Justin's Political Corner
Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said the mixture of a trending-purple state and a bloody GOP primary could hinder the party’s ability next year to hold the Georgia Senate seat of his retiring colleague.
“It should be a Republican seat, but there’s a perfect storm that could happen that could make that challenging,” said Isakson when he was asked about the race Wednesday at the annual tax, budget and health care policy seminar hosted by BakerHostetler.
The seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has so far enticed three members of Congress, a wealthy businessman and a former Georgia secretary of state to vie for the GOP nomination. Meanwhile, Democrats are coalescing around Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and head of the nonprofit Points of Light Foundation.
Earlier this month, CQ Roll Call reported that the Senate race is shaping up to host a test case for Democrats intent on one day making Georgia routinely competitive in statewide races. While Republicans remain especially skeptical that can happen as early as 2014, Georgia still presents Senate Democrats with their best opportunity to pick up a seat so far this cycle.
Isakson maintained that the seat “will probably be Republican,” but the margins of the party’s “overwhelming” victories in the past decade in legislative and congressional races have grown closer over time. He noted that “Georgia was one of the few Southern states that Romney didn’t carry by double digits.”
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) made no secret of his controversial positions on everything from the dangers of science to eliminating the Voters Rights Act in his time as a Tea Party favorite. In preparation for a Senate run, however, Broun has chosen to keep his views to himself — and his potential donors.
Broun is currently the only Republican who has announced a bid to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the Senate upon the latter’s retirement in 2014. In the interest of winning over a state-wide majority of voters, Broun has sought to moderate his positions somewhat, referring to bipartisan efforts in manufacturing jobs in a recent radio interview.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has pointed out, however, his new moderate tone has yet to reach the Congressman’s fundraising efforts. AJC’s Jim Galloway highlighted a few choice paragraphs from one of Broun’s fundraising letters to potential funders:
As a Member of the House of Representatives for the last few years, I have fought tooth-and-nail against President Obama’s agenda at every turn.
I was the first Member of Congress to call him a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies like government control of health care and redistribution of wealth….
On the Senate side, I’m a staunch ally of now retired Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina — and of course, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky….
Broun is likely right that he was the first to call Obama a Marxist back in 2008. In the same interview, he also compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler.
As recently as January, Broun said that President Obama only upholds the “Soviet Constitution.”
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) filed paperwork Wednesday to run for the seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the first to jump into the race, National Journal reports.
Broun, who made headlines last year when he called evolution and the big bang theory “lies straight from the pit of Hell,” could be a headache to establishment Republicans who want to make sure the nomination goes to a candidate likely to appeal in a general election, a risk even in a red state like Georgia.
h/t: TPM LiveWire
WASHINGTON — Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who helped lead efforts to find a bipartisan deficit reduction compromise, announced on Friday that he would retire at the end of 2014, a decision likely to set off a battle on the Republican Party’s right flank for a successor.
Already, organizations backed by the Tea Party were stirring interest in a primary challenge for Mr. Chambliss over his embrace of new revenues as a part of any comprehensive deficit package. Representatives Tom Price and Paul Broun, two Republican doctors and ardent conservatives from Georgia, had expressed interest in a possible challenge.
But without Mr. Chambliss in the picture, the Senate contest in Georgia could shape up to be a battle royale on the right. Other possible candidates could include Herman Cain, a failed presidential candidate, and Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state who ran for governor in 2010 with the backing of Sarah Palin. Ms. Handel lost that contest but went on to a senior position at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation, where she championed a controversial move to withhold financing for Planned Parenthood cancer screenings.
In a statement, Mr. Chambliss took pains to say he did not fear losing a primary challenge.
“Lest anyone think this decision is about a primary challenge, I have no doubt that had I decided to be a candidate, I would have won re-election,” he said. “In these difficult political times, I am fortunate to have actually broadened my support around the state and the nation due to the stances I have taken. Instead, this is about frustration, both at a lack of leadership from the White House and at the dearth of meaningful action from Congress.”
Democrats insisted they would make a run at his seat.
“Georgia will now offer Democrats one of our best pick-up opportunities of the cycle. There are already several reports of the potential for a divisive primary that will push Republicans to the extreme right. Regardless, there’s no question that the demographics of the state have changed and Democrats are gaining strength. This will be a top priority,” said Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
But in a mid-presidential term election, Georgia will present a steep climb for the Democratic Party.
h/t: The New York Times
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) tore into scientists as tools of the devil in a speech at the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet last month.
“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”
According to Broun, the scientific plot was primarily concerned with hiding the true age of the Earth. Broun serves on the House Science Committee, whichcame under scrutiny recently after another one of its Republican members, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), suggested that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses against pregnancy.
“You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth,” he said. “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”
The full 47-minute speech, posted by the Liberty Baptist Church, can be found here.
“What I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it,” he said. “It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”
h/t: Benjy Sarlin at TPM
In 2006, when George W. Bush was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives launched the first of a series of misguided sting operations where illegal guns were sold in the expectation that they could be tracked to drug traders. Instead, the agents lost track of the guns, and at least two of these guns were likely later used to kill a federal agent.
This series of operations, which includes the “Fast and Furious” operation, were deeply botched. They should never have been executed and the government officials found responsible for them have correctly been removed from their jobs or demoted. None of these officials are Eric Holder. As Attorney General, Holder supervises nearly 112,000 employees. It is neither desirable for him to be aware of every single operation being conducted by low-level field agents, nor would it even be physically possible to brief him on all of these operations if he wanted to be.
Nevertheless, congressional Republicans believe they can somehow blow this botched operation up into a major political scandal for Holder simply through repeated use of hyperbole. In an interview with Fox News this morning, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) made the most outlandish claim to date — that Holder should not only lose his job, he should also face criminal charges:
It’s getting blatantly evident that Eric Holder’s broken the law. He’s lied to Congress. He should resign. He should be prosecuted for lying to Congress. And he should be disbarred. The president ought to call Eric Holder into his office and fire him today.
Paul Broun, YOU ought to be the one that should resign, moron!
Yet, while Broun’s blovating has no chance whatsoever of pinning this botched operation on Holder, it could have a very real impact on the Department’s ability to ensure that this kind of mistake never happens again. So far, the Department appears to have acted responsibly by investigating the operation and removing the people responsible for it. Nothing, however, chills an investigation into a legitimately troubling incident more than an army of witchhunters who care more about embarrassing senior officials than they do about learning the truth.
