Your morning jolt: A Herman Cain move to pack the GOP convention hall
Someone may have a campaign camera or two at the state GOP convention that starts this afternoon in Macon. And no there will no doubt be a presidential straw poll at the end.
Republican presidential contender Herman Cain. Jay Reiter/MCT
Which is probably why we received this from DraftCain.org:
Herman Cain, a favorite son of Georgia, will be making a speech in the Macon Centerplex at 11 AM. [Saturday]. Audiences have braved floods, snow and bitter cold to hear him speak across the country. He talks about his own American Dream, his belief in conservative values, and the need for a Fair Tax to get this country turned around.
The Admission is normally $30 for the convention; however, we have arranged for free admission for you and a friend…
Maurice Atkinson of Macon, the fellow behind the effort, called to say that he was acting independently of the Cain campaign.
***
Fellow Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich will address Georgia Republicans this evening. He’s let it be known that the topic will be the economy.
One stat he’ll wave: The average length of recession since World War II has lasted just ten months.
***
Gov. Nathan Deal, who is scheduled to speak Saturday in Macon, has scheduled a noon bill-signing and press conference today. The topic is almost certain to be HB 87, the illegal immigration bill.
But you can be sure that this report below from Dale Russell at Fox5 is likely to come up. The Deal campaign for governor sent $90,000 to his daughter-in-law, Denise Deal, who served as a fund-raiser for the gubernatorial candidate:
***
The Macon convention will revolve around the election of the GOP chairman – a contest between two-term incumbent Sue Everhart and the governor’s choice, Tricia Pridemore.
Pridemore this morning defends herself from accusations cast by Republican blogger Bill Simon, who on Wednesday alleged that Gov. Nathan Deal was injecting 25 staffers into the mix – and bouncing delegates from hotel rooms.
Writes Pridemore:
[O]ne of our opponent’s blogger friends sent an email to the delegates and alternates of the 2011 Georgia Republican Party Convention claiming that my campaign, in cooperation with the Governor of Georgia booked last-minute rooms at the host hotel and therefore “bounced” 25 convention attendees out of the hotel. This is 100% false.
Neither me or anyone working for my campaign requested additional hotel rooms from the host hotel. After fielding many phone calls on the matter, I called the Georgia Republican Party and met with two of their representatives at the front desk of the hotel to discuss the matter with hotel management.
They showed us the script for those guests affected (which never mentioned me or the Governor) and said they were attempting to find other accommodations for 25 misplaced convention attendees because the hotel property was “oversold.” I also spoke with the Governor’s office. The Governor’s office did not request any additional rooms at the hotel – not of hotel personnel or of the state Party.
***
Finally, if you wonder why Johnny Isakson has been so quiet lately, click on this piece from the Washington Post:
The Senate ethics committee on Thursday took the rare step of asking federal agencies to investigate a former colleague, saying it found “substantial and credible evidence” that Nevada Republican John Ensign broke federal laws while trying to cover up an extramarital affair with a political aide.
The panel presented its case against Ensign in blunt language delivered on the Senate floor, suggesting that his alleged violations could lead to formal charges from the Justice Department. It was the first time since 1995 that the committee had referred a case about a current or former senator to federal investigators….
[Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)] and Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), the ranking Republican on the evenly divided six-member committee, cited eight findings in which there was substantial evidence that Ensign committed legal violations or broken Senate rules.
Not a happy task.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
76 comments Add your comment
joe
May 13th, 2011
9:00 am
Herman would be a great candidate for President. If somehow he doesn’t win the GOP nomination, whoever does should pick him as VP running mate.
Straight Talk
May 13th, 2011
9:01 am
Wow, Jim! This is real news. Packing a convention hall for a candidate. I bet this has never been done by anyone else running for office, including Obama. Duh, you think?
MrLiberty
May 13th, 2011
9:04 am
Herman Cain is just a tool of the establishment. As a former director of the Federal Reserve, he is absolutely the wrong man to put in the white house. The Fed and their monetary policies have destroyed the value of the dollar, destroyed savings, and destroyed the US economy. They are the enablers for congress’ massive spending addiction and they have been the cause of every economic bubble/burst since they were unconstitutionally established in 1913. Only one candidate has been right about the Fed all along – Ron Paul, now an official presidential candidate and author of the great book -End the Fed. Ron Paul 2012. Send Cain back to makeing pizzas and shilling for the man.
liberalefty
May 13th, 2011
9:13 am
black conservatives must denounce MLK, the CIVIL RIGHTS ACT and other “evil” big liberal federal government laws…in other words he must praise JIM CROW as good states rights ….
Ima Political Crook
May 13th, 2011
9:19 am
As a Republican I am leaning toward Herman Cain, an honest man who worked himself up from poverty to success by doing it honestly. As for our present governor who was voted as one of the top 15 most corrupt members of congress and past guv who was just as crooked (remember oaky Woods,etc) what can i say.
E equals MC Hammered
May 13th, 2011
9:26 am
While Cain is a great candidate, he won’t get the black vote because he’s counter culture to poverty and suckling at the government teat.
DannyX
May 13th, 2011
9:31 am
“…he won’t get the black vote because he’s counter culture to poverty and suckling at the government teat.”
Is that the same culture that helps elect the likes of a Nathan Deal and Sonny Perdue?
Bill Orvis White
May 13th, 2011
9:33 am
When Mr. Cain will get the nomination and get in the ring, he will tear his opponent, Hussein Obama, to shreds. I called on him to run last year and I hope Mr. Cain took my words to heart:
http://tinyurl.com/27q8oww
Herman Cain has the guts, knowledge and experience to return freedom to this once-free nation.
Amen,
Bill
joe
May 13th, 2011
9:46 am
@ Danny, If you don’t like the current and historical “culture” that has elected career politicians on both sides of the aisle over and over and over, consider some candidates, like Cain, who are not career politicians…who have actually run businesses, created jobs, met payroll, etc. If our country is ever going to gain solid footing, we need real people in office, not politicians who only work for the lobbyists who pay them off.
blacksheep
May 13th, 2011
9:51 am
@E equals MC yada:
Um, seems like Deal and Perdue like “suckling at the government teat” about as much as anybody.
mum
May 13th, 2011
9:51 am
@bill orvis white. Which of your freedoms has the govenment took away? People like you can only repeat tag lines. You have no idea what it is not to be free to speak your mind and spout nonsense. This nation is so free that one segment of the population can drive up prices of items just to make a quick profit, and the government CAN’T STOP IT, because we are a FREE society.
chamblee54
May 13th, 2011
9:58 am
If Herman Cain continues to run for POTUS, then we will be spared his unlistenable radio show.
The spell check suggestions for POTUS are POUTS and POT US. Don’t inhale.
chamblee54
gm
May 13th, 2011
9:59 am
Bill Orvis White
Herman Cain does not have a chance, he wont get one minority vote, because he is out of touch with reality.
Cain has no connection with black community he is another puppet that says things Rep white conservatives want to hear, I yet to hear any Rep praise Obama on restoring the auto indust, Gm is planning to open up 15 new plants and will be hiring 10,000 workers thru out American, Cain, Hannity, Rush opposed the bail out.
We dont need another yes sir boss, what ever you want to hear as long as you bash Obama.
AudreyinGA
May 13th, 2011
10:18 am
Galloway, please inform the public why the governor sent his daughter $90,000. Do all
fund-raisers for the governor make this kind of money ?
deegee
May 13th, 2011
10:29 am
I am glad that the suckers that gave Nathan Deal money for his campaign have the satisfaction of knowing that $90k of it went to paying off some bills for his son and daughter in law. I think that this story would be good for the Dave Ramsey show. “Hi Dave, my name is Denise and my husband and I are now debt free!” Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! “Just don’t ask us how we did it or else daddy might get in trouble.”
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
10:29 am
gm,
That’s good news about GM. One question: how much TAXPAYER money did it cost? Why should taxpayers have had to bail out GM in the first place?
There is a word for when public money is used for private business, coined by Josef Stalin: fascism.
Your savior Obama is a fascist. Just like Bush.
Vote Ron Paul in 2012 and say bye bye to fascism…unless of course you want in on the giveaways.
John K
May 13th, 2011
10:30 am
Go with Cain GOP, that’ll work.
Why do people think business translates well to government? They don’t run under the same philosophy.
gm
May 13th, 2011
10:51 am
RambleOn84
Yea that easy for you to say, asked the people who have been out of work if they are glad Obama bailed them out andthr company is putting people back to work.
Ron Paul and his racist son have no chance what so ever.
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
10:55 am
His son is racist? Proof?
And don’t worry, we will all be out of work soon enough because at the rate our government keeps spending every dollar you make will be worthless.
deegee
May 13th, 2011
11:00 am
I like that joke that Donald Trump likes to tell. The one about how he should be president because he knows how to get the Chinese to cry uncle because he buys steel from them all the time and they respect him. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
11:02 am
I am pretty sure you got your “Rand Paul is racist” idea from that whole civil rights interview he did with one of those pretend journalists on a cable network.
They want to find any way they can of discrediting him because his record is otherwise spotless so they took his stance on keeping government out of private institutions.
They asked him if he would support a law which interfered with a private business’ ability to run its own company, then substituted with the Civil Rights Act.
Paul stuck to his guns, and said no, with the way it was written he would not support that single aspect of the law. He stated that a private business deserves the right to refuse service to anyone, no matter the reason. And citizens deserve the right to boycott it.
And he was right. And the people who dislike turned it into him being “racist.”
cs
May 13th, 2011
11:11 am
cain for fair tax? what is a fair tax? to me its he who makes the most pays the most. if you dont want to pay a lot of income taxes then quit being a greedy ba@#$%d and let everybody else make some of the real money.
joe
May 13th, 2011
11:12 am
Let the record show the race card was played today at 10:51…by gm (again). Seems gm does this on a daily basis.
@ John, “They don’t run under the same philosophy.” That is a good thing in my book as government is not the solutions to our problem…they are the problem (as Reagan used to say).
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
11:20 am
Cain’s “Fair tax” would be nice…Ron Paul’s “no tax” proposal would be better.
Metro Coach
May 13th, 2011
11:22 am
“black conservatives must denounce MLK…” wow, so individual freedom wasn’t what Dr. King was speaking about and marching for while he was alive? If you’ll read a little history you’d know that it was Democrats like George Wallace and Bull Conner who were such proponents of segregation, Jim Crowe, so forth and so on. I don’t think Dr. King would be siding with the Dems today either, if you listened to what he was saying.
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
11:24 am
Dr. King, like many of the Founding Fathers throughout this nation’s history, would be quite disappointed with many aspects of what we are allowing to go on today.
lights_on
May 13th, 2011
11:37 am
Cain is an empty suit, sock puppet to the extreme! Sadly, that will have the same appeal for the same reasons as Palin supporter crowd. You just pull their string and they say up to 20 different canned platitudes that appeal to the non-thinkers but sound really good!
Cain is barely qualified for talk-radio and that’s as high as he should go.
RambleOn84
May 13th, 2011
11:40 am
An empty suit…and that makes him different from Obama how exactly???
Brandon
May 13th, 2011
12:02 pm
Cain is gaining traction. The more pub he gets the better the chances. Unfortuantly, Hannity and many of the other big names are hot on Romney, and Newt.
I’ve heard several people say that after the SC debate they decided to get behind can.
His response to not being a politican is perfect. “How’s that working for you.”
gm
May 13th, 2011
12:02 pm
RambleOn84
He stated that a private business deserves the right to refuse service to anyone, no matter the reason.
I’m sure all the civil right leaders and people who lost their lives, welcom those types of racist comments, I rest my case.
left/right, who cares?
May 13th, 2011
12:05 pm
jim, you cover so much here. the 90.000.00– ummmmm, did they pay taxes on that? and btw, cain will not get the repub nom.
Slim
May 13th, 2011
12:07 pm
GM,
Do you have a link to support all these GM plants being opened? All I see is GM plants being opened in Mexico and China. There are also some items noting GM open plants with no UAW labor. You seem to have have posted this same comment on multiple sites.
Slim
DannyX
May 13th, 2011
12:11 pm
“General Motors has announced that they would be investing roughly $2 billion in production facilities around the United States – helping to create or preserve over 4,000 jobs across 17 plants and 8 U.S. states.”
This was announced yesterday.
gm
May 13th, 2011
12:24 pm
Slim
Of course the idiots of Fox news are not going to tell you anything positive the President does, they are a news channel they need to change its official name to “Obama news hater station, with over 2 million idiots tune in every nite.
Last Man Standing
May 13th, 2011
12:41 pm
gm:
I see by your posts that you managed to get “racist” into one of them. Now, you have to get “bigot”, “Rush limbaugh”, “Sean Hannity” and FOX News in before the day is over.
Good work and happy hating!
Last Man Standing
May 13th, 2011
12:43 pm
gm:
Sorry.
I see you sneaked in “FOX News” when I wasn’t looking!
Last Man Standing
May 13th, 2011
12:45 pm
RambleOn84:
Maybe he doesn’t have a Teleprompter?
Last Man Standing
May 13th, 2011
12:49 pm
“they need to change its official name to “Obama news hater station,”
That would only be fair since all the rest are the Obama lovers non-news and/or managed news networks.
Slim
May 13th, 2011
12:49 pm
Thanks DannyX
So the taxpayers own about 1/3 of GM, 52 billion shares give or take. They expect to loose money on the sale of the stock and are holding off sale until later this year to avoid pushing the price down further. GM is trading at $31.00+/- and about $53.00 to break even on the investment. So one can assume that the early statements by the Administration and the Treasury that we would make money on this deal may be inaccurate. Imagine that!
In my opinion, GM has no option with govt representation on the board of directors (Obama names new GM board of director April 1, 2009). If your biggest individual investor with a hand selected board of directors wants to create the illusion of job creation (or the new format of “saved or created”) and economic improvement why not throw some money down the rat hole and a bone to the UAW. It makes good press now that the POTUS is in campaign mode.
Herman Cain may not be the nominated candidate in the end, but he is far better than what we now condemned to endure. Just my opinion, right or wrong.
Slim
Amazing
May 13th, 2011
1:07 pm
While I disagree with Slim, I want to suggest people consider using his approach and tone for commenting. He states his facts as he understands them. He makes his points and counterpoints. He did it all without using any crude remarks or nicknames.
Slim, kudos for being a role model on how to post an opinion!
Your morning jolt: A Herman Cain move to pack the GOP convention hall | Conservative GA
May 13th, 2011
1:17 pm
[...] http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2011/05/13/your-morning-jolt-a-herman-cain-move-... Click here to cancel reply. [...]
JR
May 13th, 2011
1:31 pm
Not a serious candidate. Doesn’t have a chance in the general election. Nobody will vote for him. Not electable. There are better choices in the party.
I’m not talking about Herman Cain. Those are things that were said about Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
You never know…….
JR
May 13th, 2011
1:41 pm
“Why do people think business translates well to government? They don’t run under the same philosophy.”
That’s true, they don’t run under the same philosophy. But, given that the philosophy under which government operates doesn’t seem to work, perhaps it’s time to give the business philosophy a chance.
I know operating within your financial means is an abstract concept to government, but I say give it a shot. Who knows? It might just work. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
Michael
May 13th, 2011
1:53 pm
I don’t really eat a lot of pizza.
Muley powers
May 13th, 2011
1:56 pm
I seed Herman sittin in the shade behind McDonalds the other day so I asked what was on his mind. As he sipped his Micky D sweet tea, he told me. He said this tea is sweet because thats the way it’s supposed to be. Now who ever thought about puttin sugar in corn bread. It aint natural and don’t seem right. I told him I couldn’t argue with a thang he said. He wanted to know if I’d vote for him. I told him I’d have to study about it a little.
North over South
May 13th, 2011
2:07 pm
The same people who don’t like Obama in the Republican party will not vote for Herman Cain just ask MR Steel
North over South
May 13th, 2011
2:07 pm
The same people who don’t like Obama in the Republican party will not vote for Herman Cain just ask MR Steel
RetiredSoldier
May 13th, 2011
2:10 pm
North over South-
Let’s see if you are correct. I don’t like Obama…because his policies are bad in my opinion. I do like Herman Cain and will strongly consider voting for him.
Oh well North, can’t be right all the time.
gm
May 13th, 2011
2:41 pm
Last Man Standing
Lol, Come on, every body knows thats a political station for Rep, Hannity would not care if Newt had 5 wifes 3 kids out of wed lock as long as they were a Rep yet he is always talking about family family, what a bunch of hypocrites.
RetiredSoldier
May 13th, 2011
2:50 pm
gm-
By your statement I take it you prefer a candidate like oh….Bill Clinton, that everyone knows if it has a skirt, he’s after it. I think I would prefer my leader be someone that knows right from wrong, yet fails occasionally rather than someone that doesn’t care one bit that he is doing wrong. To each his own.