June 26, 2017 6:47 AM
Morning Reads — Swearing In Edition
Happy Monday, everyone! Congressman-elect Handel will be sworn in today. That’s exciting!
State
- Roy Barnes endorsed Stacey Evans for Governor.
- This relates to the title.
- This was a good post-GA 6 read.
- Meet the richest person in Georgia.
- Slightly dated, but I want to include it: How often do earthquakes happen in Georgia?
National
- Do Democrats have a message that can win an election?
- Watch LGBTQ pride events from all around the world.
- Seattle’s minimum wage hike may have gone too far.
- Senate Republicans are skeptical about the chances of an Obamacare repeal passing this week.
- Just…ugh.
About Author
Will Kremer
Will is an active member of the Georgia Republican grassroots. He previously served as Chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, 2nd Vice Chairman of the 7th District Republican Party, and Treasurer of the Forsyth County Republican Party. Promise Land = Forsyth County.
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I bought some peaches Saturday from Fort Valley, ground zero of Georgia peaches. It’s in Peach County, if you don’t know. The peach guy told me the state crop is off about 85 percent from normal, with equal blame going to the mild winter, a certain number of cold hours being needed to set the fruit, and the late frost, which zapped a lot of blossoms. He mentioned some large number of billions of dollars loss but I was busy checking out the peaches.
The fruit itself is smaller than last year and the flesh is harder than normal to separate from the pit. Still very juicy and sweet. Recommended.
I understand the brown Kens are in the box with their arms up.
That Washington Post article did its level best to avoid the elephant in the room: social and cultural issues. Amazingly, the AJC did too. In short, it was absolutely nuts to run a candidate in the suburban deep south who is a DNC party platform guy on social issues. Even some southern Congressional Black Caucus members – like Georgia’s own Sanford Bishop and David Scott – take pains to portray themselves as social moderates – or at least to the right of the DNC on social issues. When Ossoff declared that he was going to use the Komen/Planned Parenthood thing against Handel, I bet Handel’s team was falling over themselves laughing. Yes, the Georgia 6th has the largest concentration of college-educated voters in the country. But unlike, say, Los Angeles, Portland or Connecticut, a huge chunk of those high income college grads attend evangelical megachurches each weekend. That’s why the Pelosi attack was so effective: it goes back to the Reagan official Jeanne Kirkpatrick – a Democrat mind you, and from Oklahoma – coining the “San Francisco Democrat” term to mean social liberal. The “Hollywood liberal” is mostly the same … it isn’t so much their position on universal healthcare but on social and cultural issues.
So maybe in some parts of the northeast and far west deciding on whether to run a Bernie candidate or a DNC candidate could help swing a district on economic issues … a blue collar district in Michigan or New Jersey maybe. Elsewhere, it is going to be at least another generation before an unabashed social liberal is going to be able to win districts like the 6th.
Oh yes. And if the left continues to go down the identity politics spiral where like 60-70% of the population is “privileged” and should just learn to sit down, shut up and accept being talked down to by people that are impossible to influence or even so much as have a dialogue with, social issues will plague Dems even in areas outside the deep south and lower midwest.
Pretty surprised myself that the dems thought that because CD 6 was affluent and educated they would be supportive of the execrable planned parenthood. Wrong hill to die on dems.
So King Roy has picked his Stacey. Thinking we are gonna need more popcorn watching the dem gubernatorial primary play out.
In Atl:
There may indeed be lots of college-educated voters in CD 6 who attend evangelical churches, but there are also lots of college-educated voters in the district who are Catholic or Jewish (almost half of Georgia’s Jewish population is estimated to live in that district). And those voters doubtless are not as conservative as the evangelicals in the district…and of course there probably tens of thousands of voters in the district last week who don’t attend worship on a regular basis—probably even some “nones.”
If Handel’s team was indeed falling over laughing on Ossoff mentioning Planned Parenthood, then they certainly were not using their senses. As I have mentioned before…back in 1996, in the GOP US Senate runoff (note what I said, the REPUBLICAN U.S. Senate runoff), Johnny Isakson ran extensive TV ads claiming he was pro-choice on abortion—I mean, there was no hiding it. Some questioned the strategy, and while it did not work statewide, it helped him take 60% in the runoff in what is now the 6th CD—yes, as a pro-choice Republican. Do you think that 21 years later, the 6th CD has somehow morphed into a Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson type of constituency on that issue?
In 2012, “Personhood” got a lukewarm reception in the 6th CD (in the GOP primary)—55% support (the question was not asked on the Democratic ballot that year). If this is roughly a 60-40% GOP district, and even just a third of the Republicans are pro-choice, and almost all of the Democrats are pro-choice, well—then you have basically a pro-choice district (of course with nuances, and depending how the question is phrased). Interestingly, the Handel campaign never brought up the “A” word, which doubtless was a wise strategy.
It may interest you to know that in 2012 (in various county referenda) on the subject, the 6th CD voted 77% IN FAVOR of Sunday retail alcohol sales—77%! Heck, that was higher than even in John Lewis’s ultraliberal 5th CD. Somehow I don’t think a district voting 77% in favor of Sunday retail alcohol sales is an area dominated by evangelicals.
As for Pelosi, I suspect a lot of the negative feelings about her do indeed go back to health care—“we have to pass it in order to know what is in it.” She led many Democrats off the cliff in 2009 and 2010 not just on RobertsCare but also cap and trade and the stimulus—and of course the party is still paying the price for that years later. Opposition to health care in districts such as these was less on abortion and more on the taxes and mandates.
As Trump wisely said, he hopes the Democrats keep her as leader for another 10 years. And so do I.
@augusta52:
Just as black Americans vote 95% Democrat, Jewish Americans vote more than 80% Democrat. So long as the Republican in question isn’t an old time Pat Buchanan/George H. W. Bush or a modern alt-right sort to make the Jewish vote go from 80% to 95% there was never anything to worry about. Especially since the 20% in question – generally Orthodox Jews – agree with evangelicals and conservative Catholics on social issues and are well represented themselves on the religious right, and have been since the days of William Safire and Irving Kristol. And Karen Handel in particular has had a long, positive relationship with the Atlanta Jewish community, and as a result was not going to cause any voters to defect. Handel honestly was the best candidate to fend off this challenge, and I bet that Ossoff and company were hoping to run against some combination of a Tea Party/Trump upstart instead of an establishment Republican. But that goes to show that Ossoff – once he realized that he wasn’t running against a Ken Cuccinnelli/Richard Mourdock/Sharron Angle/Christine O’Donnell type candidate that would self-destruct – should have moved right. Once he refused to do so, it makes one wonder how truly independent he ever was in the first place.
As far as the 6th district goes … it is curious that you hone in on the one guy who was pro-abortion and ignore that Flynt (Democrat), Gingrich, Price and now Handel are pro-life. Especially considering that Isakson had a much higher profile – GOP nominee for U.S. senator and governor, state board of education member – than Flynt, Gingrich, Price and I would argue even Handel did. (Isakson was certainly more respected by the GOP establishment as one of the guys who helped build the party in its lean years than Handel ever was and probably will be.) That’s pretzel logic of the highest order. You seem to want the GOP to return to its pre-Reagan social liberal days? Well that is fine … if you are willing to countenance the GOP getting hammered by Democrats at every level for 60 years like they did between Roosevelt and Reagan. Lest we forget … evangelicals in the south and lower midwest – as well as Roman Catholics in the upper midwest and northeast – consistently voted Democrat back in those days on New Deal and other economic issues. Become a socially liberal party and the state GOP goes back to one where the only political job where a Johnny Isakson could get was being a Zell Miller appointee due to his status as the Democrats’ favorite Republican (because 1. he agrees with them on social issues and 2. he always lost every election that counts). Yes, Isakson did go on to become congressman and U.S. Senator, but only because socons built a state party that he was able to ride to victory on. Isakson knows this, which is why he hasn’t made a peep about being pro-abortion in years, even when asked. Isakson is probably on pins and needles hoping that a supreme court justice doesn’t retire, because if he doesn’t vote to put him on the court, his political career is over: he gets crushed in the next primary.
Somebody here said that while my text is questionable, the historic photographs are fun to look at. Here is a look at Midtown, with lots of pictures from the GSU library. As always, you can skip over the text and look at the pictures.
https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/midtown-5/
Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllll, looks like the Travel Ban is back on. Unanimously. Don’t the Dems get tired of losing? And Bernie and his bride are BOTH under invetigation! LOL! And Loe-retta, too. They’re gonna need a whole prison WING for all of these folks. Let’s see – Hilly, Bill, Chelsea, Comey, Bernie, Bride of Bernie, Loe-retta!! Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!! And, And, And Trump’s smelling like the proverbial rose!!!
How was DC?
I prefer to think infamous attorney but congratulate you on expressing your positions lately using reasoning, however flawed ? over personal insults. Ribbing accepted.
Trump is having some very positive influences particularly with law enforcement. That changes behavior. The flow of refugees has dropped substantially with vetting and the flow of illegals has dropped but severe damage is done.
Congress’ failure to have a rational immigration program and the general failure to enforce our laws while having our institutions looted is nuts.
With big money from the likes of Koch brothers threatening moderate Republicans, I’m beginning to wonder if money from Democrats wouldn’t be better spent -at least in the short term- propping up the moderates. But would accepting that money actually be more detrimental to the moderate candidate? What if the donors of the money are – as can be arranged- not disclosed?
In Atl:
Ossoff did move right—on economic and foreign policy issues. He talked about cutting spending (not that it was necessarily believable—it wasn’t) and going after terrorists. In fact, a lot of the so-called “progressives” have criticized him for not being liberal enough, for being too mushy moderate—not adopting a Bernie Sanders platform of attacking corporations and single-payer national health care. Ossoff knew that adopting such stances would lessen his chances.
Isakson would not vote against a Supreme Court nominee of Trump’s—whatever gave you that idea anyway? And with his health issues, he is likely in his last term anyway—so much about a primary challenge.
As for Price and Handel being pro-life, yes they are, but they have typically emphasized the economic issues of the GOP, not the social ones. And Price, when he faced Robert Lamutt in the 2004 GOP runoff for the seat, was to Lamutt’s left on abortion (he favored exceptions for rape and incest, and Lamutt did not). As for Jack Flynt, well, he represented a 6th CD that was on the other side of metro Atlanta—the southern and western suburbs, true Bible-Belt country—abortion was not an issue when he was first elected in the 1950s. Gingrich got criticism in the 1990s that his “Contract with America” didn’t talk about social issues.
As far as the socially liberal party, well we have to deal with the real world out there, not one size fits all. Republicans in certain parts of the state will be more liberal on social issues than in others. It is not a matter of excluding one side or the other, but a matter of being in touch with the real political world in which there are shades of Republicanism across the country—and even within Georgia. All I am saying is the 6th District overall is not the Bible-totin’ district you claim it is, in spite of its support for the lottery back in 1992, Sunday alcohol sales in 2012, Isakson in 1996, Romney over Gingrich in the 2012 GOP presidential primary and Rubio over Trump in the 2016 presidential primary.
Fakers Fired! Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it!? Next step: ban CNN from the WH briefing room…MAGA!!!!
http://www.thewrap.com/three-cnn-employees-resign-retracted-story-russia-ties/