Your daily jolt: Georgia doesn’t need more abortion laws, says Hunter Hill

State Sen. Doug Stoner, the Smyrna Democrat whose district has been extended into Republican Buckhead, on Thursday night continued to draw out GOP challenger Hunter Hill on abortion and contraception. From the Marietta Daily Journal:

Hill said his opponents claim he’s been endorsed by Georgia Right to Life.

“It’s not true. I was endorsed by Georgia Right to Life in my 2008 campaign — incidentally, against Sen. Stoner — but I’m not endorsed this time around,” he said. “But to clear the record, I am pro-life. I’ve come to that belief through a lot of prayer and personal belief and talk with my wife, and that’s just where I am personally, but I don’t believe that we need additional laws at the state level to address this very personal issue.”

We’ve said it before: In this day and age, that’s a notably unusual statement from a Republican. But District 6, while thoroughly Republican, is a different kind of Republican.

That personhood question on the GOP primary ballot in July? It narrowly failed in District 6, 49 to 51 percent – while other pockets of GOP voters approved it with 2-to-1 margins. Toss in Democrats and general election independents, and a measure to give an embryo all the rights of an out-of-the-womb human being becomes an anchor, not a life vest.

This new 6th District also cast an estimated 51 percent of its votes for Mitt Romney in this year’s presidential primary – the only Senate district that gave the eventual nominee a majority of its votes. Rick Santorum, the unabashed pro-life candidate and social warrior, drew only 10 percent of the vote.

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Over at the Savannah Morning News, Larry Peterson quotes Mike Berlon, state Democratic chairman, as saying his party is preparing another court challenge to Georgia’s voter ID law – after next week’s election:

“It will probably take a while to wend its way through the courts,” Berlon said at a Savannah news conference. “But we feel pretty good about the fact that we’re going to win.”

…. Obtaining a photo ID, Berlon said, sometimes requires a person to pay for a certified copy of another document. That, he added amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.

Moreover, he said, it’s inconsistent to require — as Georgia does — a photo ID for voting in person but not for casting an absentee ballot.

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With a multi-million dollar debt still lingering from his presidential bid, Newt Gingrich has taken a job pumping gas. From ARL Now, a local Virginia news website:

Gingrich, a McLean resident, will be appearing at the Pentagon Liberty gas station at 2300 Columbia Pike (next to Bob & Edith’s Diner) from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., when the station will be offering gasoline for $1.84 per gallon. The event is sponsored by the New American Energy Opportunity Foundation, a group that promotes increased energy production in the United States.

…The $1.84 per gallon price reflects the price of gas in 2008, before President Obama took office and in the midst of the country’s economic crisis.

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With four days left to the campaign season, there are too many polls of likely voters out there to digest. But there’s only one poll of likely non-voters, courtesy of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:

Nonvoters are numerous; in 2008, they constituted about 43% of the voting age population.

Nonvoters favor Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a wide margin (59% to 24%). While most nonvoters (64%) have a favorable view of Obama, just half as many (32%) view Romney favorably.

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The Washington Post quotes U.S. intelligence officials this morning as saying that the CIA rushed security operatives to an American diplomatic compound in Libya within 25 minutes of its coming under attack:

The agency mobilized the evacuation effort, took control of an unarmed U.S. military drone to map possible escape routes, dispatched an emergency security team from Tripoli, the capital, and chartered aircraft that ultimately carried surviving American personnel to safety, U.S. officials said…..

The decision to give a comprehensive account of the attack five days before the election is likely to be regarded with suspicion, particularly among Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of misleading the public by initially describing the assault as a spontaneous eruption that began as a protest of an anti-Islamic video.

No kidding.

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Obama adviser David Axelrod has threatened to shave his ever-present moustache if his boss doesn’t win on Tuesday. So the Washington Post sought some advice from an expert on upper-lip salvage efforts: U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, who ditched his lip hair in 2007:

Gingrey’s communications director, Jen Talaber, made it clear her boss is rooting for Axelrod to have a date with his Mach 5. “The congressman is hopeful David Axelrod will have to make good on his promise,” she said. She also offered a helpful suggestion for dealing with the equivalent of a farmer’s tan of the upper lip. “My personal advice for Axelrod is, if his upper lip hasn’t seen the light of day in 40 years, he better invest in some self-tanner,” she added.

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider

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