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CHAMBLISS: One other component of this that we haven't given enough talk to, I think, is the civilian side. You have to remember that the Afghan people have a literacy rate of somewhere in the high teens or low 20s. That is -- there's no way for those people to develop any kind of economy. The economy in Iraq this year is going to be about $900 billion. The economy in Afghanistan, $900 million.
We've got to stop the violence, work towards influencing the -- the Afghan people to make sure they take their government back and develop an economy for the long term. That's going to take a while...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's going to take a while. It's going to take a lot of money.
I've been hearing this talking point a lot from Republican leaders in Congress. They want more time in Afghanistan and right now that means an Iraq like surge and more nation building. But spending money on Afghani infrastructure doesn't make sense since these same Senators just voted against investing in US infrastructure. Maybe the Senator is positioning himself to challenge Karzai in a re-election?
"if we truly want to stimulate the economy, there's no better place to do that than defense spending."
Saxby Shameless is at it again. So he's all for frivolous defense spending, but votes against the GI Bill and votes not to protect our troops with adequate armor. However, Saxby advocates spending on millions on a wasteful jet as the key ingredient to getting our economy back in gear.
You just can't say anymore about this it is so laughable.
I just got home from a local political event. I was concerned when the event was scheduled that I would miss some of the excitement of the runoff election results. However, I became disenchanted with the lack of national interest in the race and some of the most recent polling numbers. I knew that we would have a very disappointing night.
Let me preface this analysis by saying that I have not read any accounts of the results. I've just seen that Saxby has a 58-42% lead with well over 90% of the boxes reporting.
Here's what went wrong for the Dems
1. The Republicans used their upcoming stars to come to the rescue for Chambliss. We saw Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee come to Georgia. Granted each of these folks have their own self interests. However, I do feel that the Republicans did a fantastic job of setting up the firewall argument and rallying the base.
2. The Democrats really seemed to define this runoff as Black versus White. Well we kept being told that this was an election that would break based on the African American turnout. When we learned that the early voting numbers were down for African American voters we just focused on turnout of those voters. I think that may have been a fatal mistake. The campaign at that point should have changed its emphasis on persuasion of all voters.
3. More pressure should have been put on Barack to come in and help Martin. We spent too much time trying to figure out if it would be good or bad. Barack became more popular the minute he got elected and his presence would have encouraged all Democratic voters and perhaps some Saxby voters to change sides.
4. The Dems got complacent and essentially sat this one out. I never got any emails from the DSCC or sitting Senators or popular dems. I think I may have gotten an email from Bill Clinton. I'm not a superstar by any means but in the general and runoff combined I think we raised 7k. I think we should have at least gotten a call or a more personal email asking for help.
Anyone can be an armchair quarterback after the game so please do not put too much stock in my comments. I appreciate all of your hard work and that includes phone banking and knocking on doors and raising money. I only offer this analysis so that we understand where not to go wrong in future situations.
Watch Saxby's hand at the end. Surely they could have done another shoot. I'm not sure I would call him a perv as the person that sent this to me, but it's kind of inappropriate touching of his granddaughter I think.
I got an email from the Martin campaign this morning with this important request
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, our campaign must buy our remaining television ad slots by the end of the day tomorrow. That means you have just a short time to dramatically affect our campaign. The more support we have from you, the more we'll be able to reach voters all across Georgia.
To be free from blogging today. Spent some time with the wife. Ate some good meals. Watched a little football and just enjoyed relaxing. I'll be back at it hard tomorrow.
I heard SNL had a skit on the Georgia Senate Runoff. I have not been able to find it but when I do it will be up and running.
Here is what I did find: A video of Saxby blowing off a reporter asking him about the subpoena issue in the Imperial Sugar Case:
1. Five Dollar Fridays - We had a whale of a day raising money for Jim Martin last friday. Well over a $1,000 bucks in fact. I'm going to promote that again on other sites later in the day. But please give to Jim Martin in his quest to make history in Georgia. I've heard that Obama is cutting some good radio and possibly t.v. ads for the last week
2. I've noticed that a Chevy Hybrid ad has been running on the bottom of our page. Maybe I got someone's attention with all my talking about gas prices and the green economy and the bailout. I learned a lot about Chevy and bio-fuels and fuel efficiency. Maybe they should have been running these ads a while back. Chevy claims to offer cars with better gas mileage than Toyota or Honda. How come we are just learning that?
3. Government Oversight Committee Chairmanship vacant and likely to go to Ed Towns. I'm not thrilled with that, but hey at least the seniority system is working.
Imperial Sugar Co. CEO John Sheptor defended the conduct of Saxby Chambliss on Wednesday, saying the U.S. senator from Georgia has "behaved appropriately with character and integrity at all times."
The comments came after Imperial Sugar executives and workers broke ground on a new packaging warehouse at the Port Wentworth plant, damaged in the Feb. 7 explosions and fire that killed 14 workers and injured scores more.
Chambliss, a Republican in the midst of a re-election campaign against Democrat Jim Martin, is resisting an order to give evidence in a lawsuit by families of victims killed or hurt in the refinery disaster.
Savannah attorney Mark Tate, who issued the subpoena, has said Chambliss tried to talk some of Tate's clients out of suing Imperial Sugar in the months that followed the tragedy.
Chambliss has said he is not only immune from such demands to testify, he is prohibited - a contention that Tate and others have challenged.
Chambliss supporters say the demand for the senator's testimony is politically driven. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has made an issue of Chambliss' treatment of a whistle-blower at a July hearing that examined the causes of the refinery explosion.I
First of all this immunity is crap and does not apply to non-legislative activities.
While this news is not a deal breaker for our chances in Georgia, it means we've got to work harder. We have just had two days of early voting in Georgia and those numbers are not promising as reported by the AJC .
This should not be a damper but rather a wake up call that we need to volunteer in person if we are close by, help with phone calls if you are far away and donate donate donate if you can.
Please help me reach my goal of turning Georgia Peach to Blue.
Allan Buckley, who is seen as a potentially prized endorsement in the Georgia Senate runoff, has a list of principles that he would require an endorsed candidate to sign. Highly doubtful that either Chambliss or Martin would sign the list of principles .
Senate Guru: Do you believe that Saxby Chambliss' position on the Wall Street bailout has been fiscally responsible?
Allen Buckley: Something needed to be done, but I wouldn't have voted for the bail-out bill. No, I don't think his position was fiscally responsible.
Senate Guru: Speaking as a Libertarian, which remaining candidate do you think would be more proactive in restoring the civil liberties of Georgians and acting appropriately in response to the Bush Administration's practice of wiretapping Americans' phones without warrants?
Allen Buckley: Jim Martin.
This from the AJC
Now, Buckley confirmed making the comments above. But the Smyrna attorney and CPA also said this in an e-mail:
"Those are my answers. I believe Martin would be better with respect to civil liberties. It's hard to believe he could be worse than Chambliss on fiscal matters, but he could be so."
No, I don't have any "extra" tickets for the inauguration. I hope that sounds firm while at the same time not being smarmy. I have not even asked any of my "contacts in high places" for tickets to the events. While I would certainly like to attend, I also am a realist and realize that lines will be long, the Metro will be crowded and I probably would hear little of the swearing in ceremony. Disregard the fact that I am not particularly fond of Washington D.C. weather in mid January. Now if anyone wants to pay for me to blog the historic events I am all ears and would certainly bundle up. So that being said, feel free to start a send Martin W to the inauguration fund.
What else is going on today you might ask. Well let me tell you what else is going on in the world.
"I was determined not to be physically fit," he explained during a debate in August 2002. "I had a bum knee. I had an old football knee that unfortunately they wouldn't take me."
Well that hasn't kept him from taking junkets to play golf with lobbyists (or Tiger Woods apparently). And by the way he carries a more than a casual golfers handicap according to the story.
I wrote about this speech in my diary on Friday. Well here is the footage of Zell Miller's remarks:
Jim needs any help he can get. I just got a call from the Jim Martin campaign asking if I could give a little more. I told them I'm going to reach my goal of $3,500 (higher with your help). Can you help me with $5, $10 or whatever you can afford?
Yesterday you answered my call and challenge to help Jim Martin in his Senate Race. We raised $1,023 from 43 different donors. We came together. And I'm sure others gave on other pages as a result. I'm now about $1,000 from my initial goal of $3,500 on my Peach to Blue .
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