Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for June 3, 2013

Vote on 2013 GAGOP Convention Resolutions

We’re told that the Georgia Republican Party will vote on the 2013 State Convention Resolutions at their next meeting on June 22, 2013. Here’s your chance to vote on the resolutions. Click here for a listing of all the resolutions that made it out of committee. Then head over to GaPundit.com and vote on whether you support, oppose, or think the resolution’s crazy. We’ll put out some nifty pie charts with the results.

John Barrow the GAGOP’s Moby Dick

At the Races from Rollcall.com has dubbed six Congressional seats “White Whales” because incumbents of the “wrong” party continue to hold them. Georgia’s 12th District and incumbent Democrat John Barrow continue to elude Republicans. Given President Obama carrying only 44% in the district, Barrow’s 7-point victory margin was pretty much a trouncing of Republican Lee Anderson.

What’s different this year? Will the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Red Zone” program make a difference? Or will NRCC Political Director Rob Simms, a longtime Georgia Republican operative, be the difference?

Ultimately, elections are won by candidates and the Twelfth has seen a parade of announcements by potential candidates who are not seeking election to Congress this year. Recently, former Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams took himself out of the running, and Wright McLeod the 2012 GOP Primary third place finisher also recused himself.

So currently we have announced candidate John Stone, who challenged Barrow in 2008 and is currently seeking the Republican nomination, and we wait for an announcement from Rick Allen, who was edged out in the 2012 GOP Primary Runoff by Lee Anderson by 159 votes.

College Republican National Committee “Old Guys are totally bogus”

The College Republican National Committee is set to release its assessment of why Republicans lost the presidential election last year.

Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”

Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”

Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”

Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”

Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

“[The] Republican Party has won the youth vote before and can absolutely win it again,” the report says, pointing to presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who were competitive with that demographic. “But this will not occur without significant work to repair the damage done to the Republican brand among this age group over the last decade.”

The report is based largely on two national surveys of 800 registered voters each, ages 18-29, and six focus groups of young people, including Hispanics, Asian-Americans, single women, economically struggling men and aspiring entrepreneurs in Ohio, Florida and California who had voted for President Barack Obama — he cleaned up with 60 percent of the youth vote — but were considered “winnable” for the GOP.

Turning to a key talking point during the election, the report found that while Republicans during the 2012 cycle invoked jobs and the economy at every turn, the younger age group was put off by the way the GOP presented those issues.“Policies that lower taxes and regulations on small businesses are quite popular. Yet our focus on taxation and business issues has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business,” the report says. “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”

Younger voters — especially those in the Hispanic focus groups the CRNC conducted — are deeply familiar with the challenges posed by a less-than-robust economy, the report said, citing struggles with student loans and people who are delaying marriage because of financial issues. But the study said the party must explain how its policies translate into chances for economic advancement and should seek to do so in a more “caring” tone. [Emphasis added].

“We need to get away from the perception that we only care about big business and rich people,” he said. Republicans, he added, could make inroads by being more innovative on issues like education, championing school choice and reforms to turn around failing schools.

“The educational establishment has really has given up on many blacks and Latinos,” Paul said. “We can come in to the rescue because they are not willing to change anything to make education better.”

Through school choice and granting more local power to schools, he said, “We can be the people who come in and rescue people from a tragic life where the schools don’t serve them any good.”

From Politico.com, more exceprts from Rand Paul’s speech and the Q-and-A that followed:

“When the Republican Party looks like the rest of America, we will win again,” the Kentucky senator told a crowd in Simi Valley, Calif. “When we have people with tattoos and without tattoos, with ties and without ties, with suits and in blue jeans, then we win nationally.”

“If we want to win nationally again, we will have to reach out to a diverse nation and welcome African Americans, Asians, Latinos into our party,” he said. “Latinos will come to the GOP when we treat them with dignity, when we embrace immigrants as hard workers who are an asset to our country.”

Soon after, he warned that the party must stay true to core convictions.

“Reagan never diluted what he had to say,” said Paul. “He didn’t say, ‘Maybe if you get time, maybe you could think about tearing that wall down.’ We need to be the party of passion.”

Guest Commentary on GaPundit.com

Today we have two guest posts relevant to the question of growing the Republican Party. We’re happy to run more of those, just email your thoughts to me, keep them cogent and refrain from calling me a liar and a coward, and I’ll probably publish them.

Mike Lowry writes about the need to better communicate the value of our Republican principles. Mike makes some strong points and illustrates how a small business owner thinks about Republican ideals and how we can more effectively communicate them to those we seek to bring into our tent.

What is the Republicans’ compelling value proposition?

I spend a significant amount of time working with startup ventures to help them get organized, funded and reach the point of revenue generation. The single most frequent discussion point, regardless of the type of venture, is the ability to clearly, concisely state their value proposition. For the GOP, I suggest:

Freedom. Free market capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty and generated more wealth for ordinary citizens than any system in the history of the world. Government intervention, regulation and control destroys this freedom. Taxes prevent growth. No growth, no jobs or upward mobility.

Fairness. Fairness can’t be established by government regulatory action. Regulations can only enforce sameness. Fairness can only be established by individuals freely choosing to do business or not do business with other individuals or companies based on their ability to meet the individual’s needs. Complex taxes create loopholes. Loopholes create unfairness.

James Camp is Finance Chair of the Coweta County Republican Party and a member of the State Committee. He writes about eliminating primary elections in favor of nominating conventions.

In my opinion, the purpose of political parties is to amass groups of voters who have a common vision for our country. Individuals in that party who demonstrate leadership and a fundamental knowledge of our Republican Democracy are encouraged and their campaigns are funded by the group (party) to seek public office with the intent of continuing our basic principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The candidate represents the people of the party as a Republican or Democrat.

The Nominating Convention is about the survival of our Republican Party. The Convention gives our party a purpose to exist.

The Republican Party Nominating Convention chooses the candidate to represent the Republican Party. The Republican Party supplies the funding to get the Republican Candidate elected in the General Election.

People who are not chosen by the Party can still qualify and run as Independents if they choose in the General Election.

A person does not need to go begging to PACs for money. That is the job of the Republican Party.

Candidates can focus on the issues that are concerning the people.

Because once elected, the elected person better remember how they got elected. Not by John Boehner or Harry Reid but by the people of their District or the people of Georgia.

Bob Barr announces a visit by Steve Forbes

At the Cobb County Republican Party Breakfast, Congressman Bob Barr announced that Steve Forbes, one of the country’s foremost economic and financial experts and former Republican presidential candidate, will be in GA 11 on Tuesday 18 June, 2013 from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM at The City Club of Buckhead speaking on “The Economic Outlook for 2013 and Beyond” in support of Bob Barr for Congress.

For Information on this event, email Maggie Bohannon.

DeKalb School Board Suspensions in the Georgia Supreme Court Today

The lawsuit by some members of the DeKalb School Board who were suspended by Governor Deal earlier this year when SACS issued a warning about the system’s accreditation will be heard by the Georgia Supreme Court today.

[Suspended Board member Eugene] Walker is challenging the law that allowed that action. The federal judge presiding over the case has asked the state high court to consider two questions about the constitutionality of the law.

The court will hear arguments on those questions and submit its interpretation to the federal judge who will rule in the case.

For more information about the posture of the case, which had an interesting route from the federal trial court directly to the Georgia Supreme Court, visit ScogBlog.com, which is written by Bryan Tyson at Strickland Brockington Lewis. Whenever I have a complex issue regarding campaign finance or need complex legal issues explained, I trust Bryan and his colleagues.

Alcohol and Smoking

The Augusta Chronicle crunched some numbers from tax receipts and concluded that going smokeless doesn’t necessarily have the negative impact of bar and nightclub sales of alcohol.

Alcohol tax revenues from Savannah, Ga., whose bars went smoke-free in 2011, increased slightly more than sales taxes overall compared with the year before the ban went into effect, according to a data analysis by The Augusta Chronicle.

Though that doesn’t directly reflect what happened to bar business in Savannah, those pushing a similar ordinance for Augusta bars say the analysis shows that the smoking ban didn’t hurt. Opponents such as Augusta Commission member Wayne Guilfoyle said that more years of data would be needed to gauge an effect and that the issue is really about the infringement on individual rights.

The assumption that smoking would hurt business has been one of the strongest weapons used against local smoking bans both in restaurants and in bars and nightclubs.

Wife of deceased Council Member seeks his seat

Suzanne Thrash announced that she will ask to be considered for appointment to the remainder of her late husband’s term on the Kennesaw City Council.

Under the city’s charter, if a vacancy in the office of the mayor and/or council occurs within 12 months of the expiration of the term, it should be filled by an a election by the mayor and council of a qualified person to serve out the unexpired term.

Thrash said she and her husband, a councilman since 2001, discussed the matter before his passing and they both agreed she would carry on her husband’s wishes and vision for the city.“Bill and I felt that in order to keep some type of cohesive movement going, we need someone there who already knows his wishes,” she said. “This is Bill’s legacy. I want to honor that.”A memorial celebration for Thrash will be held Saturday, June 8, at Kennesaw Mountain High School at 11 a.m. A picnic at Swift-Cantrell Park will immediately follow.Thrash said she has no plans to run for the seat in the November election, only to serve the rest of his term.