Radical Georgia Moderate

Ah, the plot thickens.

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson held a meeting with [his] staff this morning and told them he’s decided to seek another term in the U.S. Senate rather than run for governor in 2010.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle likely would have sat out the 2010 governor’s race if Isakson had run. With Isakson out, that leaves insurance commissioner John Oxendine as the only declared candidate (that I know of, at least). While formidable, he’s not the near-lock for the nomination that Isakson would have been.

That should make for good theater in next year’s session. We might get to see Glenn Richardson’s mean streak!

I don’t mean to focus excessively on one district that I don’t live in, but I just noticed a third Democratic challenger for Jill Chamber’s state House seat in District 81 on the Secretary of State’s web site: Clyburn Halley.

It’s entirely possible this is old news and I missed it before, but I figured I should throw all the names out there.

This is in addition to Chris Huttman, who I blogged about the other day, and Cecillia Hailey, who Andre mentioned might have a few money issues.

Halley lists his profession as Law Enforcement/Educator, and appears to work in the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. He ran for Clerk of Superior court in 2004, coming in dead last among a field of six candidates with two percent of the vote.

Anybody know anything else about these two candidates?

Update 1:19 p.m. It appears this was probably a mistake on the SoS web site. Halley is now (correctly?) listed as challenging Earnest “Coach” Williams for his seat in District 89. No Republicans had filed as of this writing.

Thanks to Bob for pointing out that the Lithonia address looked a little fishy in the comments.

This should be obvious if you’ve read any newspapers or blogs today. From U.S. Senate candidate and DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones. Emphasis mine:

“Obviously, the Democratic party loves to recruit losers,” Jones said. “In the past we lost both United States senate seats, we’ve lost the governor’s race, the lieutenant governor’s race, the secretary of state’s race, the last Democratic public service commission race. The Democratic party has constantly put up liberal candidates and they’ve lost election after election after election. And Vernon Jones and the people of Georgia want a winner.”

Another “You’re not wrong Walter. You’re just an asshole” moment. I don’t really understand what he’s trying to accomplish with that quote. No matter, I think the real outrage here comes later in the article:

Jones declined to take a position on Iraq until he studied the issue.

Are you fucking kidding me? This war has been going on for, what, five years now and you have no idea what you think? Say you support it, say you don’t, or hedge your bet and throw out the tired “I want to bring the troops home but we have to be responsible about it” line, but don’t tell me you need more time to study. Five years is plenty of goddamn time.

What the hell, let’s actually talk about some politics on here for a moment. I had a phone conversation with a conservative yesterday who believes Republican state Rep. Jill Chambers might actually be in trouble in her district against former DPG employee and blogger Chris Huttman.

I was (and still am) incredulous. We’ve seen Chambers dispatch a long line of challengers of varying competence and intelligence with relative ease against what seem like unfavorable demographics. She’s smart and tough, and plays politics Ty Cobb-style, with cleats out. She also breaks from party dogma often enough to make her ideological positions more palatable to her constituency. It’s tough to argue that a Democrat could accomplish more for that district in an all-Republican legislature.

What was said conservative’s reasoning? That Chambers was too close to Speaker Glenn Richardson, and that there will be fallout from aligning with him.

Richardson, as you probably know already, is largely viewed as responsible for the acrimony that has ground state government to a halt the past two years. I’d venture to say a state House candidate being associated with him is worth about as much as a U.S. House candidate being associated with George W. Bush. Which is to say nothing positive could come from it.

For good measure, we should also throw in the Obama candidacy will hurt metro Atlanta Republicans theory. The theory goes that Obama being the candidate would increase turnout among black voters, gay voters and urban liberals. Given that Obama took the Georgia primary by a landslide, and given that some polls have said the supporters of one candidate may have trouble voting for the other candidate, this theory may have some merit to it.

Could the combination of all these factors give Huttman a chance against Chambers?

Chris is a reader and comments on here from time-to-time, and I’m sure he’s got the demographics all worked out. I’d also love to hear from Rep. Chambers if she reads this. And from everyone else. What say you?

Randy Lewis of the Georgia Daily Digest, whom you might also recognize as the most frequently-appearing conservative panelist on the Ga. Politics Podcast, had a quote in the New York Times about the soap opera going on at GDOT:

“On the scandal meter, this doesn’t make my needle stand up too much,” said Randy Lewis, a political analyst who runs the Web site GeorgiaPoliticalDigest.com. “Because it’s nothing compared to the rest of the sludge at D.O.T. and what has to be done there.”

I wonder if the Times just missed the double entendre.

There’s a new episode of the GA Politics Podcast up. It’s been almost exactly two years since the first episode!

Topics: Legislature wrap-up, bloggers running for office, GDOT scandal.

Thanks to Joseph for hosting and to the panelists for coming out!