Archive for the ‘Eric Johnson’ Category

You have to wonder if we’ve just seen an endorsement – or something like it – by Eric Johnson, the third-place finisher in the Republican contest for governor.

Johnson just established on his Facebook page that he “likes” Nathan Deal, the Republican runoff candidate for governor.

Sarah Palin did something similar for Karen Handel before the primary, of course. But she used more than one word.

Not the kind of thing you can base a TV ad on — but its the first Facebook update that’s occurred on Johnson’s page since before the July 20 primary.

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Continue reading On Facebook, Eric Johnson ‘likes’ Nathan Deal »

Updated at 4:55 p.m.: Steve Dillard, central Georgia campaign chairman for Karen Handel, called to say that Nathan Deal was mistaken in remarks he made during Sunday’s debates. Maurice Atkinson, the Bibb County co-chairman for Handel, had indeed withdrawn his support for Handel. But Dillard said that he has not.

Statewide contests in the past have been won and lost on television – and that remains mostly true.

But with campaigns for governor vastly underfunded this year – in Georgia, political money is real estate-based, and free-spending developers have tanked – other tactics have been crucial.

Direct mail in particular.

Over the weekend, the Republican runoff campaign of Karen Handel mailed out 400,000 flyers to GOP-voting households – a four-page, glossy look at congressional allegations leveled at rival Nathan Deal.

Deal himself gave it a mention in Sunday evening’s confrontation on Fox5 (WAGA).

The significance is that this is the second major attack Handel has …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Too much hardball from Handel? »

The two surviving candidates in the Republican race for governor on Thursday moved into territory once held by defeated comrades.

While Nathan Deal followed I-75 to south Georgia, Karen Handel was on the coast for a meeting with the editorial board of the local newspaper — which had endorsed homeboy and former senator Eric Johnson in the July 20 primary.

We weren’t there to here the pitch from the former secretary of state, but Larry Peterson of the Savannah Morning News was.

Handel told editors it was a “disgrace” that Nathan Deal, her runoff rival, didn’t reveal that he was “associated” with a federal grand jury investigation into a ‘09 meeting with state officials about his business dealings with the state.

Said Handel:

“Heaven forbid,” [she said], “if it had come forward and Nathan Deal was our nominee.

“The GOP would be in big trouble. And that would mean he put his interests ahead of the greater interests.”

Now, about this Johnson fellow — who so far has endorsed neither …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Nathan Deal heads south, Karen Handel courts the coast »

Last Tuesday night, for the third time, Roy Barnes won the Democratic nomination for governor.

With 66 percent of the primary vote in his pocket, the former resident of the Governor’s Mansion held up the front page of that day’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The lead headline, “State falls further behind,” was a reference to school test scores.

Roy Barnes greets supporters on Tuesday night — before leaving for rural Georgia. Associated Press/John Bazemore

Barnes thanked his supporters, complimented his defeated opponents, and condemned Republicans who “gave tax breaks to special interests and then had to lay off teachers and shorten the school year to cover up their mistakes.”

And then he dropped off the face of metro Atlanta.

Not even an Aug. 2 visit to Atlanta by President Barack Obama will bring Barnes back. “He’s going to be in Middle and South Georgia,” campaign manager Chris Carpenter said Saturday.

Barnes has bet his campaign on rural Georgia — the one that turned …

Continue reading Roy Barnes bets his campaign on rural Georgia »

Updated at 11:50 p.m.:Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for all of your attention this evening. I’ll check in with you tomorrow morning.

Updated at 11:15 p.m.: On the Republican side of the 8th District congressional contest, state Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton), who until this spring was a candidate for governor, has apparently won the nomination without a runoff.

With 89 percent of the vote in, Scott is at 53 percent. Which prompted this bruising welcome from Doug Moore, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon):

“Austin Scott’s been in the legislature his whole adult life, He’s a career politician looking for his next job. Ran for governor, found no takers. Ran for Lieutenant Governor, got run off, and was told to run for Congress.

“He’s voted against taxing illegal immigrants, but he’s voted for, even proposed, multiple new tax increases on every Georgian.

“Politics makes strange bedfellows, but with Jim’s record of protecting and helping the people of this district, …

Continue reading Austin Scott close to 8th District GOP win, and gets a bruising welcome from Jim Marshall »

We’d been told to expect the call, and it arrived on the answering machine just before dinner. The machine missed the first few words:

“…Karen Handel’s extremely liberal record on abortion. As commission chair of Fulton County, Karen Handel voted to give over $400,000 to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“Karen Handel also sat back and watched an additional $800,000 go to this despicable organization. For the pro-life cause and the unborn children in Georgia, Georgia Right to Life asks you to reject Karen Handel on July 20. Thank you.”

The robo-call, presumably made to thousands of Republican voters across the state, is the first significant spending of third-party money in the GOP race for governor.

The Handel campaign has said the Fulton County cash was federal pass-through money directed to a Planned Parenthood unit in downtown Atlanta that performs no abortions.

Handel is the only one of six Republican candidates for governor not endorsed by GRTL, …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Anti-abortion group makes a late robo-call attack on Karen Handel »

InsiderAdvantage and Channel 2 Action News are out with a new poll – tapping 1,619 voters last night via automated phone calls.

The survey state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, who eight days ago was the undisputed front-runner, struggling to remain in the Republican hunt for governor.

Here’s the horse-race, with a 2.3 percent MOE:

Handel, 28%

Deal, 17%

Johnson, 14%

Oxendine, 13%

Chapman, 6%

McBerry, 3%

Putnam, 0%

Undecided, 19%

A Georgia Newspaper Partnership poll published Sunday in the AJC showed Oxendine in second place – with Nathan Deal in a statistical tie.

Scott Slade, the morning host of WSB (750AM) who moderated the Republican debate for governor last night, sends this link of a radio-based forum of eight candidates for governor – four on the Democratic side, and four on the Republican side.

Political veteran Bill Crane did the interviews, which aired Sunday.

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Continue reading Yet another poll shows John Oxendine slipping »

Georgia Republican candidates for governor take part in a final debate. Curtis Compton/AJC

The campaigning side of the state GOP couldn’t afford to be seen with the governing side of the Republican party on Sunday night.

Much was made of Karen Handel’s absence from the Atlanta Press Club debates for governor, held at Georgia Public Broadcasting headquarters.

But with one runoff berth – possibly two – at stake, the most interesting aspect of the GOP confrontation was the effort made by each candidate to separate himself from the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Asked – by yours truly – whether $96 million in fee increases passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Perdue amounted to a tax increase, each candidate answered in the affirmative:

– Nathan Deal: “It comes closer to a tax increase than anything else I can call it.”

– Eric Johnson: “Anything that increases revenue to state government is just like a tax increase, no matter what you …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Republicans put distance between themselves and the state Capitol »

Sarah Palin and GOP women have apparently given Karen Handel the boost she needs to survive on Tuesday — and her male rivals know it.

From a Saturday campaign summary by the Associated Press:

The fireworks were in the GOP race, where a recent poll showed state insurance commissioner John Oxendine, former secretary of state Karen Handel and ex-U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal battling for an expected runoff.

Handel accused Deal of sexism by pointing to a press release from his campaign saying that “real women” support his campaign. Handel said that attacked her own female supporters, including her most prominent backer: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

“That just really disappointing,” Handel told The Associated Press.
Asked if the attack was sexist Handel said, “of course it is.”

Deal called the claim “absurd” and said he was simply using campaign branding — the word “real” — he’s adopted since the election began. His campaign slogan is “Deal. Real.”

“That certainly was not meant to …

Continue reading Sarah Palin sets off a ‘mama grizzly’ war in the GOP race for governor »

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 – …

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