial Committee via Washington Times

“Those who know Michelle Nunn agree that politically she is a liberal in the mold of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama who supports Obamacare, higher taxes, and a bigger more invasive government,” said Brad Dayspring, NRSC spokesman. “It takes more than just family ties to get elected to the Senate and we look forward to a robust debate about the Obama/Nunn agenda and the ramifications that it has on middle-class families and women in Georgia.”

and more from the NRSC via TheHill.com

“The Nunn legacy in Georgia is nonexistent,” said Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“They have a green candidate with a name that had recognition 20 years ago. The state has changed.”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Georgia offers Democrats one of their best pick-up opportunities. Points of Light CEO Michelle Nunn recently announced her candidacy to run for retiring Senator Saxby Chambliss’ seat.  While the Republican primary has turned into a right wing circus likely to produce another extreme candidate like Todd Akin, Michelle Nunn brings to this race the experience of a CEO, a career devoted to service, and deep working relationships with the Bush family and many Republicans in Georgia going back generations.

Michelle Nunn’s strong candidacy and a crazy right wing primary, combined with the state’s changing demographics, make Democrats extremely confident.

Dr. Merle Black, Emory University Political Science Department

“Michelle Nunn makes this race competitive,” said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University. “She has no experience but she has a great name. She clearly will be able to unify the Georgia Democratic Party and she’ll be able to raise a tremendous amount of money.”

more from Dr. Black in TheHill.com

“The Nunn name means something here in Georgia, but Michelle is completely unknown and untested. She’s never held public office,” said Emory University professor Merle Black.

“She’s never been involved in politics. She’s run a nonprofit and was very good at that, but she’s never been in partisan politics.”

from a WSB-TV story on the announcement:

“Important and consequential as running a nonprofit is, it’s not the same as partisan politics because you’ve got a lot of people there who are going to say bad things about you and you have to know how to deal with that,” Black said.

And the final word for now from Dr. Black

“Right now, I think it’s still a state where if the Republicans nominated a credible candidate, the Republican should be favored in the election in 2014,” said Emory University political scientist Merle Black.

I was a student of Dr. Merle Black at Emory, but I respectfully disagree with his statement that Michelle Nunn will unite the Democratic party in Georgia. That would require a miracle.

Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist with McKennaLong, who managed Kasim Reed’s mayoral campaign and the Southeast Region for Obama 2012:

Tharon Johnson, a top Georgia Democratic strategist, said Sam Nunn’s name would boost her campaign.

But he said Michelle Nunn must show voters why she should be elected on her own merits.

“She needs to stand on her own — she has to tell people about her 20-plus years of public service, her work at Points of Light,” he said.

“She has to define herself immediately, which I think they’re planning to do.”

“I don’t think Nunn is ready for prime time, but Republicans must still be responsible and nominate a well-funded, reasonable candidate,” said Joel McElhannon, a Republican strategist unaligned with any of the Senate candidates. “It is now very important that Georgia Republicans have a nominee who represents the best values of the Republican Party and has the resources for a tough runoff and general election campaign.”

who was also quoted in an AJC story on the Nunn campaign:

“She does have a great political family name, but more than half the voters in Georgia have never voted for a Nunn,” said Georgia Republican strategist Joel McElhannon. “It’s not like there’s this big Nunn political machine out there that’s ready to go.” McElhannon also predicted that, as a political neophyte, Michelle Nunn “is bound to make a number of mistakes.”

 

Democratic Party of Georgia among 7 most dysfunctional

RollCall’s At the Races has named the Democratic Party of Georgia one of the top seven dysfunctional state parties in the nation.

As in much of the South, the Peach State’s Democratic Party has decayed for years. But Georgia’s problems are more consequential than in other states.

None of this bodes well for Democrats: Georgia is one of only two feasible states where the party could pick up a Senate seat in 2014. And Democrats hope to use this contest —and their much-touted candidate, nonprofit executive Michelle Nunn — as a test case in a state where changing demographics could shift votes in their favor by 2016.

It’s not all good news for Republicans, however, as four of the seven were state GOPs.

Best political analysis of the 2014 Senate race

Hipster icon GriftDrift has written one of the best analyses of the 2014 Georgia campaign for U.S. Senate that I’ve read. After a short excerpt, you should head over there and read the whole thing; it’s pretty short and worth a couple minutes.

47. That’s the highwater mark for a Democratic candidate in a statewide race in Georgia in the past decade. It was achieved by Jim Martin in 2008 against Saxby Chambliss*.
Chambliss is now retiring and a new Democrat is seeking to replace him. Michelle Nunn is the daughter of legendary Georgia Senator Sam Nunn and she will certainly face whatever candidate emerges from the crowded Republican primary field.
47 is daunting but it gets worse. In the last election where President Obama was not at the top of the ticket, the Democratic highwater mark was 43% by Roy Barnes in 2010.
You will hear many stories today that will use words like “battleground” and “changing demograpics”, but they will ignore the cold hard math.

Paid online advertising missing for most GOP Senate candidates

I wrote yesterday that the immediate appearance of paid Google and Facebook ads for Michelle Nunn’s just-announced campaigns was a sign of a professional rollout.
In addition to being a mark of competence, it’s a sign that some of the national Democratic online strategists might be advising Nunn. For all the talk about the success of social media, it was paid online advertising, mainly through Google, that enabled the online revolution by the Obama campaign in 2008. Georgia state and local Republicans have yet to learn this lesson.

At the time, I also noted the glaring absence of Republican Senate candidates in paid Google search results. That changed overnight.

Those with sharp eyes will note that Jack Kingston not only went up on Google overnight, his campaign appears to be testing at least two different taglines. That’s also part of successful online advertising: constant testing to see what yields the best results.
Kingston’s campaign must have realized that Google searches for topics related to the Georgia Senate seat likely spiked yesterday. With only one other campaign buying, prices will be very low until someone else catches on. The fact that they were up so fast suggests they were working with an online agency that has a strong relationship with Google.

We partner with Adsworth Media for online campaigns and highly recommend them; they’re precisely the kind of buyers who can get ads up on Google quickly. When you’re talking about online advertising, being able to react to trends and news events is a cornerstone to effectiveness.

In fact, we’ve come up with a promotion for political campaigns. If you’re running for office in Georgia and are not using Google Ads, email me with “Google Ads” in the subject line. We’re offering one campaign a free starter Google Ads campaign worth $100.

More election changes coming?

The Gainesville Times spoke with local legislators about the impact of court-ordered changes to the election calendar set to take effect in 2014.

Rep. Carl Rogers, R-Gainesville, said Kemp’s office is filing an appeal and the General Assembly expects to deal with the issue in the next term. The qualifying period for federal offices, March 17 through March 21, is during the term.

Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said the more times people have to go to the polls, the more disinterested they may become.

“Turnout is going to be diminished with every election,” he said.

The federal calendar has an earlier primary election than the state calendar. It has its primary set for June 3, while the state has its on July 15. It also has a federal general election runoff on Jan. 6, 2015.

“I’m sure we would want to come in and fix that,” Rogers said. “Any elected official would be concerned you wear out voters, some can get confused when they need to vote, when they need to go to the polls. I think the secretary of state hit it right on the head when he said this is going to cause chaos and people voting — a lot of confusion — and then the election officials would be very confused too.”

WABE News offers their take on the options available to Georgia after a federal judge ordered a change in voting dates for the 2014-15 federal elections.

The state has three choices: to hold the two primaries, to take the federal government to court or to move the state and local primaries to conform to the federal date.

The last of those three is the most likely option, though it will take an act of the state legislature to change the state primary date. Thomas says the Secretary of State’s office is working with the legislature and the governor’s office to decide which choice to make.

I think there’s another option that’s being considered and might have wide-ranging effects on who ends up voting in next year’s Primary and Primary Runoff elections. That option is for the Georgia General Assembly to take the Federal and state elections even earlier. If the state and the U.S. Department of Justice were able to negotiate dates even earlier that ensured the 45 days for overseas balloting, I think the court would be amenable.

What that would mean is Primary elections in early May with a Primary Runoff in late June. The reason for considering this is to move the two elections out of the middle of summer, when more highly-motivated (read “crazier”) voters are more likely to dominate and the smaller electorate might produce an even more extreme candidate.

Factor into that six announced Senate GOP candidates with David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler potentially making it a field of eight; a larger primary field means the percentage required to get into a runoff election goes down and the threshold could easily be in the low 20s.

A runoff threshold in the low-20s means Paul Broun would be very likely in the runoff election. And a runoff in the dead middle of summer helps him as well.

Of course, such an aggressive election schedule creates problems for the legislature, whose members cannot raise funds while in session. The idea of getting out of session in early April and running in a Primary in early May might make some incumbents queasy.

Then again, maybe I’m just making this up.

Other campaign announcement

Craig Lutz, a Hall County Commissioner has announced that he will challenge Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald in the 2014 Primary.

According to Commissioner Lutz, the Public Service Commission was designed to protect the consumer from State regulated monopolies yet he noticed that sharp, divisive lines were drawn between the solar special interests and the utility, setting up a classic battle situation in which the consumer always loses.  When asked, if elected, how he would represent the citizens differently than the incumbent, Lutz said:

“When elected to the Public Service Commission, my primary principle will be placing Georgians first. District 4 deserves a commissioner that will put the family and small business first when making decisions that will impact our budgets. Engaging in conflicts between special interest versus the utilities places our families in the crossfire.”

Commissioner Lutz is a military veteran having served in the United States Air Force.  Before entering elected service, he was employed for 16 years with BellSouth.  He resides in Flowery Branch with his wife Shanon Rumsey Lutz of 24 years and they have 2 daughters, ages 14 and 11.

Martha Zoller and Tim Bryant spoke to Lutz about his campaign; follow that link to listen.

State Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Cobb) spoke highly of Bruce Thompson, who is running for the state senate seat being vacated by Barry Loudermilk.

Introducing [Bruce] Thompson Tuesday was LakePoint Sporting Community and Town Center partner and veteran State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs.

“It’s my honor today to introduce a man that I’ve come to know over the last two years, almost three years, working up here,” Ehrhart said. “He came to me and asked what I thought of a brand new adventure for Bruce Thompson and in that adventure, he wanted to know what I thought of him as a Georgia Senator.”

“That didn’t take hardly any time at all to evaluate. What I’ve come to know about Bruce Thompson is that he is one of the hardest-working individuals I know. His basic makeup is a man of faith. All of you know the strength of his faith, his commitment to our Lord, the clear path that he follows. Everything he does, he places in that context.”

Thompson spoke to supporters Tuesday about a need for conservative leadership and emphasized characteristics of faith, family and community service as he makes a bid to fill the vacant seat in the Senate.

“I’ve always been a strong fiscal and social conservative Republican,” Thompson said. “We need strong leadership in this community. As you’ve heard, Sen. Barry Loudermilk has announced his candidacy to run for Congress. Barry has been a friend of this community and district for 14 years. He’s been a champion for the district and we thank him for his service.”

“As he strives to take his conservative values to the federal level, I am not willing to stand on the sidelines for the future of our children and grandchildren. This is a turning point in our community.”

Dick Williams of the Dunwoody Crier writes that three candidates announced they will oppose Dunwoody City Council candidates in this fall’s elections.

The Crier was there Monday evening when three businessmen declared their intentions to challenge for the three Dunwoody district council posts up for re-election in November. Henley Shelton wants the District 1 post held by Denny Shortal, while Jim Riticher seeks the District 2 post of Adrian Bonser. Sam Eads is running for the District 3 seat held by Doug Thompson, who hasn’t yet announced his intentions in Dunwoody.

In Albany, Minister Cheryl Calhoun announced she will run for the Ward 3 seat on the  City Commission.