Your morning jolt: The secret mission to save Sarah Palin

Seven years ago, Nick Ayers was a fresh-faced campaign aide for Sonny Perdue, the Republican long-shot for governor.

Today he’s the lead character in a New York Times account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s decision to chuck it all:

In late March, a senior official from the Republican Governors Association headed for Alaska on a secret mission. Sarah Palin was beset by such political and personal turmoil that some powerful supporters determined an intervention was needed to pull her governorship, and her national future, back from the brink.

The official, the association’s executive director, Nick Ayers, arrived with a memorandum containing firm counsel, according to several people who know its details: Make a long-term schedule and stick to it, have staff members set aside ample and inviolable family time to replenish your spirits, and build a coherent home-state agenda that creates jobs and ensures re-election.

Like so much of the advice sent Ms. Palin’s way by influential supporters, it appeared to be happily received and then largely discarded, barely slowing what was, in retrospect, an inexorable march toward the resignation she announced 10 days ago.

If memory serves, Ayers also helped Palin during her appearance last November in Georgia, on behalf of U.S. Saxby Chambliss — who was then mired in a runoff.

Psst, kid. Some career advice here. Plastics? No. Pistols.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that sales for handgun maker Glock, Inc., shot up 71 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

The private company, with U.S. headquarters in Smyrna, employs 170.

Vice President Josh Dorsey does not attribute the increased sales to fears of an apocalyptic breakdown in the social order. Rather, he told the ABC, the company launched two new pistol models, improved its marketing to law enforcement, and increased its customer service.

Who knew the SCLC and the Southern Baptist Convention had so much in common? Thanks to Blog For Democracy for spotting this in the New York Times:

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the 50-year-old civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, is seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter in response to his support of same-sex marriage in California.

The effort by the Atlanta-based organization is meeting stiff resistance in Los Angeles from both the board of the local chapter, whose chairman is secretary of the state’s Democratic Party, and the City Council president.

While you ponder some of that weirdness above, consider these items found while perusing this morning’s ajc.com:

Like Steve Jobs returning to Apple, Ralph Reed aims to rejuvenate Christian conservatives.

Hopefuls for governor find big-time donors.

Donors to Atlanta mayoral candidates include familiar names.

Georgia port plan runs into political barriers.

Appeals nominee set sentencing rule aside.

New Gwinnett buildings likely to sit empty.

DeKalb earns cash from landfill trash.

Red tape could force Atlanta to return more than $30 million to feds at year’s end.

Education data system key to additional federal stimulus money.

Laid-off city of Atlanta parking workers hire lawyer.

Perdue rips Atlanta school chief in CRCT cheating.

Author defends Jimmy Carter’s ‘crisis of confidence’ speech.

Noted Atlanta author Paul Hemphill dies.

Some opinion:

Your Luckovich fix.

Maureen Downey: Should it matter that Karen Handel doesn’t have a college degree?

Cynthia Tucker says Barack Obama’s next stop should be Main Street.

Kyle Wingfield on John Oxendine’s tendency to share too much.

Alisha Thomas Morgan says parent choice is wave of future.

From elsewhere in Georgia:

Augusta Chronicle: Money to catch test cheats lacking.

AC: It’s an open secret that state Sen. Ed Tarver is on short list for U.S. attorney for the Southern District.

And beyond:

WSJ: That secret CIA plan was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential order to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives.

WP: States seek less costly substitutes for prison.

NYT: I-Phone apps to organize your life.

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