The media is seldom so circumspect as when it covers itself. Thus it was that the biggest Atlanta media story in many a year landed Saturday morning in a modest one-column hole on Page A10 of the Journal-Constitution.
U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall’s announcement last week that he won’t run again for the 7th Congressional District seat which he won by a hair in the last election doesn’t guarantee that this former Republican stronghold will swing to the Democrats in 2020. But it does bring to a close an era of Republican history.
We live in an age when people want to play the same old games, but they can’t agree on the same set of rules. It’s a world where blurred boundaries and shifting alliances make it hard to tell at times who’s won or lost, instead producing dual, asymmetrical victors. Pepsi and Coke, Brian and Stacey, Donald and Nancy, Maroon 5 and Big Boi, AOL and Mitch: winners all, depending who you ask.
Over little more than two years, the wrong contestant has been announced as the winner of the Miss Universe Pageant, the Oscar for best picture has been awarded to the wrong movie, and a missed call so egregious it has prompted a lawsuit has played a key role in deciding who’s in Atlanta for the Super Bowl this week. Things like this just didn’t happen back in the good old days, but that isn’t because there haven’t always been foul-ups of similar magnitude.
The shutdown, which entered its 31st day Monday, overshadows every other news story in the United States right now. As the decades roll on, however, this month will be much more likely to be remembered for a spectacular scientific and technical milestone: the landing, on the far side of the moon, of a lunar lander and rover named after a Chinese moon goddess and her pet rabbit.
The Georgia governors of another day would have been confounded if told that in the future, people would watch an inauguration speech on their phones. The technology would puzzle them, of course, but also the idea that many people would be interested enough to do such a thing. Streaming has become commonplace, however, and after the closest and most divisive governor’s race of modern times, Brian Kemp’s first speech as governor Monday at Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion was watched more closely than most.
If and when the government’s 25-percent shutdown reaches a pain level high enough to spur real action to end it, Georgia, starting at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and radiating outward, will be one of the states feeling it most.
Candidates still are making the trek to Iowa and New Hampshire to make their presidential intentions known. But early voting and a supercharged calendar with California and Texas near the front will change the presidential primaries in 2020.
As much as any court statement filed or House Democratic Caucus press release, Nick Ayers’ departure from Washington is a sign of darkening prospects for the Trump administration. When the president can no longer attract raw ambition, he loses the reality show dynamic of “The Apprentice” which has worked so well for him. You can’t say “you’re fired” if nobody wants to be hired.
After all the talk of voter fraud and ballot integrity before this election, the race for the last seat in Congress has indeed come down to charges of election tampering. The figures at the center of of this controversy are not shadowy illegals, but a Baptist preacher and the vice-chair of the Bladen County, N.C., Soil and Water Conservation District board.
The market’s having a lousy year, but politically, the nation seems not to have noticed. Opinions about the economy, always subject to political leanings, seem increasingly less tethered to objective data.
The lingering governor’s race has deflected attention from the runoffs for secretary of state and the Public Service Commission, but these are important races for the future of both parties.
Last week’s election did more to reshape the political map of Georgia than any since 2002, when Sonny Perdue’s victory in the governor’s race triggered the shift to a Republican majority in the General Assembly. We can say that, even before the last details of the election have been ironed out.
On this bubblicious morning in Georgia, as we wait for the polls to open again, we might want to brush up on the famous “three governors controversy,“ which the New Georgia Encyclopedia has described as “one of the more bizarre political spectacles in the annals of American politics.” We could be on the verge of something similar.
What Ralph McGill so clearly described 60 years ago as “the crop of things sown” is coming in again right before a big election, so the human tendency is to focus on how the mayhem of the last week will affect the upcoming vote. That, sadly, is the least of it.
Candidates used to vote on Election Day in front of television camera crews. This year, both Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp voted early and posted about it on social media. For some first time voters, voting early may be the only way of voting they’ll ever know.
t’s extremely rare for a politician to take a shot at a candidate in a race farther down the ballot, much less call on one to resign. But this is a year of lateral moves and unconventional parries.
Eastern North Carolina seems destined by geography, economy and politics to become a battleground in the emerging war over climate change, which over the past couple of days has taken a fateful turn.
The analysis of how decorum has broken down in the U.S. Supreme Court nominating process usually begins with Robert Bork and moves through Clarence Thomas to the present, sorry state of events. A 1994 Alabama race run by Karl Rove deserves more attention, because the venom which has been injected into judicial politics starts at the state level.
“Secret TRUMP Deal: $40,983 for each taxpayer,” goes the email pitch for what turns out to be an investment newsletter. Although the president has nothing to do with them, pitches like these say a lot about his political situation.
Special Atlanta moments with two music masters – Itzhak Perlman and Gary Brooker of Procol HarumFebruary 18, 2019 - 6:26 pm
Atlanta loses a key Fortune 500 HQ with SunTrust mergerFebruary 11, 2019 - 2:54 pm
NFL praises Atlanta’s walkability during Super Bowl, but Northside Drive still lackingFebruary 4, 2019 - 5:54 pm
Atlanta Audubon’s growing wildlife sanctuary program now includes Briarlake Forest ParkFebruary 21, 2019 - 5:23 pm
Proposal for multi-year study of state’s health care system adds to debateFebruary 21, 2019 - 10:25 am
Planned spaceport near Brunswick subject of second lawsuit seeking public recordsFebruary 19, 2019 - 6:14 pm
Photo Pick: “Superbowl 53 in Atlanta” by Kemet Alston with Diverse SocietyFebruary 11, 2019 - 6:38 pm
Photo Pick: RaceTrac offered free gas to TSA employees on Jan 25- Photos by Evey WilsonFebruary 4, 2019 - 10:13 am
Photo Pick: Lee Thomas is Georgia Trend’s 2019 Person of the YearJanuary 28, 2019 - 7:56 pm
Column: Georgia Research Alliance ‘at a pivot point,’ refocusing for the futureFebruary 21, 2019 - 8:11 pm
Column: Georgia Bio names ‘ambassador for life sciences’ its new CEOFebruary 21, 2019 - 7:48 pm
1-on-1 with Arthur Blank: ‘I’m just a proud father’ after Super Bowl LIIIFebruary 21, 2019 - 7:37 pm
