GOP nominates Obama as Roy Barnes’ running mate
When President Obama comes to Atlanta on Monday, Roy Barnes will not be at his side. The Democratic nominee for governor is scheduled to be campaigning that day among the good people of South Georgia, which puts as much distance as possible between himself and the president.
However, once Georgia Republicans settle on a candidate of their own in the Aug. 10 runoff, Barnes is likely to find it a little more difficult to maintain that separation. Judging from rhetoric in the GOP primary and races elsewhere around the country, Republicans plan to make the 2010 elections a referendum on Washington in general and Obama in particular, even in races such as governor that have little or nothing to do with the federal government.
Here in Georgia, that means the GOP will be trying to link Obama to Barnes as if they were Siamese twins.
Results of a recent poll conducted by the Georgia Newspaper Partnership explain the virtues of that strategy. Among other things, the poll found that 56 percent of Georgians oppose the president’s controversial health insurance reform plan and support its repeal.
Overall, only 37 percent of Georgians approve of Obama’s job performance. Among likely white voters, where the GOP is strongest, that approval rating falls to 18 percent. In light of those numbers, defining the election as a referendum on Obama makes a lot of sense.
Fervor also plays into the GOP calculation. In nonpresidential elections, motivating turnout is difficult. Party leaders hope that by depicting a vote for a Republican as an act of rebellion against Washington, they can inspire their base and convert anger at the federal government into gains at the state and local levels as well.
But here in Georgia, that strategy has yet another important advantage for the GOP.
The party has held the governor’s office for the last eight years and for most of that time it has controlled the Legislature as well. Yet in all that time, it has made little progress in addressing critical state challenges such as unemployment, transportation, education and the water war with Florida and Alabama, among others.
(Barnes, in contrast, was accused of trying to do too much too quickly as governor from 1999-2003, which some believe caused his defeat.)
The GOP has been particularly apathetic, and at times even antagonistic, toward metro Atlanta, an attitude that has allowed other metro regions to emerge as competitors.
Transportation, for example, has long been key to Georgia’s prosperity, but in recent years we’ve been investing less per capita in transportation than any state but Tennessee. And even when the economy was doing well, Gov. Sonny Perdue and his colleagues were slicing billions from state aid for education, another important driver of long-term prosperity.
Perhaps as a result, Georgia’s unemployment rate has now exceeded the national average for 33 consecutive months. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Georgia has lost more jobs from June 2009 to June 2010 than any state but California, a state with almost four times our population.
That record contradicts GOP claims that low taxes — and by extension low public investment in our physical and human infrastructure — would make the state a leader in job growth, a message that they continue to preach even now.
As both parties understand, political campaigns are almost always won by the side that is able to define the agenda. While Georgia Republicans try to stoke public ire at faraway Washington, Barnes will ask voters to look instead at what’s happened for the last eight years under the Gold Dome in Atlanta.
That is, after all, where a governor has the greatest impact.
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287 comments Add your comment
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:21 am
Call it – “What is this google you speak of?”
give it a try sometime …
I was able to find this http://www.barneslawgroup.com/
that might give you an idea of some of his clients
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:21 am
USinUK: Bosch – “been there. know that. wish I could say that it gets easier – it doesn’t. I miss my mom every flippin’ day (it’ll be 17 years this October) – you just learn how to fold the pain into your daily life. “sucks” doesn’t even begin.”
Been there with my father…and no it does not get easier… most of all when you really had an AWESOME parent. I know my own father was just that.
Bosch
July 27th, 2010
10:21 am
AmVet,
And yet, we are backwards. Sometimes I have trouble keeping up — he’s weak, ineffectual, and the worst president evah, but he’s somehow made all these policies that have managed to ruin the entire universe in 18 months.
Bosch
July 27th, 2010
10:22 am
Normal and godless heathen — thanks too.
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:22 am
Normal – “You ever wonder what today might have looked like if nothing was done at all?”
so, the banks would have failed and the financial markets tanked and we would all be back to trading beads and wampum … you make that sound like a bad thing!
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:23 am
Bosch – get Starbuck and Apollo and give them a good belly rub (or just rub their ears) … puppy therapy – you can’t beat it!
AmVet
July 27th, 2010
10:24 am
Rest assured that so long as corporations and the wealthy donate to political campaigns, what’s good for the wealthy minority will continue to be the order of business in the legislative halls.
Curious, I was just about to post this…
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Here’s something Target Corp. isn’t advertising in its Sunday circular: The discount retailer is now a major donor to a group backing the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor.
And that’s not sitting well with every Target shopper.
Under new laws allowing corporations to spend company money on election campaigns, the Minneapolis-based chain gave $150,000 to a Republican-friendly political fund staffed by insiders from departing GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s administration. The group, MN Forward, is running TV ads supporting state legislator Tom Emmer, the presumptive GOP nominee.
Electronic retailer Best Buy Co., another major Minnesota-based corporation, gave $100,000 to the group, according to an MN Forward report made public Tuesday.
The corporate money has been flowing since the U.S. Supreme Court threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that prohibited companies and unions from donating to campaigns for or against candidates. The decision, which came earlier this year, changed rules in about half the states. But the change is so new that experts don’t have a good handle on the likely impact nationally.
Mr. Oxendine
July 27th, 2010
10:25 am
Awwww Barnes, quit being a scared! You and Obama can be in the same vicinity on Monday … what, you’re afraid you might get “peppered”???
SKB
July 27th, 2010
10:26 am
Whos is Obama?
I thought Glenn Beck was running this country?
luangtom
July 27th, 2010
10:26 am
People, neither side is without negative press in its closet. Get over it. Yer living in a dream world thinking one party or the other is without corruption, problems and bad blood in its ranks. Get over it. Barnes may be wise in distancing himself from Obama. Who knows? The ballots will tell. King Roy has his own legacy to live down.
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:27 am
“what, you’re afraid you might get “peppered”???”
he’s hunting with Dick Cheney?
AmVet
July 27th, 2010
10:30 am
“I thought Glenn Beck was running this country?”
It depends on who you ask. I would suppose Michael Steele’s answer would be HeadRush Limburger…
Normal
July 27th, 2010
10:30 am
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:22 am
and
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:27 am
Hunting with Dick…talk about your missed opportunity…
Big D
July 27th, 2010
10:31 am
USinUK,
What should Obama do to create jobs. Facts first; the Government cannot create jobs, it can create programs that employ people to come to work each day, get a check and ( this is the important part) not create a PROFIT. Without profit you must use other peoples money to pay said people, this creates a negative bottom line.
On Really creating jobs; You must first establish an atmosphere where companies and people with the means to invest feel comfortable risking capitol. These people have the money, will always have the money and all the demonizing you wish to throw at them they will still have the money…they are smart. So, the trick is to make these bad rich people and corporations expand to the point that they need to hire people to work for them to create that evil profit to pay them with. Said people hired will pay taxes to the Government. Said owners and and shareholders will pay more taxes also.
If we lower taxes creating more growth it follows a tried and true method of growth, make little on a lot of people working in lieu of trying to make a lot on a few rich people as Obama and the congress is trying to do.
We can give deferred future tax intensives to start up companies from the state and federal level to get manufacturing going again in this country. I travel around the country and see many once thriving communities that have turning into ghost towns when manufacturing left to go overseas.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:31 am
“he’s hunting with Dick Cheney?”
Huh? Darth Vader is out of his Iron Lung?
Dick really should get into acting… I see a VERY lucrative career for him playing villains. Must be something about that crooked smile/smirk of his.
DEEP THROAT
July 27th, 2010
10:35 am
Saul and Obozo can play the Joker, hahaha
Doggone/GA
July 27th, 2010
10:35 am
“If we lower taxes creating more growth ”
The past administration, aided and abetted by a same-party Congress lowered taxes…the economy TANKED…unemployement went UP.
And all ya got is more “lower taxes”?
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:37 am
Big D: “If we lower taxes creating more growth it follows a tried and true method of growth”
We DID lower taxes…just HOW many jobs did those cuts create?
Let me ask…WHAT led us out of the Great Depression…lowering taxes or MASSIVE “government” spending? Did we cut taxes while at war? Or…were taxes higher back then while we spent ourselves into oblivion funding the war? Did our nation sink or swim once we came out of the war? What were the highest tax rates AFTER the war (for the wealthiest Americans)?
(which at that time also increased our deficit…all of which was being paid back until Reagan got in office)…
So once again…we have someone saying “cut taxes” to create jobs….yet by the end of 2008…feel free to also explain just HOW MANY JOBS the tax cuts put in place ended up actually creating.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:37 am
Deep… you were MUCH more effective when your caps key was locked.
Scout
July 27th, 2010
10:40 am
You libs. don’t fret, we’ll still be able to come up with a photo for the campaign on what it would have looked like if they had been together ………………….
Del
July 27th, 2010
10:40 am
Bosch,
Sorry for your loss. The fond memories keeps them alive and eases the sorrow.
Normal
July 27th, 2010
10:41 am
Off topic, I know, but Jesus H. Christ! This is our National Cemetary. America’s Heros rest here! “heartbreaking incompetence”
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/07/ap_military_arlington_cemetery_mccaskill_072610/
DEEP THROAT
July 27th, 2010
10:41 am
Saul at least I am not backward thinking.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:44 am
I often wonder…if Bush and Co would have said in the lead up to the Iraq invasion/war…. we need to RAISE taxes to PAY for this war… just how many of the cheerleaders slapping those tacky ribbons on their SUV’s would have said: “sure…it’s the “patriotic” thing to do..to FUND the war”…
Wanna start a war? Come up with a plan FIRST to PAY for it. Cutting taxes while spending a trillion + dollars… yup now THAT was the “patriotic” thing to do. Anyone recall during WWII the war bonds being sold? How people were told to pull up their boot straps and do with “less” so we could finance the war? I mean…I was not born…but history sure has lots and lots of news reels, old advertisements, etc… telling and asking people to help “pay” for the war.
My guess… the “cheerleaders” just may not have been so gung ho on Iraq if they were told they’d have to foot the bill. Either way…we’re all paying for it NOW.
Matti
July 27th, 2010
10:44 am
The Georgia GOP and Nathan Deal think you’re stupid!!! Can you believe that TV spot?
Kids: “Grandpa, why do you want to be Governor?”
Deal: “Because the folks up in Washington D.C are spending too much money, and I want to fight back.”
Whaaaaaa? Seriously? Raise your hand if you think that even remotely resembles the Governor’s job description. He wants to collect a paycheck for doing what what Rep. Tom Price already does for us: Expend all his efforts every day dissing the President and scaring people that the socialists are about to take all their money and give their names to the “death panels” unless the GOP re-takes Congress and the White House — while IGNORING his actual job description.
I know we’re lagging in education, and our State legislature tries to fix that by continuing to cut the education budget, but c’mon… Do we really look THAT stupid?
JohnnyReb
July 27th, 2010
10:45 am
Saul, it sounds like your business is larger than ours. We are not at the 12 bucks an hour level across the board, but we did just give two employees raises, and we have one who will go to 12 in October. I agree with your housing remarks. Affects go all the wasy down the chain from developer, general contractor, subs, real estate agents, gov inspectors, etc. All those people enjoyed an aritifical boom that will take years to recover, and some have no other marketable skills that will generate a comparable income. Good luck; you know how brutal retail can be, I’m not sure anyone who has not experienced it knows that.
popeye
July 27th, 2010
10:45 am
“Do you see any of these here today?”
Soothsayer….Not really, but on almost any given night there is one who fits almost every one of those points….Guess who?
DEEP THROAT
July 27th, 2010
10:46 am
Saul say with me its 2010,its 2010, come on you can do it. Its 2010.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:47 am
Deep: “Saul at least I am not backward thinking.”
Who told you that? I guess “history” teaches us NOTHING right? Sheesh Deep! I was taught to “learn” from our past mistakes.
Normal
July 27th, 2010
10:47 am
Big D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps
This is what President Obama should have done from the start. He should have done as FDR did. Working people are happy people and the CCC was a good thing for our country.
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:47 am
Big D – “If we lower taxes creating more growth it follows a tried and true method of growth, make little on a lot of people working in lieu of trying to make a lot on a few rich people as Obama and the congress is trying to do.”
ah, yes … tax cuts … the answer to all life’s ills …
I’d be fine with tax cuts for all jobs created IN the US and removed from their outsourced offices.
as has been pointed out, the Busch tax cuts are still in effect … can you feel the stimulation?
and stop assuming that all liberals think rich people are bad – I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t. I have no problem with rich folks, investors, CEOs, etc.
TGT
July 27th, 2010
10:49 am
Speaking of Reagan vs Obama:
Obama says the economy is headed in the right direction; jobs are being created, not lost, and he is doing everything possible to revive the “worst economy since the Great Depression.” Most of the national press has been remarkably accepting of this narrative — even if the president has been vague, at best, about when we might finally see an uptick in economic growth and job creation.
But in another economic time, President Ronald Reagan’s economic recovery program took 17 months to take hold. It took from the time Congress passed his tax cuts, in August 1981, until the recession he inherited finally ended in January 1983.
Unemployment hit a high of 10.8 percent in December 1982. But then economic growth spiked, and the unemployment rate began a long, steady decline throughout the 1980s. It was obvious the program was working when people stopped calling it “Reaganomics.”
Tax cuts were a part of Reagan’s effort to cut the size and scope of government to fight economic stagnation. “Government is not the solution,” Reagan said in his remarkably clear inaugural address. “It is the problem.”
In addition to tax cuts, Reagan reduced domestic discretionary spending and streamlined regulations to make them less of a burden on businesses seeking to create jobs. He believed that government should give individuals and businesses the proper incentives to grow and expand and not inhibit the private sector with high taxes and cumbersome regulations.
Reagan faced obstacles that Obama did not. The House he had to work with was always controlled by Democrats. More ominously, inflation was running at double-digit rates, and it took nearly a year for the Federal Reserve to squeeze those pressures out of the system.
Regardless, in the end, Reagan’s program worked. The turnaround began 17 months later.
Fast-forward to today. The Obama administration says that government-directed investment, via huge spending increases, can revive the economy. It’s now stimulus plus 17. Is there a turnaround in sight?
Apparently not. Obama’s own budget estimates, released just last week, project trillion-dollar deficits, anemic economic growth coming out of a recession and unemployment near 9 percent for 2011 and 8 percent for 2012.
You have to go back to the 1930s to find a period in which unemployment has been so high for so long. This economic record would make former President Jimmy Carter blush.
Yet Obama continues to get a pass on his version of recent economic events. He has said that he inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression. He didn’t. The economies inherited by both President Gerald Ford in 1974 and Reagan in 1981 were far worse.
Obama has said the stimulus has saved 3 million jobs. It hasn’t. We have nearly that many fewer jobs than before the stimulus was passed in February 2009, and the unemployment rate is 1½ percentage points higher than what he claimed would be the high point once his program was enacted.
Obama has said he is doing all he can to revive the economy. Actually, he’s doing too much. The economic uncertainty that his “historic” health care and budget bills have created is doing more to hold back economic growth than anything else. Companies are hoarding cash rather than invest in Obama’s uncertain economic climate.
As a result, the recovery is anemic by historic standards.
So we have two historic presidents. Both inherited bad economies. One cut spending and taxes, and then, 17 months later, the economy boomed. The other increased taxes and spending. It’s now 17 months later.
Mr. President, we’re waiting.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40242_Page2.html#ixzz0utVcQLch
@@
July 27th, 2010
10:50 am
Internet trolls, Soothsayer? Too funny!
And in summation?
Sometimes, these strategies are used by average people with serious personality issues.
Like sockpuppets who have ongoing conversations with themselves?
That IS weird!
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
10:50 am
“Saul at least I am not backward thinking”
shorter Deep: poo! poo! poo! but, sadly, nothing of substance.
Dirty Dawg
July 27th, 2010
10:50 am
Sadly, Roy is having to ‘orchestrate’ around the prevailing attitudes, misguided as they are, about Obama in an effort to win over what is obviously a preponderance of ‘right-leaning’, shallow-thinking, voters that have ‘emerged’ across this state. My guess is that there will be plenty of opportunities for him to take advantage of Obama’s first two years before November, and more than enough idiotic Georgia Republicans continuing to ’skin their ignorance’ between now and then for him to get that ‘other’ four years that was stolen from him by Diebold and a right-wing power base that will do anything to grab power in order to ‘raid the treasury’. Then you’ll see just what an ‘effective’ Governor is capable of when he’s not a ‘goober’.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
10:51 am
Johnny…trust me…I offer my advice to her when asked…but I stay out of it! I’m no “retail” kinda guy myself. I mean… just drag me to a mall… I have about a 20 minute attention span when dragged into one. Thank god/allah whomever for now having the internet on our phones! It’s pretty much the only way I can survive in one of those places!
Bosch
July 27th, 2010
10:54 am
USinUK,
It’s weird how animals know things – the puppies have been following me around more than usual and if I sit down they want to sit next to me and they put there heads in my lap — and every now and then they’ll look up and lick my face.
Del,
Thanks — to me that’s part of eternal life – the good memories.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, up until a few days ago, blogging and working at the same time were second nature, but apparently, my ADD brain is having to rewire itself. So, thanks for the well wishes, and I’m signing off to concentrate on the things I have to do to get paid.
Later gators.
Kamchak
July 27th, 2010
10:56 am
Bosch
My condolences as well.
Matti
July 27th, 2010
11:00 am
Bosch,
I’m so sorry.
wyme1002
July 27th, 2010
11:00 am
johnny reb….If you are serious about an opening in your wife’s retail shop give me a shout at
wyme1002@yahoo.com. I am retired, and have several sources of income so money is not
my motivator. I have no criminal record, no traffic record, excellent credit, and don’t do drugs.
look forward to hearing from you.
SOUTHERN ATL
July 27th, 2010
11:01 am
The current Perdue Administration has created a considerable amount of damage to this state that will be felt for many years to come. Roy Barnes will have his hands full with very “limited resources”. Now is NOT the time for the Democratic Party to stand idle and wait for the outcome of Handel and Deal. We need a spark that will motivate the Democratic voters on the importance of this election!!
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:02 am
TGT: “Unemployment hit a high of 10.8 percent in December 1982. But then economic growth spiked, and the unemployment rate began a long, steady decline throughout the 1980s. It was obvious the program was working when people stopped calling it “Reaganomics.”
Ah…but at the END of 12 years of Reagonomics…just WHAT did we end up with? A RECESSION. Yeah…things cycled… but 8 years of Reagan created 16 million jobs… Bush1 continued those policies and lost 4 million of those.
Clinton… added 22 million jobs during his 8 years… longest economic expansion is US history. (but I’ll guess you’ll say it was the Republicans who created those jobs…right???)…
http://zfacts.com/p/868.html
“The debt grew rapidly during World War II, but its growth during peace-time prosperity starting in 1982 was without precedent.”
TGT….also…what wars (multiple) did Reagan inherit? In actuality… he was the FIRST President post WWII that stopped paying down the debt incured during WWII…Clinton started paying it back down…and then W. Bush…well he went right back down again by not paying back that debt.
@@
July 27th, 2010
11:03 am
I have a quick question, then I’m out. It’s about the EBT (?) cards here in Georgia.
I’m waiting in line at the grocery store and some lady is behind me wanting to know if she can run her EBT card thru on my transaction. I’m not knowledgeable about the things…she said she needed cash for gas. What was she trying to do?
How could she use her card on my transaction? I asked her if she was planning on buying my groceries? She got all pithy with me…went to the next register and got some guy to let her run it thru on his transaction.
Is that legal?
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
11:11 am
Saul … “what wars (multiple) did Reagan inherit?”
hello muddah …
hello faddah …
here I am at …
Camp Granada …
(okay … so it was in 1983 … and it wasn’t inherited … but it was HUGE!!! with HUGE impact!!!)
The Thin Guy
July 27th, 2010
11:11 am
To be fair about it (an unheard of concept for this blog) King Roy has two positive accomplishments in life. First, he appointed Zell Miller to the senate for which all Americans sincerely thank him. Second, as a barrister he successfully represented some guy in Buckhead with a chicken fetish. If he regains his throne then chickens have a friend in the Governor’s Mansion. Once his opponent is determined look for the Ls to be slapped on him: Liberal, Lawyer, Labor, Lackey, Lackluster, Looney, Loser, and, if possible, Lesbian. Maybe he can get his friend Horseface to sail his new $ 7 million yacht from where it’s parked in Rhode Island to the East Coast of Georgia. Then King Roy, King Øbungle, and King Horseface can campaign across the state as The Three Kings from A Far Left Side of the Political Spectrum. JB could be their Court Jester (naw, that would require a sense of humor).
Disgusted
July 27th, 2010
11:15 am
@@:Is that legal?
I know nothing about EBTs, but here’s what I found during a search. It’s apparently strictly illegal if the EBT cardholder is trying to obtain cash from another customer in exchange for paying for his groceries. If the EBT card provides both food stamp and cash welfare benefits, it appears to be legal. My questions are, why would somebody be willing to pay for somebody else’s groceries in order to get cash back, and why wouldn’t the person simply swipe the card separately if GA provides welfare benefits on an EBT card?
Can you get cash back at the grocery store from SNAP/food stamp benefits?
No. You can only receive cash back if you have both cash welfare (TAFDC) benefits and SNAP/food stamp benefits on your card. If you want to use your cash welfare benefits to buy food or get cash back, you have to swipe your EBT card in the machine a second time.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:17 am
“(okay … so it was in 1983 … and it wasn’t inherited … but it was HUGE!!! with HUGE impact!!!)”
Okay…to be honest…I still feel MUCH SAFER these days knowing that the worst of our nation’s medical students have a school they can get into when all the others turn them down.
popeye
July 27th, 2010
11:18 am
@@ … Something similar happened to me at Kroger. Some guy walks up to me and says he needs gas money…and all he has are food stamps, and could he pay for my groceries, and I would pay him back in cash.
I informed him I was paying with a debit card, and he immediately went and hit on somebody else!
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:20 am
Thin: 4 years of Roy… GA better or worse? 7 years of Sonny and republican control… GA better or worse? Hey…at least Sonny has a few more months to “finish” what he started.
USinUK
July 27th, 2010
11:20 am
Saul – and it revived that classic song … clouds and linings …
godless heathen
July 27th, 2010
11:20 am
“How could she use her card on my transaction? I asked her if she was planning on buying my groceries? She got all pithy with me…went to the next register and got some guy to let her run it thru on his transaction.”
She wanted to have the State buy your groceries with her card and then you pay cash to her for the groceries.
“Is that legal?”
Nope.
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:22 am
popeye…. that’s the very reason why when I was living in NYC…any homeless person that asked me for money for “food”… I’d give them some or buy them some if they were serious… those that refused… well I knew they only wanted $ for booze, butts, or drugs.
@@
July 27th, 2010
11:23 am
Disgusted:
If you want to use your cash welfare benefits to buy food or get cash back, you have to swipe your EBT card in the machine a second time.
Thanks! Let me see if I understand this. If she had one of the TAFDC and SNAP benefits cards, she wouldn’t have needed to run it thru on my transaction? She simply could have bought a food item and run it thru a second time for cash?
Heck! if she hadn’t got all pithy with me, I’da given her a coupl’a bucks for gas.
Kevin
July 27th, 2010
11:23 am
For all you liberal elites living insider the perimenter who are always on here complaining about how how backwards Ga. is, and how much you hate living here. And how it’s only the rednecks that keep conservatives in office. Very simple. As the late great Lewis Grizzard said, ” Delta is ready when you are to take you back home to NYC, Chicago, or wherever it is you want to go” just make sure you but a one way ticket and don’t come back.Of course, i’m sure lots of you ‘intellectuals” prob. don’t even know who Grizzard was.
lynn ehrlicher
July 27th, 2010
11:24 am
I think Barnes can beat either Republican candidate–He can point to the imbeciles that have been running this state for the last decade and how sorry it’s become since republicans wrested power ,while the two repubs argue over whether a woman should have the legal right to abortion for incest or rape. Please, give me a break!
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:24 am
USinUK: “Saul – and it revived that classic song … clouds and linings …”
@@
July 27th, 2010
11:28 am
heathen:
She wanted to have the State buy your groceries with her card and then you pay cash to her for the groceries.
Possibly. After she got all pithy, she asked if I was paying cash for my groceries. The answer was no, I’m using my debit card.
Like I said, I know nothing about these things.
Disgusted
July 27th, 2010
11:30 am
If she had one of the TAFDC and SNAP benefits cards, she wouldn’t have needed to run it thru on my transaction? She simply could have bought a food item and run it thru a second time for cash?
You got it. And don’t it make you feel good that this woman has a car that needs gas and that it’s so important to her that she’s willing to trade her grocery benefits for your cash to get it?
WhoKnew50
July 27th, 2010
11:30 am
Funny how Bookman cites these polls; how many minorities were polled since you wanted to break it down about white people? Polls are designed to give the pollster a justification for their views as is this one. Handel and Deal won’t have to pay for advertising seeing as their spokespersons are AJC i.e, Bookman, ABC, NBC and CBS. The obvious bias is so clear even Stevie Wonder can see thru it. However if Barnes wants to play right into the Repubs/Bookman’s playbook then by all means stay as far away from President Obama as you can and watch your chances disappear. Funny how Bookman ignores the fact that research shows President Obama has accomplished more in his first 2 years than any President in history but lets just keep stoking the flames of discontent..makes better reading and more hits..
@@
July 27th, 2010
11:33 am
Thanks for all your responses. It helps to be informed.
Disgusted:
I just hope she doesn’t have kids at home waiting for dinner. I do know that the amount on the card is a monthly allotment. Gas won’t feed a hungry child.
Scout
July 27th, 2010
11:37 am
Bosch:
I saw some of the other posts so I went back to see what had happened. I lost my Dad last year so my sincere condolences on the loss of your Mother. Time is a great healer but the bond will always be there.
Big D
July 27th, 2010
11:38 am
Saul, UU,
It has and always will be the left that calls the “well to do bad people” you can go into your state of denial of you wish. If you had thought about what I said in my post about the loss of manufacturing you would have seen the correlation to creating more tax revenues with more people working. You both based your assumptions a continuing model of very little manufacturing. The stats you presented for post WWII was based almost entirely on manufacturing. We have been sending the sector of our economy off shore for 30 years and my position is to make feasible to bring it back
Kevin
July 27th, 2010
11:41 am
Who Knew: you can’t really believe that the mainstream media, including this newspaper, are going to be mouthpieces for Handel or Deal? That’s so asinine it’s funny. And I don’t think you will make it as a pol. consultant. Run w Obama? That worked so well for Corzine in NJ, Deeds in Va.(both states he carried) I’m sure it will play well here in Ga. I will agree though obama has done more harm to the country in his first 2 yrs than any other Pres. Ans sense i believe that’s what he set out to accomplish. you are right.
AmVet
July 27th, 2010
11:48 am
Yep, the luster on the neo-con (bowel) movement has faded deeply over the past five or six years.
That misused mantra of “I am a conservative!!” is as transparently useless as could be to the thinking American. It means nothing. And as hijacked by the fake conservatives, it never did. Only their desperate sheeple in the “base” still swallow that silly nonsense, hook, line and sinker.
They are spendthrifts and fiscal liberals. In fact they are utterly fiscally irresponsible. And i wrote eric Johnson a couple of weeks ago in response to his idiotic promise to eliminate corporate income taxes in Georgia. (I asked him just how much corporate welfare is enough?) They are war-first, pro-crime, pro corporate personhood. And work against working-class Americans.
So now the ongoing hemorrhaging is so bad, a washed up, repudiated Dem candidate for governor is a viable challenger only because of the pathetic state of neo-conservative candidates here. EVEN in the epitome of pathetic neo-conservatism – Georgia.
A Dixiefied version of Sarah BarraClueless and one of the dirtiest, most corrupt legislators in the entire United States Congress? These are the GOP options?? Farcical.
You’re doing a heckuva job, connies…
Saul Good
July 27th, 2010
11:54 am
test
Tillie
July 27th, 2010
12:17 pm
Barnes has been funding leftist causes for years… It’s only fair.
Remember his tortured gerrymandering that destroyed black representation in favor of the democrats?
If Roy does not run with Obama, he dang sure can’t run without him
Jay
July 27th, 2010
1:24 pm
Kayaker, the federal government this year is expected to collect 14.8 percent of GDP as revenue, compared to 18.5 percent in 2007. Yet you and others squeal like pigs being sent to the slaughter because you believe the baloney you’re fed.
And Obama’s fault, don’t claim these people pay nothing. That is absolutely false. They pay Social Security and Medicare which amounts to roughly 12 percent of their gross incomes, and those taxes function today just as the income tax does, except that they constitute a surtax on the working and middle classes that the rich are largely exempt from paying.
Jay
July 27th, 2010
2:06 pm
Alabama, does the CBO study you cite include FICA and Medicare taxes? The verbiage about income tax suggests it does not, and if not the progressivity you note would be reduced considerably.
Scout
July 27th, 2010
2:19 pm
“Oh, what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive.”
“And so he bowed.”
Scout
July 27th, 2010
2:20 pm
Jay ………….. Better change the thread. Only four posts since noon and two of them are yours.
Just sayin ………….
Scout
July 27th, 2010
2:49 pm
O.K. I’ll make it five since noon.
Legend of Len Barker
July 27th, 2010
3:09 pm
Kevin, the amazing thing is that while Grizzard was pretty conservative (and a big fan of Limbaugh – of course Grizzard also died in 1994), he had empathy.
He didn’t want to see anyone suffer and have to live like he and his mother did after his father abandoned them. He’d give to people on the streets if he thought they needed it. He also could be the perpetual optimist. No matter how many times his father disappointed him, he’d do what he could for him. He gave him money. Often. Even to the chagrin of his first wife.
I’ve thought about Grizzard a good bit lately. Wondering his reaction to today’s world. I could see him being wary of immigrants, but I honestly don’t know how much else he’d buy into. Something tells me he’d support universal health care, as he came from humble beginnings and from a mother who’d wait with him in a dental office in Hogansville for nine hours just to safe five bucks.
Lewis moved to Chicago, thinking he needed to be big-time. Everything he wanted was right here. I understand the sentiment. I don’t want to leave Georgia. Everything I want is here. It’s just that the politics have gone crazy and have taken a lot of normally rational people along with it. In 2008, I watched my coworkers steadily lose their minds with every new chain email received. Ones that could be proven wrong in two minutes. A group of them got together one morning. One declared that anyone voting for Obama was un-Christian. It was at that point that I realized it was over. I couldn’t view these people the same way again. It wasn’t about a mere difference in opinion. It had gotten to them.
Soames
July 27th, 2010
8:31 pm
Palin? Who gives a crap what the former governor of Alaska thinks…
This is the best you could do today Jaybird?
ODDOWL
July 28th, 2010
2:50 am
The runoff election between Deal and Handel will provide the Democrats with an opportunity to inject some skullduggery into the Republican’s choice for Governor. All the Democrat voters who didn’t vote in the July 20th primary are now eligible to vote in the Republican runoff. Nearly 75% of registered Democrats didn’t vote in the Democrat primary. However Democrat voters will have a major problem deciding which one of these incompetent Republican candidates would be the most vulnerable against Gov. Roy Barnes. Handel or Deal ??? We Dems are going to have some fun with this one.
JeffyW
July 29th, 2010
9:42 am
This election will be between the Haves, and not the Have Not’s, but the Will Not’s. Since the Haves are taking it on the chin since day one of the Obama administration, I’m counting on a Republican run. BTW, if you have a job making over 50K, you’re a Have.
calvin
July 29th, 2010
11:57 am
GOP PLAYS Phantom non-sensical politics! Great, just what are unemployed workers need you guys playing around. Instead of solving problems. Also I am still waiting for a RECAP OF THE SENATE RACE.
LOVE TO SEE SOME KIND OF INFORMATION ON MICHAEL THURMOND, OR IS THE AJC IN THE ;POCKET OF JONNNNIE BAD BOY ISSAKSON. VOTING NO ON EVERYTHING. WE MUST HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE COME NOVEMBER.
COLD CALLING POLLS IS NOT GOING TO WORK ANYMORE. TOO MANY OUTLETS FOR US TO SHARE INFORMATION!!!
Roy B
August 1st, 2010
12:11 pm
Roy Barnes will be Obama / Biden’s operative in Georgia, instituting the “hope and change” mandate and giveaways! It’s good for the obama camp to have their man running things in the state. Yes we can!
The Man
August 1st, 2010
1:56 pm
I got a letter from the Georgia Democratic Party wanting money. Judging from what Mr Bookman said. I think he got one too.
Joe
August 1st, 2010
3:04 pm
Again Jay, like most libs, needs a simple explanation for everything. So I’ll explain it for you Jay so you can understand it. Barnes is a demoncrat. Obama is the leader of the demoncrat part. Hence the reason they are intertwined. Demoncrats in general are a party of liberals now and that will also be exploited. There’s no such thing as a blue dog demoncrat or a conservative demoncrat anymore. It’s the party of the far left and that point is easily proven by its leadership… Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Barnes, Baker, Porter, so on and so on….
Tommy Maddox
August 1st, 2010
3:17 pm
What Jay?
Never seen this done before? What a joke!!!
Sarah
August 1st, 2010
4:17 pm
Red panties are falling from the sky!
Uh… sorry, I’m in the wrong blog.
John Radney
August 1st, 2010
5:48 pm
Lord forgive me but I hate all democrats.
joe
August 1st, 2010
6:17 pm
Why on Earth would we wanna elect a man who was horrible as our Gov in the past…any why on Earth would anyone want to vote for Barry again. Both are horrible…give ‘em the boot!
william
August 1st, 2010
6:46 pm
SKB i got ur answer. Just move.
uhoh
August 1st, 2010
7:57 pm
Let’s simplify this:
Barnes and Obama are both Democrats, right.
Barnes = Obama.
56% oppose Obamacare, Probably higher than that.
37% like Obama, but it’s still early and last I looked he hasn’t followed rule#1 of how to get out of hole.
Too soon to say “the party is over” but I believe that “the party is over.”
Not Surprised
August 1st, 2010
8:32 pm
To win an election in Ga; I love Jesus and Guns, and I don’t like colored people.
tiredofotall
August 1st, 2010
9:18 pm
since there is no such thing as “God” – his endorsement of a political candidate means nothing.