Archive for the ‘David Poythress’ Category

A $5 million lawsuit over former President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine Peace Not a Apartheid” was dropped Thursday, today’s New York Times tells us:

When the suit was filed in February, Simon & Schuster immediately condemned it, calling it frivolous, without merit and a “chilling attack on free speech.”

On Thursday, after the suit was dropped, Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster, said in a statement: “In the face of a powerful argument for the rights of free speech for authors and publishers, the plaintiffs wisely withdrew their action. We hope that they will consider this the end of the matter.

Mr. Rothberg said there had been no financial settlement between the parties.

The suit was filed by David I. Schoen, a lawyer in Montgomery, Ala. He said the book contained inaccuracies that the publisher refused to correct. Some reviews of the book, which was published in 2007, said that Mr. Carter had included misrepresentations of the history of the conflict in the …

Continue reading Lawsuit over Jimmy Carter’s book on Palestine dropped »

A pair of taped debates featuring Democratic and Republican candidates for governor – broadcast is tomorrow morning — ate up much of the first day of the last campaign weekend.

Immigration dominated both conversations:

Eric Johnson said Friday that he wanted to round up illegal immigrants in Georgia and he was willing to build prison camps to house them for deportation if elected governor.

“If we have to set up a Guantanamo Bay of Georgia, I would do it,” the Savannah Republican said….

Karen Handel was not present at the GOP forum — because Ray McBerry was. Early this morning, her campaign focused on the identity of the actress in this Nathan Deal attack in this TV ad:

The Handel campaign declared – and the Deal campaign confirmed – that the unnamed woman is Mandy Cronan, daughter-in-law of Deal’s business partner Ken Cronan.

The two own the auto salvage business, Recovery Services, Inc., that became the focus of an investigation by a congressional ethics office – which …

Continue reading Of prison camps, secret identities and final words »

Ladies and gentlemen, I need some help.

The Insider has been invited to pose questions in three debates for governor this weekend – two Republican, one Democratic.

But the question well is dry. Yes, I’ve opened an old cask of interrogatories from 1990 that are slightly stale but still relevant – “Do you think a lottery would take advantage of the poor?” But fresh would be better.

So I’m soliciting three hours’ worth of questions for Democratic and Republican candidates – individually or as a group. Use the commenting process below to submit them.

If you include your own, real name, I’ll do my best to use it when I pose the question.

For instant updates, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.

Continue reading A call for questions in the debates for governor »

The consortium of 11Alive and V103-FM are out today with a Survey USA poll that shows former secretary of state Karen Handel within reach of a runoff berth with state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine in the Republican primary race for governor.

But both former congressman Nathan Deal and state senator Eric Johnson of Savannah are close enough for concentrated TV campaign to change the line-up.

In the Democratic contest, former Gov. Roy Barnes has a 56 percent lead that – if it holds through the next 12 days – would allow him to claim the nomination without a runoff.

The GOP standings:

Oxendine, 32 percent;

Handel, 23 percent;

Deal, 12 percent;

Johnson, 12 percent;

Ray McBerry, 5 percent;

Jeff Chapman, 4 percent;

Otis Putnam, 1 percent;

And undecided, 17 percent.

The automated poll, on the Republican side, has a margin of error of 3.2 percent. Survey USA has a workable crosstab feature here that shows Handel – who went up on TV only today – with a potential (but not yet …

Continue reading 11Alive/V103 poll: Karen Handel moves up on GOP side, Roy Barnes above 50 percent »

Given the importance of TV, looking good is essential in politics. The problem is that it’s risky to be seen trying.

Discussing a candidate’s appearance is equally dicey. On one hand, political discourse is shallow enough. Yet when the bedrock foundation of a candidate’s relationship with voters is the 30-second TV spot, what candidates choose to display becomes a topic worth noting.

Women are judged more harshly. Look at Nikki Haley, the new Republican nominee for governor in South Carolina.

Sarah Palin recently had to beat off breast enhancement rumors. We all chuckle at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Bambi-in-the-headlights stare, wondering what work she’s had done.

And remember that, four years ago, former state School Superintendent Linda Schrenko, once a GOP favorite to become governor of Georgia, was convicted of using federal tax dollars to finance, among other things, a face lift.

Men have it slightly easier. Glasses are often ditched for contacts. Once they reached …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: An advancing hairline in the race for governor »

One day after a Survey USA poll showed him in a virtual tie with Karen Handel for a runoff berth in the GOP race for governor, former congressman Nathan Deal has begun touting a small but significant geographic difference between the two.

The Ga. 400 toll plaza, circa 1993/AJC

This from a just-issued Deal press release:

Nathan Deal, a leading Republican candidate for governor, said today he’ll move quickly as governor to bring down the Georgia 400 toll before the end of 2011.

“As governor, I’ll swing the sledgehammer to bring down the Buckhead Wall,” Deal said Tuesday. “The state has collected more than enough money to pay the bonds for the highway. We are now using the tolls of Georgia 400 drivers to pay for other road projects. That’s not fair to the commuters in north Fulton and Forsyth counties. They’ve carried more than their fair share.”

Back in 2003, Gov. Sonny Perdue vetoed legislation to restrict the use of toll revenue to expenses directly related to the road …

Continue reading Nathan Deal gives Ga. 400 tolls a place in GOP race for governor »

It may be time to start wondering if Roy Barnes can win the July 20 Democratic primary for governor without a cash-consuming runoff.

For the second time in less than a month, a statewide poll has shown the former Georgia governor with an overwhelming lead.

In late May, it was a WSB-TV/InsiderAdvantage poll, which showed Barnes leaping to a 64 percent lead. On Monday evening, a SurveyUSA poll showed Barnes with the support of 63 percent of Democratic respondents, with Attorney General Thurbert Baker, his closest competitor, at 13 percent.

See the details here. Crosstabs can be found here.

The poll was sponsored by group of three media outlets – 11Alive News and V103-FM in Atlanta, and 13WMAZ-TV of Macon.

The same poll shows that, on the Republican side of the race for governor, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine holds a commanding lead of 34 percent, with former secretary of state Karen Handel (18 percent) and former congressman Nathan Deal (17 percent) in a tight race …

Continue reading Can Roy Barnes win without a Democratic runoff? »

Jekyll Island — In 1990, an unknown Democratic political strategist named James Carville convinced Zell Miller that church-going, middle-class voters in Georgia were ready to back a lottery aimed at putting their kids through college.

The lottery became the centerpiece of Miller’s winning campaign for governor, and was credited with staving off a Republican takeover of the state for yet another eight years.

Last week, Attorney General Thurbert Baker — a Miller acolyte in the Legislature during that period — proposed a return to the well.

Now a Democratic candidate for governor himself, Baker wants to bring electronic bingo machines into the state as a way to juice funding for the lower half of the educational ladder — from kindergarten through high school.

The $1 billion the game would raise each year, Baker says, could fund the smallest classrooms in the nation, extend the school year from 180 to 200 days, and send teacher pay through the roof.

With five weeks to go before …

Continue reading Not your grandmother’s game: Thurbert Baker and his big bingo gamble »

Jekyll Island — Thurbert Baker’s Democratic campaign for governor goes up on TV for the first time on Sunday with a message geared specifically for Father’s Day:

The ad is introductory in nature: “Growing up, my dad didn’t even knew his father. But it was never going to be that way with him,” said Chelsea Baker, one of the attorney general’s two daughters – who is now a DeKalb County teacher like her mother. So education is a subtext.

Spies tell us that the Republican campaign of John Oxendine has purchased TV time starting early next week, and that former GOP congressman Nathan Deal looks like he’s focusing on a 10-day strategy for his ads next month.

Thursday’s debates of Republican and Democratic candidates for governor on Jekyll Island were jointly sponsored by the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce – two entities that have often warred over public access to information.

So it was significant that every single candidate, regardless of party, …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Happy Fathers Day to me, says Thurbert Baker in first TV ad »

Jekyll Island – Whether the children of illegal immigrants should be allowed into Georgia universities wasn’t a topic at a pair of debates among candidates for governor on Friday.

But whether Georgia should adopt a replica of the Arizona law – to identify and deport illegal immigrants – was a major topic among both Republicans and Democrats.

The debates were sponsored by the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

As you might expect, all five candidates in the GOP debate,held first, favored adoption of a similar measure. (Karen Handel was absent.)

The entire answer of state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine:

“Yes.”

Eric Johnson said he’d go a step further, requiring all hospitals and public schools to ascertain the citizenship of the people they serve. The former state senator from Savannah said he would then sue the federal government to get back money spent on illegals.

He would also crack down on businesses that hire illegal aliens. The second …

Continue reading On adopting a replica of the Arizona law in Georgia »