Political Insider

Republican candidate for governor Karen Handel makes use of Sarah Palin’s endorsement in her first TV ad in the Republican runoff for government – which also condemns rival Nathan Deal as “a corrupt relic of Washington D.C.”

“One carries a purse, the other carries baggage,” the 30-second ad begins.

The TV spot follows on the heels of an AJC report of federal grand jury interest in a meeting called by Deal in the hope of preserving his business with the state.

Handel spokesman Dan McLagan says the ad is targeted at metro Atlanta, and describes the airtime buy as “big.”

The script:

Male voiceover: One carries a purse. The other carries baggage.

One whom Sarah Palin says has cut government, and is the true conservative.

Or the other, who added trillions to our national debt.

One a conservative reformer. One a corrupt relic of Washington D.C.

Karen Handel is Georgia’s strong conservative. Impeccable integrity. Our thrilling, vibrant future. Karen Handel. Bring it on.

The ad by …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: On TV, Karen Handel hits Nathan Deal as ‘a corrupt relic of Washington’ »

Suburban Atlanta — specifically its northern roof of Cobb, north Fulton and Gwinnett counties — may finally be on the cusp of true political clout in Georgia.

The governor and the attorney general are the most powerful administrators in state government. The Republican nominations for both jobs are up for grabs in runoff elections now only 12 days away.

In each case, the leading candidate is the former head of a county government in metro Atlanta.

In the race for governor, Karen Handel, before she served as secretary of state, was chairman of the Fulton County Commission. Sam Olens, a candidate for attorney general, is the immediate past chairman of the Cobb County Commission.

Former Fulton County commission chairman Karen Handel/Associated Press

Both, like many of you, are non-native Georgians. Though she now lives in Roswell, Handel was born in Maryland. Olens is from New Jersey.

In the Aug. 10 runoffs, both Handel and Olens face multigenerational natives of the state …

Continue reading Northern ‘burbs may finally be on cusp of new clout »

The Republican portion of Georgia’s congressional delegation on Tuesday showed a significant fracture when it comes to funding the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the New York Times:

The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $59 billion to continue financing America’s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.

The 308-to-114 vote, with strong Republican support, came after the leak of an archive of classified battlefield reports from Afghanistan that fueled new debate over the course of the war and whether President Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy could work.

Voting for the measure were Georgia Democrats John Barrow of Savannah, Sanford Bishop of Albany, Jim Marshall of Macon, and David Scott of Atlanta; Republicans Tom Graves of Ranger, Jack Kingston of Savannah, Tom Price of Roswell, and Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.

Voting against the …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Georgia’s GOP delegation fractures over Iraq, Afghanistan funding »

U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah

Republican candidate for governor Nathan Deal has picked up the support of U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston – one of Deal’s former colleagues in Congress.

Kingston had been a backer of Eric Johnson, the third-place finisher in the GOP gubernatorial sweepstakes.

Perhaps more important, Kingston is one of Johnson’s BFFs – and perhaps an indicator of where the former Senate president pro tem might be headed in the next few days.

Said Kingston, in a press release just sent out:

“I encourage conservative Republicans in Southeast Georgia to join me in rallying behind Nathan Deal to be Georgia’s next governor. For those who supported Eric Johnson, Nathan is the natural fit for the Aug. 10 runoff.

“As a member of Congress, Nathan earned a perfect score from the American Conservative Union which speaks volumes for his conservative record….”

U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell is now the only Republican member of the Georgia delegation not within the Deal …

Continue reading Nathan Deal picks up Jack Kingston’s endorsement »

Political blogger Bill Simon has filed a complaint against Republican candidate for governor Karen Handel with the State Ethics Commission, alleging that she illegally paid $13,200 to advisors of her gubernatorial campaign with money raised as a candidate for secretary of state.

Read the entire complaint here, but here’s the heart of the allegation:

Because Karen Handel did not wish to announce her candidacy for governor until after the 2009 Session of the Georgia General Assembly (as per Steve Handel’s December 12, 2008 e-mail), and because she could not raise money for governor until after she registered her campaign committee, she had no funds in which to pay any consultant or staff to work on her campaign for governor.

So, she unlawfully used funds from her Secretary of State’s account to finance the first 3 months of her campaign for governor.

Actually, Handel announced her campaign for governor in January 2009, during an impromptu session with reporters on the eve of …

Continue reading Karen Handel hit with ethics complaint alleging $13k in illegal payments to staffers »

Political analyst Charlie Cook recently downgraded Sanford Bishop’s 2nd Congressional District in southwest Georgia from “safe Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”

Bishop is taking no chances.

Shirley Sherrod at her home in Albany, Ga., last week. Associated Press

On Monday, his first full day of campaigning against newly nominated Republican Mike Keown, the congressman pulled out the biggest gun he could find – Shirley Sherrod, the wrongly fired U.S. Department of Agriculture worker.

Sherrod, by virtue of apologies delivered to her from President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, is the region’s newest political celebrity.

From WALB-TV:

…[H]er message at Bishop’s headquarters in Albany came in loud and clear. “He has my vote,” she said. “I will do all I can to make sure he is reelected in this district and I hope you’ll do the same.”

In her years working with farmers, Sherrod says Bishop has fought for them and that’s why she’ll fight for him. She said, …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Right-wing will target Sanford Bishop — just like it targeted her, says Shirley Sherrod »

From the aptly named web site, Fishbowl DC:

ESPN’s Erin Andrews is scheduled to join Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), Virgina Foxx (R-N.C.), and Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.) in a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday to plug tougher federal stalking laws.

The presser is at 10:30 a.m. at the House Triangle just off Independence Avenue near New Jersey Avenue.

Klobuchar will introduce a Senate companion bill to H.R. 5662, the Simplifying the Ambiguous Law, Keeping Everyone Reliably Safe (STALKERS) Act, introduced by Sanchez last week.

Now, that’s an acronym.

For instant updates, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.

Continue reading ESPN’s Erin Andrews goes to Capitol Hill to demand tougher anti-stalking laws »

According to the secretary of state’s web site, Darryl Hicks of Fayetteville beat former House speaker Terry Coleman of Eastman by 572 votes in the Democratic primary for labor commissioner.

But nearly a week later, Coleman has yet to concede – and won’t until a situation in Brooks County is sorted out by the GBI and Brian Kemp’s office.

“Apparently they’ve never had but a couple hundred absentees. This time they had something like 1,400 requested, and voted about 1,100 of them” Coleman said. “Of course, I lost the absentees by two-and-a-half to one or more. So it looked kind of suspicious.”

In next door Lowndes County, which hosts the big city of Valdosta, 439 ballots were reportedly mailed out – and 169 returned.

Coleman’s allies are now looking to see if any other counties have shown jumps in absentee ballots.

“There may be a little fraud involved. Who knows?” the former speaker said.

Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, confirmed this …

Continue reading Until south Georgia voter fraud inquiry is settled, Terry Coleman says he’ll hold off on concession »

It’s still morning, and over at Politico, Jonathan Martin already has the quote of the day.

From his look at Alvin Greene and South Carolina politics:

State Rep. Anton Gunn, an up-and-coming Democrat, said there is now a national perception about the state along the lines of, “If you want to hear something crazy, if you want to see something stupid, come to South Carolina.”

“I don’t agree with it,” he added, “but there’s this imagery of us being the whoopee cushion of the nation, and we continue to exacerbate that.”

Updated at 12:17 p.m.: A few minutes ago, a loyal reader called to say that he’d heard the “whoopee cushion” line before – from Jon Stewart with “The Daily Show:”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Continue reading South Carolina as ‘the whoopee cushion of the nation’ »

The issue of abortion is likely to dominate much of the remaining two weeks in an increasingly caustic Republican runoff for governor.

But after Saturday’s meeting in Dalton, former secretary of state Karen Handel attempted to inject another element that she’s hinted at before: An age gap of nearly 20 years.

Here’s the Twitter she sent out on Sunday:

gd debate. Nathan forgot that he quit Congress b/c of that ethics investigation but I suppose he was tired. http://bit.ly/9KJN97 #gapolitics

While Deal emphasizes his experience, the former secretary of state’s language is littered with phrases like “next-generation” and “fresh-thinking.” Handel is 48. Deal will turn 68 next month.

Do not be surprised if the next TV ad from the former north Georgia congressman shows him taking a jog, or lifting a bulldozer over his head.

***

Last night, former GOP candidate for governor Eric Johnson of Savannah sent out a proposed op-ed piece for Georgia newspapers, saying that he expected his …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Karen Handel puts a shawl around Nathan Deal’s shoulders »