Republican Senate Candidate Eugene Chin Yu

Recently-announced and previously unknown Senate candidate Eugene Chin Yu sat down with WDRW in Augusta and destroyed any chance he had of winning the nomination.

He doesn’t look like the other candidates or sound like them, but an Augusta businessman believes he’s got what it takes to be Georgia’s next United States senator. His name is Eugene Yu.

“Well, here I am,” Yu said with a smile. “You got me. Let me see if you really want a change. I’m a very traditional conservative Republican.”

Yu may be a new face in Georgia politics, but he’s been in Augusta for years. His friends from the Butler High School class of ’74 called him Chin Yu. The former firefighter and Richmond County deputy took the name Eugene when he became a U.S. citizen and joined the Army.

“As time goes on, I look around my country, my society. To me, the American Dream is slipping away,” Yu said.

I think that his heavily-accented spoken English relegates him to the sideline. He cannot win, place or show in a Republican primary field featuring three United States Congressmen and a former statewide elected official.

Michelle Nunn: Political Rorschach Test

The Rorschach Test was widely used for years, supposedly revealing much about a test subject by interpreting what they saw in a random inkblot. Michelle Nunn is a test you can use on people who write about politics. Tom Crawford writes about the reactions to Nunn’s candidacy.

Nunn’s entry into the race evidently scared the daylights out of some Republicans, judging from the frantic tone of statements they distributed to the media.

“Thanks to your friend President Obama, a tank of gas costs an ‘arm and a leg’ these days (which is NOT covered by ObamaCare) so don’t forget to cash those fat checks from your liberal buddies in Washington before you hit the road!” the Georgia Republican Party taunted.

“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,” warned the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

On the other side, Democrats were reacting as if they had just witnessed the second coming of Jesus Christ.
In an outpouring of Tweets and Facebook postings, Democrats declared how “excited” they were about Nunn and predicted that Georgians would line up to vote for her because she was the daughter of the sainted Sam Nunn.

For them, Nunn is the heroic outsider who will slay the Republican nominee and magically revitalize a Democratic Party that was recently ranked as one of the seven most dysfunctional state parties in the U.S.

Make of it what you will.

Social Moderate announces he will not run for Senate

Georgia Tipsheet writes that Atlanta attorney and political unknown Art Gardner has announced he will enter the Republican Primary for the United States Senate if he can raise $250,000 quickly.

Art Gardner, a named parter at the boutique intellectual property firm Gardner Groff, has told associates in the legal community he has launched a pledge drive to raise an initial $250,000 for a possible campaign.

Gardner, who has never before run for political office, cautioned that he was not seeking immediate contributions, but said that pledges were “pouring in” and was “confident” he would crest the quarter million dollar watermark.

In an accompanying eight-page economic manifesto, the almost-candidate says he is “running to avert a fiscal disaster” that none of the other GOP hopefuls are willing to address in earnest for fear of sacrificing votes.

“My moderate and tolerance social positions are based on the idea that it is wrong for the morality of some to be imposed on the rest through government action,” he wrote.

Pro-tip #1: political fundraising pledges not written on paper with a routing number and account number are worth about ten cents to the dollar, if that.

Pro-tip #2: nobody reads eight-page political screeds formatted in huge blocks of text without underlining, highlighting, and italics to allow them to skim it.

If his announcement means that he won’t run unless he raises $250k from other people, you might as well consider it an announcement that he will not be a candidate in 2014.

Hudgens: Obamacare too expensive

Walter Jones of Morris News broke the story that Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens requested an emergency delay in a federal deadline to approve rates under Obamacare.

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens asked U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for another 30 days beyond today’s deadline to approve the health plans submitted by seven insurance companies wanting to do business in the state.

He said some rates were 198 percent higher than current plans available in the state.

“Georgia consumers cannot afford these massive rate increases,” Hudgens wrote in his letter to Sebelius.

In an interview with Morris News, Hudgens said that on Monday, he received the reports of outside actuaries hired to review the premiums requested by seven insurance companies wanting to offer individual health plans through the state’s exchange. Those actuaries concluded that six sought justifiable premiums and the seventh was 11 percent above what was necessary to comply with the requirements of the federal health reform law known as Obamacare.

“President Obama promised Americans that Obamacare would lower rates, but here in Georgia insurance companies are demanding massive rate increases up to 198 percent for some individuals,” he said.

The highest-ranking member of the Georgia Senate, President Pro Tempore David Shafer, R-Duluth, released a statement in support of Hudgens even before the commissioner’s press release was issued.

“Notwithstanding the President’s many assurances to the contrary, I have always suspected that Obamacare would lead to higher health insurance rates,” Shafer said. “But the rate increases pending before the Georgia Insurance Department are absolutely staggering in magnitude.”

Shafer knows a thing or two about insurance, having served as Deputy State Insurance Commissioner and Vice Chair of the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee.

Hudgens also discussed the issue with WSB-TV

Lawyers

Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker vetoed a measure to waive the Attorney-Client privilege during an investigation of alleged wrongdoing by the Mayor. Convenient.

Congratulaitons to Jeffrey Hanson, who will be sworn in as the newest Bibb County State Court Judge today, after Gov. Nathan Deal appointed him to the open seat.

The power of a headline writer

If you ever doubt the media’s ability to shape the news according to its biases, consider two headlines covering the exact same information, that the Georgia Ports Authority set several shipping records for the year.

The Athens Banner-Herald, over an AP story, led with:

Savannah port again misses 3M container milestone

While the Savannah Morning News titled their story:

Bulk cargo, autos drive record year for GPA

Either way, congratulations to the Georgia Ports Authority for another outstanding year. As a conservative, I generally expect government-run entities to be less than world-class, but the Georgia Ports Authority does a great job of driving our state economy, and is truly a world-class operation.

California leads in GOP Hispanic outreach

An interesting article in the Washington Times tells how a Republican candidate for State Senate beat the odds and political pundits by winning a special election in a district where voters are 60% Hispanic.

Fresno cherry farmer and cattle rancher Andy Vidak, who is fluent in Spanish, said he captured the state Senate seat in last week’s closely watched runoff vote by connecting with Hispanic voters with a “common-sense” approach that focused on job creation, affordable energy and opposition to big government. He even cooked menudo, a cow-stomach soup and a Mexican favorite, at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event at the Bakersfield fairgrounds where 10,000 Hispanics turned out.

He got a big assist from other GOP officeholders and hundreds of Spanish-speaking Republican volunteers going door to door, making pitches in Spanish where necessary in the 60 percent Hispanic district. Mr. Vidak also managed to create a little political daylight from hard-liners in his party on the issue of eventually granting citizenship to illegal immigrants.

“We talked to them in their homes, where they are most comfortable on the issues that matter most to them: improving the economy, lower taxes, less government interference with small business,” Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen said.

Fresno GOP Chairman Kurtis Wiley said he had never seen a party work harder and rally its resources any better.

A bear in the woods

Having concluded its business in the woods, a black bear has been seen wandering around Nelson, Ga., prompting the police chief to warn residents to bear-proof their property. Also, bring your pets inside.

Pro-tip #3: the American Bear Association recommends that you not run from a Black Bear, which can hit 35 mph.