Your morning jolt: ‘Extreme liberal groups want you to vote no’ on TSPLOST

At least in targeted Republican areas, the Untie Atlanta campaign will rely on the late President Ronald Reagan to do its campaigning through Monday, with this TV ad:

Robocalls and mailers bearing Reagan’s name are arriving at Republican households as well. But the most interesting message that supporters of the transportation sales tax are now pushing toward GOP voters is one that makes hay of the Sierra Club’s opposition. Never mind that tea party thing.

Here’s the robocall that was placed on the Insider family’s voicemail by Citizens for Transportation Mobility:

”On July 31, you have a chance to vote yes on the transportation referendum. Extreme liberal groups want you to vote no. Their plan is to stop people from driving cars by raising gas taxes and putting tolls on our roads. Please vote yes for our fair transportation tax, and to stop more toll roads and higher gas taxes. Vote yes for TSPLOST, the citizens’ transportation plan.”

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Anti-tax forces don’t have much cash, but we understand they’ve scraped enough pennies together to air a version of this video clip on WGST radio. (No embed code is available, apparently. If you have one, we’ll be happy to swap it out.

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Atlanta Tea Party Patriots will host a TSPLOST debate at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center. PeachPundit’s Charlie Harper will be in charge of reining in the hostilities.

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If you weren’t able to tune into that unexpected TSPLOST argument between Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and DeKalb County NAACP President John Evans on V-103 that erupted Wednesday morning, the two men reprised their confrontation on 11Alive last night:

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My AJC colleague Jeremiah McWilliams reports that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal will hold a joint press conference at the state Capitol at 10:30 a.m. Monday to make closing arguments in favor of a 1 percent sales tax to fund transportation projects.

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In the current issue of Atlanta magazine, Doug Monroe has a great, 50-year history of transportation in the metro area that begins thusly:

At the heart of the rot eating at metro Atlanta is the Mother of All Mistakes: the failure to extend MARTA into the suburbs. It wasn’t just a one-time blunder—it was the single worst mistake in a whole cluster bomb of missteps, errors, power plays, and just plain meanness that created the region’s transportation infrastructure.

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Channel 2 Action News has this report on sign-stealing in the Republican race for Forsyth County sheriff. We’re also told that the following has implications for the GOP contest between state Sen. Jack Murphy of Cumming and challenger Steve Voshall:

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider

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