I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
1st? no way.
didn't diebold steal it last time?
What I want to know Atrios. Who is competeing for the big spots?
Who is going up against Delay, Santorum, Frisk, Lott, etc?
Are they up this year or mid term 2006?
I am more concerned about donating to people who are running up against these people. Delay in particular.
MYOB'
.
I thought all DemoRATS had been tarred and feathered and ridden out of Georgia on a rail. Any state that would elect Saxby Chambliss should be expelled from the Union.
Illinois also has an important contest. It's also a place where a Senate seat can be won fairly easily. John Fitzgerald, the Republican incumbent, is retiring after only one term, so the contest is up for grabs.
www.blairhull.com
He looks interesting. I got something in the mail from him, and have looked at his site before too. From what little I read, he seems decently progressive.
What a waste of time, no? Doesn't Barrow has the only thing that matters to a UGA hippy wanna be - REM's endorsement?
How about a series of blog-debates? We submit questions through Atrios and the candidates answer them.
MYOB--
Can't speak for the others, but Santorum isn't up until 2006.
The good news is, he is VERY beatable, if the Democrats run a strong, vibrant candidate. Hell, they could have beat him already in 2000 if they had done that, but Ron Klink was a really lame candidate.
The Illinois Senate seat should be an easy win, but Hull, may be a wife-beater. It's unlikely we'll learn the truth. Court records been sealed and his ex-wife, now an $80,000-a-year state employee, won't confirm or deny mistreatment.
There are yard signs for Blair Hull all over my neighborhood. Please, please, don't nominate a wife-beater!
The Illinois Senate seat should be an easy win, but Hull, may be a wife-beater. It's unlikely we'll learn the truth. Court records been sealed and his ex-wife, now an $80,000-a-year state employee, won't confirm or deny mistreatment.
There are yard signs for Blair Hull all over my neighborhood. Please, please, don't nominate a wife-beater!
Crap... that's PETER Fitzgerald. Duh...
Hmmm.. that's not good. No confirmation, though. Until he's proven otherwise, he's not a wife-beater.
Like... why didn't I read before saying that? Hmmmm... kicking her in the shin in the heat of an argument. Unfortunate, yes. Not sure it makes him a wife beater. Wife-beating tends to be a series of incidents over and over, not isolated cases. It's not excusing what he did, but I wouldn't say he's a wife-beater. However, if he wins the primary, the Republican opponent has a nice juicy bit of dirt on him. There's no doubt in my mind that they'll drop all nuance and pound "wife beater, wife beater" into voters' heads.
When I saw him on the 10 pm news on channel 2 yesterday he acknowledged hitting her in retaliation for her kicking him in bed. Sorry I can't find a link to the story! I'll post it when I do. I know I'm not dreaming this because my husband saw it too.
I realize that hitting your wife once isn't "wife-beating," but it's not much better. If he's nominated, it makes things that much easier for the Republicans.
I'm a local in GA 12, and while both candidates would be strong, let me put in a special good word for Doug Haines, particularly in light of the way he's been handling this blog-ad business. He has been reaching out to the blogosphere not simply to raise funds (though that too, of course), but to engage in the broader national dialogue, soliciting and thoughtfully responding on his own blog, in a very effective way, to a whole range of questions by bloggers, and taking very seriously his responsibility to *earn* the support of those he's asking for donations. I liked Haines already and probably would have voted for him anyway, but he's really been impressing me lately.
Haines is the progressive in the race (he defeated a 20+ year Old Dem incumbent in his state senate race), while Barrow is more of the establishment candidate, with something like twice the amount of funds in the bank as Haines. So your donation dollar will go farther with Haines. (And BTW, R.E.M. has done fundraisers for Haines in the past too, if that matters to you.)
Haines is by all accounts I've heard, a really good guy. Barrow pissed me off to no end several months ago over this big tenant registration law they (the Athens-Clarke county commission) pushed through here a while ago. He was utterly dismissive of the privacy and economic concerns of renters in this town, and came across (over the course of many, many hours of public meetings) as a smarmy jerk whose primary concern was ingratiating himself to well-off homeowners and positioning himself for this campaign. I'll vote for him if he wins the primary, but i'll hold my nose.
Good luck, Doug!
The most impressive and onnly legitimately progressive candidate in the Illinois primary is Barack Obama - he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was a civil rights attorney, and is a current state senator who also teaches con law at the University of Chicago Law School. Unlike Hull, he's not a millionaire who's just trying to buy a seat. He's also not captive to the Chicago machine like one of the other contenders, Dan Hynes.
I have to agree with JK. Obama is certainly the real "progressive" choice in the Illinois race, notwithstanding Hull's attempts to buy the electorate with his personal future. Plus, it has come out that his ex-wife got a protective order against him in the divorce proceeding. Unclear what, if anything, happened, but not something we want hanging over our candidate's head in November, esp against a strong GOP candidate like Jack Ryan
Doug Haines would get my vote, for GA 12, if I lived one county over (damn). Outstanding record while a state senator as an outspoken advocate of clean water and environmental concerns. Plus he a great guy. I like that he has put his blog to use to answer questions directly. Smart. Thinking on his feet.
As a FORMER resident of the GA-12, I no longer really have a Dawg in that hunt, but I agree with those above and give high praise to Haines for taking the time to answer questions on a variety of issues posed by visitors to his site. As for Barrow, if political trite language were a crime, I would have his ass locked his ass up for the drivel he has on his website. Barrow also loses points for throwing in that the members of REM have donated the max to his campaign and thinking that voters and donors will follow them. Boo boo ... And do I really care what those that are endorsing look like? - like going through a freaking yearbook. A alme and trite website, and from what I have been reading and hearing he won't do much to shake-up the lethargy in the D party or push progressive causes. I say vote Haines!
Having said all that, Barrow might be safer choice in challenging Burns, but if Haines wins the primary I could see him being a candidate that could benefit tremendously from the blogosphere.
Make them stop flashing! God I hate that.
There are no candidates (yet) running from Augusta, and 2 from Savannah, also part of this district. Of the 2 from Savannah, Tony Center is the stronger choice, and he's been campaigning in Augusta some, but hasn't been able to drop his client load yet. He nearly beat Newt Gingrich in 1992, when he was living in Atlanta. He's also been smeared by a campaign fundraiser (and possible source of illegal loans) for the current rep, Max Burns.
Tony Center was wonderfully impressive at the democratic debate here 2 years ago, when the panel was asked a question about the Patriot Act, he was the first to respond, and whipped a copy of the Constitution out of his suit pocket. He said it was wrong. Sure, *everyone* thinks the Patriot Act is bad news NOW; in summer of 2002, it was refreshing and brave. He earned my husband and I's votes that night.
Athens (where I live: I've done campaign work for Haines; live in Barrow's district) is a wonderfully progressive oasis in Georgia, and the city will split between Haines and Barrow. Given that Barrow worked hard to help Haines in his last try for the Georgia Senate, I've been surprised by the "Democrat not Aristocrat" ad. But Haines, who I felt went too soft in the 2002 campaign, has been hitting hard for awhile now. He has had the occasional Bush-whacking ad in the local progressive weekly for at least 7 or 8 months, and he's much more focused, much stronger. Maybe he will be able to win. Doug Haines is a great guy, an honest guy, a smart guy. But I don't know that he can win the primary without taking Athens, and that is unlikely to happen.
tony center was good at the debate at the ga center here 2 years ago, until he started describing his flat tax proposal. really. but a nice guy.
doug haines is a nice guy, and anyone who campaigns in the globe with a fistful of guiness has to have some good sense, but he lost his *state senate seat* to a republican who had never before run for office. and in this most strategic of voting years, i shudder to think of how he would do running for national office against someone backed by someone with political experience - say, the rccc.
barrow is raising lots of cash, and i think he would have a better shot against max "oh how i long for berlin in 1939" burns.
Actually B, Doug would stand a much better chance running against Burns than Barrow. And please keep in mind that Barrow has lost an election before in Athens. Doug has consistently won the vote in Athens by a large margin. As you know, Oconee County is very Republican and had an extremely large turnout in the last election. Not only has Barrow lost an election in Athens, he has been turned down for a judicial appointment three times and now he is trying to use all of his money for a congressional office.
With that said, can win this election and he is doing it for the right reasons, to bring a progressive voice to Congress.
Opps, the last sentence should read HAINES can win this election, and certainly has a better shot at doing it than Barrow. Max Burns may be worried about the money Barrow has raised, but he is scared to death of the grassroots efforts of Haines.
I'm from Athens, too. I'm voting for Doug Haines, and have had my mind made up on that for some time. But if I were undecided, I would probably be going for Doug now simply because he has the chutzpah to actually answer questions on his blog and because he seems to care more about the voters than the donors (I know, that may be his undoing, considering how much John Barrow has already raised from his trial lawyer friends.)
If you want to know why Doug lost his Senate seat in 2002, I'd suggest you go on his blog and ask him. He's usually pretty quick with a response, although its been kind of slack this weekend.
It's good to see the Chicago media have finally started to press the questions about Blair Hull's wife seeking a protective order against him. While he now claims that it's because he hit his wife in the shin during an argument, that (a) seems kind of fishy since I don't know if that would truly be grounds for a protective order and for the state's attorney to consider filing charges, and (b) even if that's exactly what happened, isn't that still pretty bad? And if the wife thought it was a serious enough disagreement that she had to seek an order of protection, that seems a little more serious than he's making it out to be. My personal opinion is his campaign decided there was no way to get around the incident, so they tried to concoct the most "innocent" example of violence they could think of, that being a kick in the shin. I think there's got to be more to the story.
i think he lost in part because there was a tightly contested judge seat up for grabs in oconee county that churned up the gop turnout, and his campaign might not have been as well staffed as others. he has always seemed like an utterly nice guy, but i am gun-shy because his fundraising is slow in a contest against an incumbent republican. and it is *still* possible that the scotus will invalidate the congressional district map, a result of which would likely be a better district for burns.
I think his votes on the state flag and on school vouchers probably hurt him in the more Republican parts of his senate district. Its possible but not likely that the scotus will get involved in the congressional districts, but that's going to affect all of the democrats.
<>((((º>
testing
><((()º>
>=((`()º>
>=((()º>
so long and thanks for all the fish!
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
