We On The Grind In... Georgia

In Georgia, they want Medicare expansion and they want to keep their crazy anti-healthcare Governor. Maybe they listen to too much Hate Talk Radio and watch too much Fox News and have wound up with addled brains, but an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released today yields a portrait of one very confused electorate. Let's start with this interesting finding among Peach State respondents: 57% of them favor Medicaid expansion. OK, that makes sense and is pretty much in line with what voters in other red states without Medicare expansion want. But the guy who's preventing Medicare expansion-- and keeping 450,000 from getting healthcare-- in their state, right-wing Governor Nathan Deal, has a healthy 54% job approval rating going into his reelection campaign. The poll shows him leading Democrat Jason Carter 47-38% in a head-to-head matchup (although Carter leads in metro-Atlanta and it's basically the really backward parts of the state where Deal piles up his big margins).

The poll shows that the Senate race to replace retiring Saxby Chambliss is also a hodgepodge that defies reason. Anti-Choice extremist Karen Handel seems to be the frontrunner among the Republicans… maybe-- and depending how you look at the numbers. OK, so, keeping in mind, there are no Republican candidates that are objectively better than any of the others and that any of them would go immediately to the bottom of the senatorial barrel, let's look at this hot mess. The 3 percentages are favorable/unfavoranble/never heard of

• Karen Handel- 39/24/21
• David Perdue- 35/20/27
• Michelle Nunn (D)- 31/18/33
• Paul Broun- 31/21/29
• Phil Gingrey- 31/26/26
• Jack Kingston- 30/19/32

I included Michelle Nunn's numbers in that little chart as well, but the primary is May 20 (with a July 22 runoff) and the Republicans still have plenty of time to bash each other up but good before then. Broun, a John Bircher and former drug addict, has been endorsed by Ron Paul and the dangerous radical right Gun Owners of America. David Perdue has been endorsed by his cousin, Sonny, a former Georgia governor. And Handel has been endorsed by Vivien Scott and Betty Price, whose husbands are crazed right-wing congressmen Austin Scott and Tom Price.

Before today's poll, a PPP survey in August showed Gingrey ahead with 25%, followed by Broun with 19%, Kingston with 15%, Handel with 13% and Perdue with 5%. That same poll also showed Nunn beating Broun 41-36%, beating Handel 40-38%, beating Kingston 40-38%, tying Gingrey 41-41%, and tying Perdue 40-40%. At the time, Tom Jensen wrote that PPP's first poll showed the race was competitive and PPP President Dean Debnam said "The Georgia Senate race starts out as a toss up. None of the Republican candidates are particularly well known or well liked to begin the race. Meanwhile the Nunn name still carries a lot of weight with voters in the state."

Since then Gingrey, Broun and Kingston has made repeated missteps and shocked people with their extremism and obvious lack of qualifications for the job. Just this week, for example, Kingston, who had insisted school children from poor families be put to work because "there is no such thing as free lunch," was exposed for taking thousands of dollars for his own free lunches… and dinners from lobbyists and other trying to bribe him to vote for their own special interests, something Kingston is notorious for in Washingtion.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Kingston has traveled to four continents, racking up $24,313 in per diem allowances. While the allowances were allotted for more than just lunch money, midday meals were included.

…Beyond taxpayer dollars, Kingston has enjoyed many free meals on the campaign trail. WSAV 3 reported $145,391.26 in expensed meals and catering for campaign events, $26,066.45 of which was charged at the Republican Club of Capitol Hill, an exclusive, members only venue.

"Isn't this a free lunch?" a WSAV 3 reporter asked Kingston.

"This is what we need in America," Kingston responded. "We need workfare over welfare. I learned a lot when I was 14 and 15 years old doing chores inside and outside the household and as a result i grew up with a good work ethic. ... It's hard in today's society to have a discussion where you want to challenge the status quo because of the 'I gotcha' politics."

It's going to be a long campaign. And to put it in a little context, let me go back to the healthcare reform that 57% of Georgia voters seem to say they want-- albeit while voting for political leaders who solemnly swear to prevent them from having it. According to a report from the House Ways and Means Committee, repealing the Affordable Care Act-- which all the Georgia Republicans advocate-- would be a catastrophe for the state's residents. Thanks, the report asserts, to the Affordable Care Act, in Georgia:

• 2,202,000 individuals on private insurance have gained coverage for at least one free preventive health care 
service such as a mammogram, birth control, or an immunization in 2011 and 2012. In the first eleven months of 2013 alone, an additional 728,900 people with Medicare have received at least one preventive service at no out of pocket cost.

• The up to 4,324,000 individuals with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, cancer, or diabetes-- including up to 613,000 children-- will no longer have to worry about being denied coverage or charged higher prices because of their health status or history.

• Approximately 2,036,000 Georgians have gained expanded mental health and substance use disorder benefits and/or federal parity protections.

• 1,699,000 uninsured Georgians will have new health insurance options through Medicaid or private health plans in the Marketplace.

• As a result of new policies that make sure premium dollars work for the consumer, not just the insurer, in the past year insurance companies have sent rebates averaging $82 per family to approximately 247,900 consumers.

• In the first ten months of 2013, 94,400 seniors and people with disabilities have saved on average $875 on prescription medications as the health care law closes Medicare’s so-called “donut hole.”

• 123,000 young adults have gained health insurance because they can now stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26.

• Individuals no longer have to worry about having their health benefits cut off after they reach a lifetime limit on benefits, and starting in January, 3,317,000 Georgians will no longer have to worry about annual limits, either.

• Health centers have received $102,945,000 to provide primary care, establish new sites, and renovate existing centers to expand access to quality health care. Georgia has approximately 175 health center sites, which served about 321,000 individuals in 2012.

Congressional Status A Big Negative Among This Year's Gubernatorial Candidates

There are two states with primaries coming up this month: Georgia and Oklahoma. DWT readers know that this coming Tuesday Blue America-backed Regina Thomas goes up against reactionary Blue Dog John Barrow in the 12th CD and the following Tuesday (July 27), late entrant Jim Wilson takes on even worse Blue Dog Dan Boren in eastern Oklahoma's 2nd CD. What we haven't discussed, however is that both states have gubernatorial primaries as well. Taylor Dolven has pointed out in The Hill that members of Congress aspiring to governor's mansions-- as is this case in both Georgia and Oklahoma-- are finding their congressional experience an albatross. These are the members of Congress-- two of whom, Nathan Deal and Neil Abercrombie, have recently resigned from that body-- who decided to leave Capitol Hill for a shot at running the show in their own state's capitals:

Nathan Deal (R)- GA
Mary Fallin (R)- OK
Artur Davis (D)- AL
Gresham Barrett (R)- SC
Pete Hoesksta (R)- MI
Zach Wamp (R)- TN
Neil Abercrombie (D)- HI

Fallin, better known for her times at Lt. Governor than for her short stint as a congressional, backbencher, is considered a lock and so is Abercrombie. The rest have either already lost-- Davis and Barrett-- or look like they will lose.

Once Davis, who represents one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic districts in the South (Obama have thrashed McCain 72-27%) decided to run statewide, his moderate voting record turned sharply right, ignoring his own constituents to make a play for... the KKK? His vote against the healthcare reform legislation was widely seen as the last straw for his cowardly and craven pandering-- and the death knell for an idiotic campaign. He lost to Ron Sparks. He lost 10 of the 12 counties in his own congressional district and only managed 37.6% statewide. Why should Democrats vote for someone who votes with the GOP in their own primary when they have a plausible alternative?

Gresham Barrett didn't change a thing to run. But the South Carolina GOP changed. No one can deny that Barrett has a long career as an ultra-conservative corporate hack, long the ticket to higher office in one of the most historically reactionary states-- going right back to colonial days-- in the U.S. But Barrett, like virtually the whole House Republican hierarchy, including teabagger hero Joe Wilson, I might add, followed the lead of John Boehner and Paul Ryan-- as well as party standard bearers George Bush and John McCain-- to support Bush's 2008 no-strings-attached Wall Street Bail-Out. The same deranged, demented teabaggers in South Carolina who were ready to erect statues of Joe Wilson in their town squares after he screeched "You Lie" at President Obama at the State of the Union, were unwilling to accept Barrett's abject daily apologies for voting the same way as Wilson. No doubt if Barrett would have campaigned on a "platform" of Obama being an Indonesian, Mexican or Kenyan-born Muslim terrorist, he would have won the GOP primary. But he didn't-- and he lost.

Congressional experience has been a boon in the past for lawmakers running in gubernatorial races, according to Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Cook Political Report.

“Now that experience is a liability because of Congress’s poor image,” she said.
Georgia Republican Nathan Deal will be the next former lawmaker to test voters’ anti-Washington mood.

A recent Mason-Dixon poll showed Deal, who left the House in March after casting his vote against healthcare reform, locked in a three-way battle for the GOP gubernatorial nomination with state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and former Secretary of State Karen Handel. 

Deal this week joined Oxendine in attacking Handel, who is seen as the front-runner after securing the backing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Observers say he may not make the expected runoff between the top two finishers in next Tuesday’s vote. 

His third-place position in the race comes despite leaving Congress in the hopes of improving his chances in the primary. 

“It was important that he devote 100 percent of his time to the election,” said Brian Robinson, a Deal spokesman.

Being out of Congress also eliminates the chance a candidate will have to make a controversial vote. This cycle, members from both parties who ran for governor were forced to defend tough votes. 

Wamp's membership in the radical right C Street Cult probably isn't hurting him in his primary bid, but just the fact that he's a congressman is. He's trailing the multimillionaire mayor of Knoxville, Bill Haslem. There are so many Republicans running in Michigan-- with no clear front-runner-- that the party nod is completely up for grabs. Aside from the bumbling and lackluster but well-known Hoekstra, Attorney General Mike Cox and Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder are contenders, with Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and state Senator Tom George lagging.

Republican Party In Disarray Over Arizona Police State Law-- One GOP Candidate Wants To Micro-chip 'Em Like His Dog

Official GOP policy-- always & forever

You may have read about how some Republicans in Florida, a state whose GOP is partially dominated by Hispanics from Cuba who aren't thrilled with knee-jerk racism (unless it's directly at blacks), have expressed some doubts about that nasty little police state law in Arizona. Marco Rubio, desperately trying to not get indicted for fraud before November, has concerns. Jeb Bush, whose children are Hispanic, is worried about unintended consequences (never mentioning his racist party's intended consequence of ethnic cleansing). Karl Rove, who sort of lives in Florida now too is muddled and confused, welcoming it and wishing it had never passed at the same time. Miami-Dade retiring Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart strongly disagrees with the Arizona law. And Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is offended, flat out called it "unacceptable" and "un-American." You go, girl!

Most Republican electeds are laying low and running away from reporters but far more than those offended and troubled are those celebrating, especially racist California freaks Darrell Issa and Brian Bilbray. Perhaps the most bizarre reactions have come from the increasingly radicalized Iowa GOP. One of the most bigoted and craziest members of Congress, Steve King, couldn't wait to issue a statement: "The ‘open borders’ Obama Administration has postured itself in favor of amnesty over the Rule of Law. Now states like Arizona are being forced to step up and fill the void left by DHS and the Obama Administration. I commend Arizona for standing up for the Rule of Law and protecting American workers. This is the time for the Obama Administration to accelerate enforcement of immigration laws to make room for unemployed Americans, not grant amnesty.”

Nevermind that the Obama Administration is dealing far more effectively with the problem than the cheap-labor Republicans ever did, King is generally dismissed as a lone wolf and sideshow act. Turns out though, he's hardly alone in his state.

Third District GOP congressional hopefuls called for more R&D on illegal immigration – as in round-up and deport.

Speaking at a Tama County Republican forum Monday, six candidates for the GOP nomination to face seven –term Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell opposed amnesty for illegal aliens and called for tougher enforcement of border security.

“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.

...Like the other candidates, [David] Funk had disdain for using the politically correct term-- undocumented workers-- for people who enter the country illegally.

Calling them undocumented worker “is like calling the drug dealer an unlicensed pharmacist,” Funk said.
Illegal immigration is first and foremost a security issue, Scott Batcher of West Des Moines said.

“If we’re allowing illegals to come in, we’re probably letting terrorists walk across the border, too,” he said.
“Illegals are killing us financially,” added Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale. Illegal immigrants receive education, health care and other services, often without paying for them, he said.

Like his rivals, Zaun would not support amnesty for illegal immigrants in the U.S.

“All the illegal people who are here, put them on a bus and send them wherever they came from,” he said. “I want what my great-grandfather from Germany went through. They should go through the process that all people who have come to this country have gone through.”

Angry white bigots never pass up an opportunity to demagogue a problem instead of dealing with it seriously. All of them said they favor deporting the millions of men, women and children without documentation. I'm not sure what Zaun's great-grandfather from Germany went through but I known mine had a pretty easy time of it and I suspect his did too. This is an issue likely to be very popular with the teabaggers but with few others. No one, though, could be surprised that ethically-challenged, far right fanatic, Nathan Deal, currently running for governor of Georgia, has declared that if he's elected he will make sure Georgia has the same kind of police state law that Arizona has. If it does to the GOP nationally what it did to the GOP in California when they tried this kind of stunt, America will be a far better place.

Yes, There Are Congressional Districts Where Obama Won Less Than 25% Of The Vote

Nathan Deal & Mac Thornberry- accurate reflections of 2 uber-reactionary districts

Indiana's Republican Establishment has never much liked 14 term Congressman Dan Burton. It has nothing to do with his political positions or ideological predilections. He's an extreme right wing maniac and always has been, just like Indiana's Republican Establishment. His personality, on the other hand, is grating and he doesn't share his graft with the state party. They made a move to unseat him last year and John McGoff almost beat him in the primary. This year McGoff plans to try again-- as do 3 other Republicans. I was reading about this at The Hill yesterday and the article ends disappointingly: "The candidate emerging from the Republican primary would be favored in the reliably red district."

How reliable, I wondered. Well, the PVI is R+20. That's reliable. No other district in Indiana is afflicted with as many Republicans. Burton wound up with 66% of the vote in November and McCain-- who lost the state-- racked up his biggest majorities in Burton's district (59%), just as Bush did in 2000 and 2004.

But since my head was all in a statistics way I decided to see what districts, nationally, were even more reactionary than IN-05. I saw that there were dozens of districts that gave Obama far less than the 40% he got there-- far less. In fact there are plenty of districts that gave Obama less than a third of their votes! And these were, for the most part, the hardcore KKK districts-- in some cases where Kerry actually did better than Obama. Let me profile a couple of the standouts, to get an idea about what Democrats are up against in some parts of the country (primarily in really backward parts of unreconstructed former slave-holding states).

Worst of all is Texas' mammoth 13th CD that stretches across most of the northern part of the state. Mac Thornberry is a right-wing extremist first elected in 1994. The PVI is a startling R+25 and the district is 74% white Anglo and about 18% Hispanic. Bush won with 74% in 2000 and after his first 4 years of misrule, he was rewarded with 78% in 2004. McCain did nearly as well in 2008 as Bush did in 2004-- 77%, his best performance in any of the crazed Texas districts . McCain did 55% statewide. Thornberry won with an even greater margin in the district than McCain did-- 78%.

Let me quote from the CQPolitics Alamanac's description of the district that manufactures all of our country's nuclear bombs:

The conservative 13th encompasses much of the Texas Panhandle, including the city of Amarillo, then extends east along the Oklahoma border to take in the South Plains and much of the Red River Valley. It juts south twice to add more agricultural territory as well as pick up Jones County's small portion of Abilene. The district takes in Wichita Falls and reaches east to haul in the western half of Cooke County, about 50 miles north of Fort Worth. Monstrous and mainly rural, the 14th includes all or part of 44 counties, 40 of which have a population of under 25,000.

...The 13th is one of the most Republican districts in Texas. The GOP excels in many of the rural small towns that dot the area, particularly around Amarillo. Ochiltree County, in the Panhandle, gave 92 percent of the vote to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Closer to blue-collar Wichita Falls, voters have traditionally favored Democrats at the local level, but even this area votes solidly Republican in state and national elections.

TX-13 is the bottom of the barrel for Texas and for America. But there are other districts that are almost as reactionary and almost as steeped in ignorance, fear, superstition, darkness, and gross bigotry. TX-11 is almost as bad. A west-central Texas backwater, it's got the same R+25 PVI, same kind of rubber stamp extremist loon Representative, in this case Mike Conaway, and a 24% vote for Obama. Texas shares the distinction for being the most reactionary and politically backward state in the U.S. with Georgia and it's there that we find another district that gave Obama less than a quarter of its votes, GA-09, in the rural northern part of the state where chicken processing is the #1 industry. The congressman is a backward yahoo, Nathan Deal, who was first elected as a Dixiecrat Dem in 1992 but quickly realized all the like-minded kooks were on the other side of the aisle, which he skipped over to as soon as the GOP won majority status in 1994. He has been an important cog in screwing up American health care and has worked diligently to wreck the organic food industry. Deal won re-election with 75% of the vote in November, the same that McCain took there. CQPolitics Almanac again:

Anchored by North Georgia mountains, the 9th runs across most of the state's northern border... The 9th's economy has long depended on poultry processing and carpet manufacturing industries rooted in Gainesville and Dalton. As Atlanta expands northward, a surge of new residents in the district's south has brought white-collar and service sector jobs to the 9th and has helped diversify the local economy. The southern portions of Forsyth and Hall counties host suburbs full of Republicans and housing subdivisions.

...The 9th has the state's smallest proportion of black residents (3 percent), although its Hispanic population is expanding due to job opportunities in both the poultry processing and carpet manufacturing industries. More than half the school children in Dalton and Gainesville are Hispanic.

Deal, of course, is a rabid xenophobe and a tireless union-buster. You know how I love talking about how the same kind of right-wing obstructionism that the GOP is currently throwing against Obama resulted in just 88 Republicans in the 1936 House (and 16 Republicans in the Senate)? If trends continue in that direction in 2010 and 2012, Mac Thornberry and Nathan Deal will be among that small number of Republicans returning to Congress, with nothing to fear when espousing the most radical right destructive nonsense that educated and discerning voters in most of the country wouldn't put up with for one term.

But I want to leave this post on a hopeful note. Below are the Republican congressmen in districts that Obama won in November. Some were very close calls and some were landslides. Each of these seats should be carefully targeted by Democrats, although I fear that the DCCC is more interested in-- and will spend all its money on-- retaining Republican-voting incumbents in red districts like Bobby Bright (AL), Parker Griffith (AL), Walt Minnick (ID), Travis Childers (MS), Chris Carney (PA):

CA-03- Dan Lungren
CA-24- Elton Gallegly
CA-25- Buck McKeon
CA-26- David Dreier
CA-44- Ken Calvert
CA-45- Mary Bono-Mack
CA-50- Brain Bilbray
DE-AL- Mike Castle
FL-10- Bill Young
FL-18- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
IA-04- Tom Latham
IL-06- Peter Roskam
IL-10- Mark Kirk
IL-13 Judy Biggert
IL-16- Don Manzullo
LA-02- Ahn Cao
MI-03- Vernon Ehlers
MI-04- Dave Camp
MI-06- Fred Upton
MI-08- Mike Rogers
MI-11- Thaddeus McCotter
MN-03- Erik Paulsen
NE-02- Lee Terry
NJ-02- Frank LoBiondo
NJ-07- Leonard Lance
NV-02- Dean Heller
NY-03- Peter King
NY-23 John McHugh
OH-12- Pat Tiberi
OH-14- Steve LaTourette
PA-06- Jim Gerlach
PA-15- Charles Dent
VA-04- Randy Forbes
VA-10- Frank Wolf
WA-08- Dave Reichert
WI-01- Paul Ryan
WI-06- Tom Petri