The last of the three big Republican gubernatorial primary debates, the Atlanta Press Club debate Sunday night, was the first in which Gov. Brian Kemp and former U.S. Sen. David Perdue had to share the stage with any of their less noticed competitors. This was a good thing.
Category: Tom Baxter
Posted inColumns, Tom Baxter
Like neighbors who’ve had a falling out, Kemp and Perdue chew over old grievances
Never has a politician made the next election so much about the last election. Straight off the bat in the first of three debates with Gov. Brian Kemp Sunday night, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue declared that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” and that all the nation’s current woes, from inflation to illegal immigration to the threat of being drawn in to the war in Ukraine, “all the madness” of the Biden administration, can be traced back to Kemp’s decision to cave in to the “radical Democrats” who stole the election in Georgia.
Posted inColumns
Like a virus we can’t shake, mass violence is mutating
The gunfight at a Columbia, S.C., mall over Easter weekend was typical of a lot of the mass shooting events which have been happening around the country lately.
Posted inColumns
Abramowitz: It’s not the new election laws, but who’ll enforce them, that’s troubling
What impact are all the election laws passed by state legislatures this year going to have? Alan Abramowitz, who has an stellar record as a political prognosticator, has been studying that question.
Posted inColumns
Ominously, we may look back on this session with fondness
The frantic last day of every General Assembly session brings with it an overlay of nostalgia, as retiring members make their farewell speeches and the denizens of the Golden Dome enjoy the flimflamorous pageantry of Sine Die. This year that sentiment was especially appropriate.
Posted inColumns
Can Perdue hold up well enough to do the Democrats any good?
What should be Stacey Abrams’ biggest worry was on vivid display in Commerce Saturday night, and it wasn’t Donald Trump.
Posted inTom Baxter
He’ll draw a crowd, but will Trump help his chosen candidates?
We can expect an enthusiastic crowd of supporters will be at the Banks County Dragway in Commerce Saturday to greet former President Donald Trump at a rally in support of his chosen Georgia candidates in this year’s elections. The question is how much that’s going to help the candidates.
Posted inTom Baxter
When 3-to-1 is challenged, what about the close races?
Last week, as 2,189 candidates were qualifying to run for office this year, there was an ominous reminder that going forward, election results in Georgia may never be as cut and dried as they used to be.
Posted inColumns
A modest proposal to do something about development authorities gets its shot in the General Assembly
One of the most mind-boggling things about economic development authorities in Georgia is just how many of them there are.
Posted inColumns
A far-away conflict reaches the streets of Atlanta and the Georgia campaign trail
It might seem over the top to talk about what effect the war in Ukraine might have on the political fortunes of Brian Kemp, Stacey Abrams, David Perdue, and dozens of candidates whose names will appear down the ballot from them later this year. But there are rare moments when the wheels that move things globally and locally come into alignment.
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As housing prices soar, lawmakers debate the rights of private equity
Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul told a story last week which helps to explain why home prices are through the roof across Metro Atlanta and much of the rest of the state.
Posted inColumns
Historians of the future should find legislator’s letter a useful source
What with all the current efforts to tell teachers what they can’t teach and students what they can’t read, some may wonder what exactly the schools of tomorrow should be teaching. Here’s a suggestion.
Posted inColumns
‘Christian dogs’ and anti-vaxers have a bill they can love
At a time when one of the hottest controversies in American politics has to do with vaccinations, House Bill 1000 takes the subject into new territory.
Posted inColumns
How to make a book a best seller: Ban it
Last week, after the McMinn County school board in Tennessee voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” a Knoxville comic-book store announced that it would give a copy of the book to every student who asked for one. This is exactly what happens when you go banning books.
Posted inColumns
First in quitting, second in firing, Georgia economy weathers the pandemic pretty well
Given what we’ve been through in the pandemic, Georgia’s financial condition isn’t so bad. In fact by some measures, we’re better off than we were.
Posted inColumns
Not all the bills in the legislature are primed to the election year, but lots are
You can always tell it’s an election year by the bills that get introduced at the beginning of the General Assembly session. Both Republicans and Democrats have introduced “red meat” bills designed to stir up their respective bases, including the Republican bill banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, the governor’s constitutional carry bill and the Democratic bill requiring training to own a firearm.
Posted inColumns
As Biden takes the bully pulpit in Georgia, a new wave of voting laws appears under the Golden Dome
Waxing a little too metaphorical, White House senior advisor Cedric Richmond said that by giving his big speech on voting rights in Georgia, President Joe Biden was “going right to the belly of the beast.” Richmond was referring to the “voter suppression, voter subversion and obstruction” Democrats claim Republicans have committed in Georgia, but he might just as well have referred to Georgia as the belly of Democratic discontent with the administration’s progress on voting issues.
Posted inColumns
Rivian announcement heralds the dawn of the electric South
At the end of one year and the beginning of another, two big stories, the prolonged pandemic and the protracted battle over ballots, dominate the news. But the story of the decade is the one that will be taking shape on a huge site on I-20 between Social Circle and Madison.
Posted inColumns
Isakson and Cleland knew their voters, and their kids’ names
By Tom Baxter The death of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a little more than a month after the death of former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, brings this political year to a somber close. It’s tempting to say their passage marked the end of an era, but truthfully that era is already well behind us. […]
Posted inTom Baxter
Caught off guard before his campaign begins, Perdue launches primary bid
The last thing he wanted to do, former Sen. David Perdue told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, was run a campaign. Yet here he is.
