Michael Thurmond to make Senate run against Johnny Isakson
State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, a Democrat, on Tuesday will announce his entrance into the U.S. Senate race against Republican Johnny Isakson.
Thurmond, one two remaining Democrats holding statewide office, had been spoken of as a candidate for lieutenant governor.
But many Democrats had expressed concern that a strong bid for governor could be affected by the lack of a strong candidate at the top of the ticket running against Isakson.
The entry of Thurmond, who is in charge of unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of Georgians looking for work, guarantees that the U.S. Senate race will carry a heavy emphasis on the economy.
R.J. Hadley, a novice candidate from Rockdale County, is currently the only announced Democrat.
We’re told that the courting of Thurmond by Democrats in Washington stepped up with Isakson’s recent back-to-back hospitalizations.
Isakson, 65, was hospitalized first for a bacterial infection, then for a potential blood clot in a leg. The senator says he now feels great, and is back to work.
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134 comments Add your comment
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
4:00 pm
Dustbin of history? Nice turn of a phrase, but hardly true. If you want liberals elected the simple formula is to convince voters you have a better idea. If the majority disagree, it’s not because they are dumb, it’s because they don’t agree with you. That simple.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
4:02 pm
I agree ED, he could be best friends with Ragnal and Masa. oops, Masa left town, guess he thoght the young boys were better in upstate NY.
Michael Thurmond to run against Isakson for Senate seat | Fresh Loaf
April 16th, 2010
4:04 pm
[...] this should mix things up. From the AJC’s Jim Galloway: State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, a Democrat, on Tuesday will announce his entrance into [...]
Boots
April 16th, 2010
4:09 pm
Georgia would vote for a goat if he ran as a Republican.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
4:11 pm
New York would vote for a goat if he ran as a Democrat. This too is a mindless statement.
Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond (D) Throws Hat Into U.S. Senate Race - Peaches in Regalia
April 16th, 2010
4:12 pm
[...] over the weekend. This will no doubt setup an interesting primary battle between the two Democrats. Jim Galloway from AJC’s Political Insider has the scoop: State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, a Democrat, on Tuesday will announce his entrance into [...]
Aaron Burr V. Mexico
April 16th, 2010
4:14 pm
MORPH’s back!!!! Wow, and here I missed your pedantic disgusting behavior.
How’s it been going Morphy? Been redecorating your troll cave? Been driving around the country, living on your unemployment/medicare/social security check yelling at sick people and attending Tea Parties? Please, the world wants to know….
Ned: Both parties are corrupt. However only one is completely and utterly insane.
Hint: It’s the one that is displayed by FOX news and that Morph the Troll likes.
tp george
April 16th, 2010
4:16 pm
you dems are on your way out. your game is exposed for all to see. you think tea party people are stupid – thats incredible. can’t understand the complex issues in the race for senator. we understand how to make a living, how to raise our children and we know that burying americas economic engine “small business” under more taxes and regulations is a death sentence for our economy. Look at your constituents, welfare receipients, unions, attorneys, wacko enviormentalist. You may can buy their vote with financial assistance, sweet heart deals, etc but we are watching and will not forget. it’s all out war – we are coming after progressive liberals. We will vote them out.
Junior Samples
April 16th, 2010
4:17 pm
Wow,
Jim Galloway wrote an article that someone is running for office.
Then we get elitist this, or racist that.
Fact: Nobody will change their mind about anything because some anonymous person posted a comment on a blog.
Everyone is just spinning their wheels. Don’t you feel powerful now?
Now go home and watch TV.
John
April 16th, 2010
4:22 pm
We cannot give the Master more help to destory the country.
Boots
April 16th, 2010
4:28 pm
I don’t live in New York, so I only have to contend with the goats that fly under the Republican flag.
State Retiree
April 16th, 2010
4:34 pm
Publeeze!! Thurmond . . . US Senator . . . give me a break! What has he done that qualifies him as having done a good job as Labor Commissioner?
Boots
April 16th, 2010
4:37 pm
The Tea Partyers are dancing from one foot to the other like a little boy waiting in line for the toilet. Didn’t hear much groaning and bellyaching when the Republicans were spending money like drunken sailors on an ill-conceived war and such mind-boggling projects as the Bridge To Nowhere.
The truth is you’re just pitiable losers who can’t come to grips with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans were fed up with your mindless arrogance and stupidity and wanted a change. And the change happened to be a bright young black man. Holy freakin’ cow!
Aaron Burr V. Mexico
April 16th, 2010
4:37 pm
Junior Samples: Then why are you posting?
And my mind has been changed by anonymous comments. Usually, it has been changed to be even MORE socialist (because it was less like the Republican) MORE against the US Constitution (because Liberatarians were hiding behind it) and MORE anti Tea Bagger (because most of them are Birthers) but occasionally I’ve had my opinion on an individual issue changed by someone in the same ideological camp as Morph.
TP George: There is a natural back and forth cycle. Just as the Dems were trumpeting the end of the Rephuklycans, they came back. And just as the Rephuklycans will probably do well this election, people will see them in action and vote them out again just as quickly.
The people of this country have the memory of a goldfish and the desire to know the real truth of an Ostritch.
Especially in *THIS* state.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
4:43 pm
Boots-
You are correct, on the national level the Republicans did spend and spend and were correctly kicked out. You miss when you fail to realize the Dems have done the same thing, only twice as much. That’s why in Nov you’ll see a Dem bloodbath with a new republican speaker, reid defeated and gone a the Dems with 51 seats in the senate.
A “smart young black man” or an old white man, wrong is wrong and we are headed in the wrong direction. Every poll says that. Even a poll yesterday said Americans by a 48% to 46% wish Bush was back as president.
Wise up, the day is coming.
CL
April 16th, 2010
4:47 pm
Represent Athens well Mr. Thurmond
Boots
April 16th, 2010
4:51 pm
The Dems will lose some seats in the mid-term like most incumbents; however, unemployment will be on the increase and the economy will be hitting on all cylinders by 2012 and the extreme conservatives will go down to another defeat because they have no ideas — no vision for this country in the 21st century.
MrAttitude
April 16th, 2010
4:52 pm
Retired Soldier,
Nice try, but you are so far off base that you will need a high powered GPS to find your way home. Your mindset is one of the main reason the political landscape is as foul as it is today. If I want to say that blacks vote for blacks and whites vote for white, I will just say it. I have no need to use subliminal messages to get my point across. That must be the way you think.
Are you clear now?
Boots
April 16th, 2010
4:52 pm
Correction: Employment will be on the increase by 2012 and that will carry the day for the Democrats.
Decatur Bubber
April 16th, 2010
4:56 pm
Isakson done sold his soul to the whackos that run the party of Lincoln so he could succeed in their anointing process, aka the Republican Primary. Sadly, he used to be moderate, but gave that up in the name of being a U.S. Senator. Vote for Thurmond!!
Terry
April 16th, 2010
4:58 pm
It isn’t hard to tell the Democrats from the Tea party Republicans, the Democrats spelling and grammar is correct with no sign of racism while the other guys are racist, illerate idiots
Terry
April 16th, 2010
4:59 pm
It isn’t hard to tell the Democrats from the Tea party Republicans, the Democrats spelling and grammar is correct with no sign of racism while the other guys are racist, illiterate idiots
Boots
April 16th, 2010
5:04 pm
All the Tea Party has to do to draw a crowd is to drive through a trailer park dragging a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon behind a pick-up truck.
Boots
April 16th, 2010
5:05 pm
Lord, I apologize for that last statement.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:07 pm
Boots-
I see you glossed over 2010. 2012 can wait, I waiting to dance in on one foot to the other in Nov 2012.
Aaron Burr V. Mexico (the original)
April 16th, 2010
5:08 pm
The democrat party is completelt totally insane!! Playing the race card is the democrat/lib national past time. Folk, are sick of race baiters like Terry. Hey, Terry, GFYS and then take all 52 race cards in your deck, fold them into five corners and shove them up your tired liberal arse. America is sick of the race baiters and hate merchants on the left. GTH.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:08 pm
Really Terry, go back on my posts and please inform this uneducated person what racist remarks I have made.
Einstein
April 16th, 2010
5:10 pm
Thurmond has never made a decision in his life (other than which suit and tie to wear). On the other hand, Johnny has never done anything progressive while he was our Senator. As a tax-paying, concerned-citizen, and responsible voter, what choice do I have? Maybe this is the problem…choosing between career politicians that don’t have a clue. Anyway, what do you think? Just my humble opinion.
Aaron Burr V. Mexico
April 16th, 2010
5:12 pm
Methinks RetiredSoldier is Morph. Way to tip your hand Morphy.
Cool. I’ll just call you RSMorph from now, mK?
And Republicans are the ones obsessed with the race card, though…if it drives you nuts (and on some level it probably does, because I’d be willing to bet its true)…..You’re a racist!
But at least you finally got a spine and decided to get a real name there RSMorph, even if you still play the shapeshifter…just like FOX….they’re for something…if its against Democrats…except when they’re against it…when democrats are for it.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:12 pm
Clear as a bell Mr. Attitude, glad I was wrong on that one.
Boots
April 16th, 2010
5:13 pm
No, I said a 4:51 we’d lose some seats in the Mid-Term — that would be 2010 — but that’s a very common occurence for the incumbent party to lose some seats. However, 2012 will see a resurgence in those things that matter to most Americans and Obama will be re-elected handily.
Face it, the Republicans don’t have a vision. All they can try to do is try to reclaim the Reagan mystique — without a Reagan.
No ideas. No vision. Obama re-election.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:13 pm
Burr, wrong answer, have no clue who u are speaking about. I’m who I always am, don’t blog under any other name.
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:15 pm
Time will tell Boots.
Aaron Burr V. Mexico
April 16th, 2010
5:23 pm
(shrugs) Well you happen to post at roughly the same time as Morph on a regular basis, but I’d hardly have Morph’s absolute spineless cowardice and typical Republican shapeshifting denigrate anyone who wasn’t actually doing it.
I mean, someone who can’t pick a single name and stick to it is clearly just a wimp. They are probably very physically weak and hide in their parent’s basement on a regular basis.
Since you were in the military and were raised in a culture of honor and defending our nation from tyrants and psychotic despots (many of whom now roam the nation claiming to be patriots) then I will not call Morph RSMorph.
You have my apologies for associating you with pond scum.
MaccaDave
April 16th, 2010
5:25 pm
Why would he thing the Conservative “Red State” of Georgia would elect him as a liberal senator. A Senator is to represent the state. He has not done that as Attorney General when called to file suit with the other states against Healthcare Legislation. He will join with Osama-Obama to undo everything that Reagan did to make America the nation it is, or was.
jezzie1
April 16th, 2010
5:27 pm
No sorry we do not need another democrap to further sully this great nation!!!
RetiredSoldier
April 16th, 2010
5:28 pm
I think that was a compliment Burr, thanks, I think.
Alabama Communist
April 16th, 2010
5:28 pm
Bring Back the Ghost of old Sam Calwell, the best sneakiest Democrat labor sec this state ever had when it came to hiding money and boats along with girl friends………Yeah Sam!!!!!!!!
jezzie1
April 16th, 2010
5:34 pm
Boots you are correct that America wanted a change. But the change we got was a short change. We got a closet muslim who the only change is to fundamentally destroy this country.
Boots
April 16th, 2010
5:45 pm
Jezzie 1: I’m going to answer your post on a level you can understand:
Horse hocky!
You wouldn’t know a Shiite from a Mennonite.
Adios, my intellectully challenged friend.
jezzie1
April 16th, 2010
6:10 pm
Boots I think you will never understand but soon I think you will. I do know the difference and I think you do not. We voted for someone who we thought was someone else and we got what we did not not want!!!
Georgia’s Thurmond plans Senate run | Reclaiming Democracy
April 16th, 2010
6:11 pm
[...] Commissioner Michael Thurmond plans to mount a challenge to Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, giving the Democrats a high-profile candidate in a race that’s been absent from 2010 [...]
Brenda
April 16th, 2010
6:18 pm
Michael Thurmond is facing strong opposition from State Rep. Melvin Everson, R-Snellville, a conservative Republican who also happens to be black. To lose the Labor seat to Everson would be embarrassing for Thurmond. If he loses to Senator Isakson, Thurmond and the Obama administration can play the race card, then show sympathy by offering a better job than they did last year. Either way, I believe that Georgia’s next Labor Commissioner will be conservative Republican Melvin Everson and in the current political environment, I don’t think Thurmond will be our next Senator.
old Hippie
April 16th, 2010
6:20 pm
Mike is too smart to do this without some backup plan. Obviously the Obama admin has promised Mike some compensation for running (and losing) against Isakson.
His ties too the DLC is not going to help him with us progressives however.
old Hippie
April 16th, 2010
6:21 pm
“to the DLC” my fingers don’t work as fast as my brain.
Georgia is racist
April 16th, 2010
6:27 pm
Michael Thurmond would not win because of the racist state this is and Isakson belong to the Tea Party. I wondering why Isakson vote against the extension of the job bill …..That so may people in Georgia is out of work and Isakson decline benefits for the unemployement people in Georgia. Vote for the person who can do a better job dont vote just because of the color of his skin.
Hummon
April 16th, 2010
6:46 pm
Best electoral wishes to my fellow Athenian! Go get ‘em Pee Wee!
Paul Broun . . . that’s another story.
Roger
April 16th, 2010
7:59 pm
To tell you the truth, we really don’t need any Democrats in office.
crusher dawg
April 16th, 2010
8:51 pm
It would be extremely hard for me to vote for someone that is supposed to be working to bring jobs to the state. Where are they. I’ve been looking for over a year.
bulldog
April 16th, 2010
8:51 pm
Isakson gets 65 plus % of the vote. Thurmond does not stand a chance.