Roy Barnes: Hard to recruit jobs ‘with the rest of the country laughing at us’
The Democratic campaign of former Gov. Roy Barnes has had a new TV spot up for nearly a week, but only made it available via the Internet this afternoon.
The delay was attributed to Fourth of July logistics.
The content is sensitive, directed at some of the odder and more ideologically polarizing causes pursued by Republican hardcores in the state Capitol – material that Barnes has regularly used as laugh lines on the stump.
For instance, on (unsuccessful) GOP legislation to ban the involuntary implantation of microchips in human beings: “If somebody holds me down and drives a microchip into my head, it had better be more than just a damn misdemeanor,” Barnes says.
But in this 30-second spot, Barnes quite seriously argues that the price of those ventures could be jobs. Here’s the ad:
The script:
Narrator: A governor can create jobs by selling the advantages of Georgia to firms looking for a home. But it’s hard for industry to take us seriously when the Legislature attempts to outlaw stem cell research, passes bills about microchips in the brain, and talks about seceding from the Union.
Barnes: We can’t bring jobs to Georgia with the rest of the country laughing at us. I’ll make Georgia work.
Narrator: Strong leadership. To make Georgia work.
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148 comments Add your comment
Bill
July 6th, 2010
3:59 pm
Hard to argue with that.
Pork Chop
July 6th, 2010
4:07 pm
You think they are laughing now, Roy? Just wait until you hear the howls of laughter if the voters are dumb enough to vote you in again!
techengineer
July 6th, 2010
4:08 pm
Roy Barnes is a lying degenerate fool. Who the hell in their right mind would vote for such a fool?
Jose
July 6th, 2010
4:13 pm
Is Barnes going to tell us where he stands on Obama’s healthcare bill and does he support the President in his social policies and agenda? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Bobby Anthony
July 6th, 2010
4:14 pm
Only three candidates were concerned enough to show up in Columbia County to debate about the critical water supply in our state. I would like for Barnes, Handel, Oxendine and the rest of the candidates to tell us if they plan on draining water from the Savannah River and dumping it into the Chattahoochee. This action would involve us in a costly water war with South Carolina and endanger Georgia’s commerce at the Port of Savannah. We are already in a legal battle with Florida and Alabama concerning the use of water in our region. Porter, Poythress, and Canon stated they are opposed to draining water from the Savannah. Roy Barnes do you have the intestinal fortitude to tell us where you stand on the issue?
Real Georgia
July 6th, 2010
4:15 pm
Barnes sure is desperate for someone polling at 63% in their primary. He knows that Nathan Deal will crush him in the general. Deal presents real workable solutions as opposed to Barnes’ empty promises and bitter cynicism.
Oh Well
July 6th, 2010
4:15 pm
Well, I may consider voting for him.
I’m new to the State and I can tell you that none of the other candidates strike me as having anything to offer!
Of course, I wasn’t a resident when he was in office the first time – and there are a lot more folks out there like me (new to GA, that is) who are probably considering Barnes the only “option” in the dead pool.
No Joke
July 6th, 2010
4:17 pm
BELOW IS A REPORT ON THE COMMITTEE HEARINGS BEFORE THE MICROCHIP BILL WAS PASSED OUT. SADLY, THIS IS NOT A JOKE:
“Microchips are like little beepers,” the woman told the committee. “Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission.”
“Ma’am, did you say you have a microchip?” state Rep. Tom Weldon (R) asked the woman.
“Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area,” she replied.
No one laughed. State Rep. Wendell Willard (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked her who had implanted the chip.
“The Department of Defense,” she said.
Willard thanked the woman for her input, and the committee later approved the bill.
King Rat thumper!
July 6th, 2010
4:17 pm
The only way the “REST” of the country will be laughing at us is if we RE-ELECT KING RAT Roy again!!!
DannyX
July 6th, 2010
4:18 pm
Of course no one is denying the fact that Georgia has indeed become a laughingstock.
“Pray for rain”
street smart
July 6th, 2010
4:18 pm
When youre fight youre right and Barnes is not just right here, he is being brutally honest. The Jesus Crispies and the redneck vote will always be the majority in Ga and will surely vote against what he is proposing. I give the guy credit tho, he knows the logistics of whats going to work and isnt afraid to say what he knows is right even tho it will cost him the election. Pity. Palin 2012 yawl.
WAW
July 6th, 2010
4:18 pm
Pork.. do you really want OxeyGov to put a blue light on Sonny’s whirlybird… you guys need to remember that next year the Legislature will not have the Obama Stimulus Money to use for the budget… so Georgia will be bankrupt… can and of your clowns “handle” that? You can get a free night at Sea Island now… since Eric failed to accomplish Reynold’s Jeykll Plantation… Play time is over, no bingo either… we need Roy to get us back to being a government not a little kid’s tea party.
Marty
July 6th, 2010
4:20 pm
We have a bunch of white rednecks running this state. We need Roy to keep these boys in check.
Jose
July 6th, 2010
4:22 pm
Yeah WAW, that is what we need in a state going broke is a democrat running the state. It’s working so well for the country with his tax and spend so let’s do it for our state leadership.
Jose
July 6th, 2010
4:23 pm
Mrty, you want a white redneck to keep the white rednecks in check?
bulldog
July 6th, 2010
4:27 pm
I don’t vote for Democrats but have to admit this is a very effective ad.
Tony
July 6th, 2010
4:28 pm
I like it.
Sorry, but the man’s right. If you want to be taken seriously by serious people, you can’t constantly play the fool. If you’re going to lend serious credence to a bunch of yahoos in gray coats and rebel flags, fighting a war they lost generations ago, then you’re going to always be a second-tier candidate. The Legislature in this state is a freaking joke. I don’t personally like Roy Barnes, but I do think he’s the only one in the field who can effectively tell the General Assembly to stuff it and make them shape up.
Of course, I’m also OK with Zombie Tom Murphy. Elect the dead!
Gavoter
July 6th, 2010
4:28 pm
If Roy thinks we want him again as Governor he can think again. I have seen the ad and he is the one who makes us a laughingstock.
DannyX
July 6th, 2010
4:29 pm
Laughingstock? More like an old Three Stooges movie.
Curly number one, Sonny Perdue, can’t run again, so we have Curly number two, John Oxendine carefully studying his lines for the up coming sequel.
The new movie due out this fall is sure to be a hit. “The Three Stooges Go Hunting.” Filmed entirely in Georgia!
rightofcenter
July 6th, 2010
4:35 pm
Inquiring minds want to know how the governor is going to keep the legislature from bringing up “embarassing” legislation. Oh, that’s right – he can’t. Once again Roy, remember, we have three branches of government, not a King. As in King Rat.
South Ga Teacher
July 6th, 2010
4:41 pm
Like to hear exaclty how King Roy plans on putting his “I won’ts and I wills” into play…he says all these things he will do, but doesn’t give one clue as to how he will accomplish them.
Oh that’s right-he’s just saying these things to get votes…just like every other politician.
Revenue Agent
July 6th, 2010
4:42 pm
There is NO WAY that Roy could keep his promise of giving Teacher pay raises. No one else in State Govt has gotten a raise in the last 4 years. The $$$ is not there and it is not coming in. If he is elected, GA will be in worse shape than the Fed Govt. Eric Johnson is the only candidate willing to forgo a salary if elected. I’m sure all the other candidates could learn to live like the rest of us. Insurance costs and the every othere cost-of-living have gone up and net pay has gone down!
The rest of the country is NOT laughing at GA….. they are ALL in the same shape financially.
John Bandit
July 6th, 2010
4:44 pm
I’ll vote for a yellow dog before I vote for a democrat.
DannyX
July 6th, 2010
4:45 pm
Yea Roy, how are you going to keep Republican House Speakers from having adulterous affairs with short skirted lobbyists?
Devildog
July 6th, 2010
4:52 pm
I like the idea of a Demo governor and a Republican legislature. They kinda cancel each other out and make me feel safer.
And when they were passing out Republicans, why did Georgia get all the dumb ones?
atlantadomer
July 6th, 2010
4:53 pm
I’m with Tony. Zombie Tom Murphy would at first be appalled at the shape the State has gotten into, then he would quietly go about getting everything back to the way it was – the way it should be.
You people on here decrying “Oh we remember how it was with ‘King Roy’, oh it was so awful”. Are you people high, drunk, or just stupid.
Yeah, that less than 5% unemployment was awful, the State budget surplus was terrible, the county commissions actually sitting down and creating the beginning of a “Regional” transportation authority (GRTA) was just downright appalling wasn’t it?
Please “hayseeds”, please get your next Hayseed “I hate Atlanta” candidate up there in Eric Johnson. Go ahead. The people of the Metro Area won’t stand for it for another 4 years. Another 4 years of “let’s see if we can’t destroy Metro Atlanta because we have a South Georgia inferiority complex” will completely sink this State for the rest of my lifetime.
Jason
July 6th, 2010
4:59 pm
The only ones who are laughing stocks are Roy and those who believe him. In one of his advertisements, he has claimed that he will “end teacher furloughs FOREVER.” And just how will he make that promise? Does he plan on becoming king and living for eternity? How will he keep that promise after his term expires? And what money will he do this with? He can promise no teacher furloughs, but he’s got to come up with the money to pay them. Where is he going to get that from? This is a totally empty promise. Even if its his intent, economic reality will prevent him from being able to fulfill this promis, and Roy knows it.
Also, his new article seems to imply that things that are important to Georgians are less important that things that are important to other states. Stem cell research? If I remember correctly, there is a significant portion of citizens across the country that are against harvesting embryos to obtain these stem cells. Why does that make us a laughing stock if it is a concern to 25-50% of Americans? Microchips? Why does it make us a laughing stock to be proactive in an increasingly technological society to make laws concerning what people can and cannot place into your body? I work for a DOD contractor, and I do know of instances where employers request that employees have a microchip implanted so that they can enter secure areas. Shouldn’t we be pro-active in stating what a company can legally request/require of their employees? Why wait until damage is done?
So, Roy’s commercial is really nothing of substance. The only thing laughable is that Roy is making promises he can’t keep and people are believing him.
Savannah77
July 6th, 2010
5:00 pm
ReElect NoOne!!
Career politicians need to move on down the road and brush off their resume.
DannyX
July 6th, 2010
5:02 pm
“I like the idea of a Demo governor and a Republican legislature.”
Back when Democrats controlled the state government Jim Wooten would write a column about once a month extolling the benefits of a split government. It keeps things centered, keeps the extremes from dominating. (Funny, he hasn’t mentioned it since Republicans took full control.)
His theory is right on the money. Georgia would benefit greatly by having a split government. As would the federal government.
AngryVoter
July 6th, 2010
5:03 pm
Oh Well, please, please, please reconsider making GA the laughingstock of the nation again. Trust someone who has lived in GA for 25+ years and think again. Please do not equate having special interest money to burn on commercials with being worth your vote. The people of GA saw fit to dump this fool after one term.
Barnes, the pandering candidate you see in the commercials, is quite different than the arrogant ruler who had a tin ear. He fooled us into voting for him once. Please do not let him do that a second time.
Yes, there a slim pickings this year in the Gov’s race, but Porter is at least a rational choice. Handel is a relative lightweight, but harmless. Harmless beats horrid by miles.
BTW – who does Barnes think is laughing at GA? That’s just such an odd thing to say or think. Granted, it’s the type of holier-than-thou condescention one expects from King Roy, but would someone please ask him who, specifically, is laughing at GA? In other words, someone needs to hold him responsible for making up this fear mongering BS. It reminds me of when he tried, in his failed attempt to get re-elected, to create fear that Sonny Perdue would hurt the lottery.
Dave
July 6th, 2010
5:03 pm
I haven’t seen a response from the GOP . . . just saying.
No Teabagging
July 6th, 2010
5:05 pm
So when did we actually state we were seceding from the union? in this century?
AngryVoter
July 6th, 2010
5:07 pm
Agree that a split government is good. Disagree that Barnes is the man to put in charge.
Hopefully the Dems will see better than to offer a choice that has already been rejected by the majority of GA voters. Honestly, once the bloom is off the rose, it’s not coming back. The majority that thinks Roy stinks isn’t likely to change its mind. If the Dems offered something new and fresh, they would have a cake walk to the Governor’s office. Leave it to the GA Dems to shoot themselves in the foot yet again.
ATF
July 6th, 2010
5:07 pm
Ol’ Roy has a point.
Read this story about Georgia in New York Times. “Defendants Squeezed by Georgia’s Tight Budget”, By ADAM LIPTAK, Published: July 5, 2010
We need to decide what are willing to be taxed for. Along with a disintegrating public defender system (a constitutional right in jeapordy), Mental Health may be under federal mandates due to the deaths and mistreatments of mental health patients in state hospitals. We may run out of water in the greater Atlanta area unless courts decide they won’t allow enforcement of a water sharing agreement we made years ago and have ignored ever since.
If we let the chipped brained (and named) legislators get away with it, we will lower the ability of Georgians to get a college education – we avoid socialism by creating feudalism. Local school systems, having seen state funding of education reduced for the last five??? seven?? years will turn out even fewer kids who can read and do math if they even graduate. This, while the legislature that deplores socialism redistributes the taxes of so-called “rich” counties to pay for the school systems of so-called “poor” counties, which is, guess what, their own brand of socialism.
What company would want to come to a state that doesn’t value education and justice, and lets the most helpless of its people languish in under-funded, poorly staffed, and unsupervised mental health system?
Well, by golly, I guess new comers can be sure they won’t get chipped!!!!!!
AnybodybutBarnes
July 6th, 2010
5:08 pm
The comment by Oh Well may have been the most illuminating so far. He/she is new to the state and doesn’t have all the old political baggage to fight through to make a choice next week. We “old” Democrats (I once was the party nominee for state representative) do remember all of the gyrations that Barnes went through over the years as he leveraged his state connections into a multi-million dollar fortune. Barnes is a phony and, if he is the nominee, I will have to seriously consider voting GOP in November. In the meantime, I am hard pressed to see a sensible alternative for my primary vote next Tuesday. Right now I am leaning toward Porter.
David Staples
July 6th, 2010
5:10 pm
Jason – didn’t the microchip law simply outlaw the forceful implantation of microchips into a person? I don’t believe it had any language in it that would prevent a company from firing someone who refuses to have a microchip implanted in them did it?
GEORGIA VOTER
July 6th, 2010
5:21 pm
Laughing at Georgia? The entire country was laughing at Georgia when so much time & effort was made in the legislature to change the state flag under Barnes’ “leadership”, and make sweet tea the official drink.
And Roy how did you create 250,000 jobs? That ad was debunked in the AJC but he still plays it on TV, pandering to the ignorant and the desperate.
Barnes, Georgia needs a leader and you are not it ! God forbid we make the same mistake twice.
TisP'doff
July 6th, 2010
5:24 pm
The only jobs King Roy has promised to save are teachers. All you state employees who think he is going to save you, better go for who’s behind door number 2.
scott
July 6th, 2010
5:27 pm
he is right..this is a good ad..i felt he did a good job before and will do one again…georgia boomed..to many ignorant rednecks running the states..my vote goes to barnes…the rest just dont have it and the republicans seem out of touch to working struggling americans
Rafe Hollister
July 6th, 2010
5:27 pm
Georgia has not had a decent governor since George Busbee. Rerun Roy, the King Rat, was one of the worst. He has nothing to offer except to promise everything to everyone and deliver nothing but ego. The country laughed at Lester Maddox, but as I remember Georgia grew, prospered, and had a good economy during that period, so as usual Roy’s imagination is running wild again. To hell with what the rest of America thinks, just govern in a responsible, honest, and sensible way and the state will overcome the legislature. We have always had nuts and fruits in the state legislature, comes with the territory.
There is not a lot to choose from, Rerun Roy, Bluelight OX, Raw Deal, GED Handel, etc. Find the most honest person and vote, you will probably be wasting your vote as Poythress and Chapman have little money or chances. The big money goes to the crooks and career politicians.
CobbGOPer
July 6th, 2010
5:28 pm
So you want us to re-elect Roy Barnes so he can blame all the problems he’s “inheriting” on someone else when he doesn’t get anything done? “Unemployment’s still at 10%, but don’t blame me, I inherited the problem.”
As for the ad, well, all I have to say is Roy better hope for a landslide in the legislature that hasn’t been seen… ever? Even if he gets elected, he’ll still have to fight a Republican Senate and House. Good luck with that.
Also, dumb legislation is not limited to Georgia; you can find similarly-idiotic legislation under consideration in just about any state. And very often in Washington, DC, as well.
fultonrighty
July 6th, 2010
5:33 pm
A governor who can control what Legislators say??? That would be worth watching!
Pork Chop
July 6th, 2010
5:35 pm
I can’t wait for Barnes to state (on any issue): “We will allow the citizens of the state to vote on it”!
CobbGOPer
July 6th, 2010
5:37 pm
@Rafe Hollister:
GED Handel? Funny how no one cares about whether a candidate finished college unless it’s a woman/minority. Based on your argument, we need to vote Lynn Westmoreland out with a quickness, as well as a quarter to a third of the state legislature.
Karl Rove never graduated from college, and he got a man elected governor twice, then elected president twice. Karen has worked in high-level private sector and political jobs, gotten herself elected in contentious races, and held a state-wide constitutional office (and done a good job there).
But she doesn’t have a diploma, so for that reason you’re not voting for her? You need a better reason. But that would require some actual thought, something that apparently is beyond your intellectual capacities.
Pandora
July 6th, 2010
5:39 pm
You could find crazies who brought up issues that are going no where in any legislature in America. Why won’t Roy talk about where he stands? Does he really think he is going to be reelected on negative campaigning? does Roy stand for anything or is just trying to hide his liberal democrat agenda?
No Ox, Noo Raw Deal, Nooo Linger Longer Johnson, Noooo King Roy
July 6th, 2010
5:40 pm
Rafe Hollister 5:27 pm
Lester was the last HONEST Governor in Georgia, he had his faults but he left office broke.
Real Georgia 4:15 pm
As 1 of Washington’s 15 most CORRUPT how can Deal be trusted. He will bring WASHINGTON Style CORRUPTION to Georgia.
THE NAME SAYS IT ALL..
CobbGOPer
July 6th, 2010
5:41 pm
@Pork Chop:
I know, right? That’s worked out real well for California…
Sonny Lied!
July 6th, 2010
5:42 pm
He did.
Road Scholar
July 6th, 2010
5:44 pm
So how did that voting for Sonny do for all you anti-Barnes people? The conservatives, especially the current “crop” running for Governor, couldn’t organize a one car funeral procesion! Make that a one man fishing outing!
Real Georgia: Get real! First Nathan Deal has to get in a runoff…polls show him trailing at least two above him!
YouAsked
July 6th, 2010
5:47 pm
(1) The ad was not “Debunked” by the AJC, it was deemed, as I recall, only slightly misleading as it was accurate to its substance (jobs were created but not solely as a result of his efforts).
(2) GA attempted to secede this past April. See: http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2009/04/16/georgia-senate-threatens-dismantling-of-usa/?cxntfid=blogs_jay_bookman_blog.
Hardy har har.