Georiga Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for August 30, 2016

On August 30, 1888, Asa Griggs Candler bought one-third interest in the Coca-Cola company, bringing his total ownership to more than two-thirds of the company.

Georgia native Ty Cobb debuted with the Detroit Tigers on August 30, 1905.

On August 30, 1979, President Jimmy Carter reported being attacked by a rabbit near Plains, Georgia. Here’s an interview in which President Carter was asked about the rabbit incident.

Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was indicted on August 30, 2004 on racketeering, bribery and wire fraud charges and would later plead guilty to tax evasion.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

 Indiana Governor and VP candidate Mike Pence held a Town Hall in Perry, Georgia yesterday.

Pence took the stage on Monday in an effort to keep Georgia voting republican. A big crowd turned out, hoping to ensure Georgia voters continue to vote for republican in this presidential race.

After a warm welcome by former Governor Sonny Perdue, Pence was greeted by a loud crowd.

His message was Trump’s agenda to make America great again. Pence said that he and Trump will bring the economy back.

“They tell us this economy is the best we can do. They paint a rosy picture about how things in America are really as good as they are going to get but you and I know better,” said Pence.

Pence said we are in the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression and only he and Trump can pull us out.

“At the end of the day this election is a choice. It’s a choice between two agendas and not so much two candidates and making sure people see that agenda,” said Pence. “And I just promise you in the next 70 some odd days Donald Trump and I are going to campaign relentlessly across this country with a positive agenda.”

Former Governor Sonny Perdue introduced Pence in Perry.

For one high profile backer, Pence was a solid surrogate.  “Mike Pence is a great example of Donald Trump making good decisions,” said former Gov. Sonny Perdue, who hails from nearby Bonaire.  Perdue predicted Trump will have no problem winning Georgia in November.

Senator David Perdue released a statement about Pence’s visit to Georgia:

“Our country is in a moment of crisis and we need a President and Vice President who will put hardworking Georgians first, instead of big party donors and special interest groups. We need leaders who we can trust to do what’s right for the American people, instead of what is politically correct and convenient. We need to change the direction of our country, and Donald Trump and Governor Mike Pence are the right people for the job right now.”

“Tonight, we heard a conservative message from Governor Pence who is a champion of our Founding Principles of economic opportunity, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and individual liberty. I’m excited to work with the Trump-Pence ticket as we turn the page from the failed economic and foreign policies of Obama and Clinton, and make America great again.”

The Macon Telegraph also covered Pence’s visit to Middle Georgia.

About 400 people cheered and waved signs at the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter as Pence made the case for supporting Donald Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

He told the audience Trump would “confront radical Islamic terrorism,” cut taxes, restore law and order, build a border wall and “repeal Obamacare lock, stock and barrel.”

Vivian Childs, who is black and from Warner Robins, gave an impassioned plea for Trump. She said the nation is in crisis.

“The nature of this crisis is the selection of the next Supreme Court justices of the United States,” she said. “If we cannot find common ground on anything else, we must realize that the selection of the next justices will determine this country’s future for years to come.”

Her husband, Henry Childs, is head of the Houston County Republican Party and is also an ardent Trump supporter.

Rey Martinez, a Hispanic city councilman in Loganville, urged Hispanics to consider whether their lives have improved in the last eight years.

“We have been lied to and bamboozled,” he said. “We don’t need to keep going down the same path.”

“Donald Trump just gets it,” Pence said. “He’s the genuine article. He’s as genuine as a Georgia peach. He’s a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers.”

Pence described tough campaigning with a NASCAR analogy:

“In NASCAR there’s a phrase that I’ve always liked that is, you know, rubbing is racin’,” he said. “You know, you bang some fenders. But at the end of the day, I always love it at the end of the race when the guys that bang fenders real hard end up shaking hands and you get a thumbs up, right? And we’re gonna see that happen.”

Pence said the key for the Trump campaign is they have to earn that support.

He also delivered his usual attacks on Hillary Clinton and her record. Pence said that if the Clinton Foundation will pose a conflict of interest if she is elected President, it also was a conflict when she served as Secretary of State.

He said, as he has before, that the foundation should be shut down.

After the Town Hall in Perry, Pence came to Atlanta for a fundraiser followed by a rally in Cobb County.

“I really love the balance. Their personalities are like night and day, but when it comes down to it, they both love America and they both want to be fiscally responsible,” [Cobb County resident Paulette] Delcasale said of the two men on the Republican ticket. “Mr. Pence has been for great family values, he’s done great things for Indiana with budget surpluses, creating jobs.”

Also in the audience was Chad Josiah, a 24-year-old technical college student who traveled from Carrollton. He said he plans to cast a ballot in the presidential election for the first time this November after not taking his first opportunity to do so in 2012.

“I think we need a different sort of politics. We failed with Clinton, we failed with Bush, we need to stop having Clintons and Bushes,” Josiah said. “We’re in a dynasty right now, so having different people in the White House that are different from the regular candidates is what we need.”

Josiah said he leans more Libertarian but considers himself a “conservative Libertarian” who committed to Trump when he was endorsed by Ben Carson, one of the numerous Republicans who had sought the party’s nomination.

But Josiah, who is black, cited one of Trump’s recent soundbites regarding the black community as one that resonated with him.

“I do like Trump saying 58 percent unemployed, saying that we’re impoverished, saying the schools are bad. ‘What do you have to lose?’ That’s what I like,” he said. “(And) Pence has created jobs in Indiana for people of all races.”

Today at 3 PM, Pence will hold a Town Hall in Dalton, Georgia. From the Dalton Daily Citizen,

Phillip Neff believes the appearance of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential nominee, in Dalton today is “very important.”

“It shows that the Trump-Pence ticket is not just taking Georgia for granted, but they are still wanting to be very active,” said Neff, a former chairman of the Whitfield County Republican Party.

Neff gave credit to U.S. Rep. Tom Graves’ office for bringing Pence to Dalton. Calls to the Republican from Ranger on Monday were not immediately returned. The congressman said on Friday in a tweet he is “excited” to join Pence at the event.

“In the past we’ve hosted President George H.W. Bush and had a big reception for the press secretary of Mitt Romney’s campaign,” Neff said. “North Georgia and especially the Dalton area have always been very politically active.”

State Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said a member of a major party ticket coming to Dalton is a “big deal for Georgia.”

“It’s nice to have campaigns interested in Georgia,” Bethel said. “We get to see the vice president candidate up close and personal, so that’s good.”

Congressman Tom Price (R-Roswell) spoke to the Marietta Daily Journal about Pence, with whom he served in Congress.

Price, who described Pence as a “dear friend,” said their terms overlapped when they served in the House together. When Price was first elected to the House in 2004, Pence was chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

“And I got to know him well, worked very, very closely with him in that, supported him in his rise up the House leadership and within our conference. He’s a dear friend, he and Karen are just great, great folks. They’ve got three wonderful kids. I was so pleased when Donald Trump selected Mike as his vice presidential running mate.”

Price described Pence as a bedrock of principle.

“I’m of the belief, as I know many Georgians are, that if we got back to principle as a nation, those things that made us great, that a lot of things would take care of themselves,” Price said. “Mike believes that as well.”

The Human Rights Campaign is targeting Atlanta to turn out Democratic voters in November.

In Atlanta, dozens of HRC leaders and community activists gathered to discuss strategies for turning Georgia blue in the upcoming election. Recent polls show that Georgia has the potential to be a competitive battleground state in the November elections and pro-equality voters could make a real difference in the outcome. With a diverse and growing electorate, Georgia leaders are set to mobilize voters for pro-equality candidates. The workshop laid the groundwork for a powerful shift that may turn a historically red state like Georgia blue.

The Washington Post writes about Johnny Isakson campaigning for reelection to the Senate.

No one thinks that Isakson condones Trump’s more controversial remarks.

When asked, the GOP senator draws a terse line between his pledge to vote for Trump and the GOP nominee’s frequent epithets, saying he is running his own race and isn’t “going to let somebody else’s race compromise my ability to get reelected.”

“If Donald Trump doesn’t become president, people that didn’t say anything won’t have any apologizing to do because they won’t have anything on record that matches what Trump is saying,” said Robert Highsmith, a Georgia Republican consultant and lobbyist.

The racial politics of 2016, he said, “are not going to have much of an effect in 2018 and 2020.”

“[Isakson] made the choice to embrace Donald Trump, and I don’t envy that decision,” said Jason Carter, grandson of the former president, who lost a 2014 race for governor. “[Republicans] can’t deny the existence of this element in their coalition. It’s opened up schisms that they’re going to have to deal with for a very long time.”

Senator Isakson writes about Zika funding in the Savannah Morning News.

Zika funding is not a political game

Georgia’s beautiful coast, temperate climate and scenic outdoors beckon to folks worldwide to visit our state and are prized by those of us who call the Peach State “home.”

Unfortunately, those geographic factors also lure the most unwelcome of guests: mosquitoes. While mosquitoes have long been known to spread disease, the latest virus they are spreading, known as Zika, is a more serious threat. It not only infects individuals via direct contact, but can be spread person-to-person, and to future generations in the form of severe birth defects. Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is among the most important research and medical facilities in the world. The CDC has made incredible advances in eliminating terrible diseases such as Ebola. Now the Zika virus is in the CDC’s crosshairs.

I have made it a priority to regularly visit and meet with CDC officials, and after hearing of the threat of Zika virus, I immediately worked to assist the CDC by sharing with my colleagues the critical need to address the Zika virus. In April, I brought U.S. Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key member of the Senate committee that appropriates federal funds, to the CDC for a briefing.

On May 17, 2016, I voted for bipartisan legislation that was passed by the Senate to allocate $1.1 billion in emergency funds to combat the spread of the Zika virus in the United States. The U.S. House followed suit and overwhelmingly passed its own funding measure.

In Gwinnett County, fewer citations are expected this year for failing to stop for a school bus loading or unloading.

At least that’s what Recorder’s Court Judge Patricia Muise said the data appears to show during a presentation to a citizen’s budget review committee at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville on Monday.

Muise told the committee that 22,022 citations for running the bus Stop sign were issued in 2015. Figures she provided to the review panel showed the amount of citations issued this year is expected to top out at about 17,181 tickets. Next year, the number is projected to being around 16,322 citations issued.

“The only reason we can think of for those projections going down is that we’re really hoping that folks figure it out because what we see out there is pretty scary for the students,” Muise told the committee.

A gator has been spotted in Lake Lanier and is being watched by DNR, according to AccessWDUN.com.

“Under our current alligator policy our determination on this individual is (that) we are not making an all-out effort to go catch it,” [DNR Wildlife Biologist Scott] Frazier explained about efforts to remove the reptile. “We will essentially watch and see if it causes some problems before we go after it.”

Frazier says that the DNR does not think the young alligator is a threat to people or pets.  “He’s not a physical threat at his current size.  This particular gator is probably not a risk to anyone using the lake for recreational purposes.”

“But,” Frazier quickly added, “he could cause injury.  He could bite you, and he would…he’s going to defend himself if you try to harass him or pick him up.”

Hall County SPLOST receipts are 4.27% above projections, which Chairman Richard Mecum attributes in part to an improving economy.

Augusta is considering spending $75 million on parks under a plan to be voted on by the Public Service Committee.

Alpharetta is shopping for parkland with part of the proceeds of a $52 million bond referendum passed by voters in May.

An intermodal inland port at Chatsworth will open in 2018 and is expected to be part of a statewide network to reduce truck traffic in Georgia.

The GPA reported the new inland terminal is the second for the GPA and part of the “Network Georgia” program designed to create inland terminals throughout the state to reduce intermodal truck traffic and provide greater rail capacity to the Southeast U.S. and beyond. The ports authority signed an agreement in 2013 that led to the opening of an inland rail terminal in South Georgia linking Cordele with the ports.

Each container moved by rail to the new inland terminal will offset 355 truck miles on Georgia highways.

And Miller said the inland port will allow for the elimination of about 40,000 to 50,000 trucks on metro Atlanta’s highways per year.

“Fewer trucks on these highways means better traffic flow for cars and improved highway safety,” she said.

Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Griff Lynch said after the facility opens in 2018 with a capacity of 50,000 containers annually, a 10-year development plan will then double that capacity.

“We expect to take up to 40,000 trucks off Georgia highways in the first year,” he said. “That’s a reduction of approximately 14 million truck miles in the first year. Because these trips would otherwise go through Atlanta, the Appalachian Regional Port will have a direct impact on city traffic. It is part of an incremental, statewide effort to reduce the need for long-haul truck traffic.”

Piedmont and United Healthcare have reached a deal to keep Piedmont doctors and facilities in-network for United policyholders.