220 Prince Avenue – Our new Headquarters for the election season!
Area Democrats will have a large and commodious headquarters for organizing and carrying out their activities in the busy upcoming campaign season. The Executive Committee of the CCDC has leased the beautiful Victorian house at 220 Prince Avenue (directly across the street from The Grit and next door to St. Joseph’s Church parking lot). The house has many fine features, including large front rooms to the left and to the right of the large entry hall. In the rear are kitchen facilities and upstairs a number of rooms available for subleasing to local campaigns. Not the least of its attractions is ample parking.
Some might say that it has a doubtful feng-shui: it was once a funeral home and subsequently a Republican Party headquarters. The obvious reply to any such negativity is that the area’s Democrats will bring to it new life and a spirit of renewal! In keeping with this theme, the opening ceremonies have been scheduled for “Friday the 13th” of June, from 5 to 7 p.m. Everyone should plan to be there. Those who would like to contribute food or help with the arrangements should contact Wanda White at athenswanda@yahoo.com or phone 706-208-0652.
Grand Opening of CCDC Headquarters at 220 Prince Avenue (across from The Grit, next door to St. Joseph’s parking lot) – Friday, June 13, 5-7 p.m.
Next Meeting of CCDC – Thursday, June 26, 6 p.m. Democratic Headquarters, 220 Prince Avenue.
Athens Area Democrats – Buffet Breakfast at Trumps, 9 a.m., Saturday, June 14. “The Media and Elections” with Pete McCommons, Jason Winders, Jim Thompson. For tickets contact Martha DeHart, mrd196@gmail.com.
AthFest – June 19-22, downtown (CCDC booth Saturday, June 22, only).
State Democratic Primary – July 15 at Precinct locations. Early voting for Primary, July 7-11 at City Hall and at Board of Elections.
Runoff - August 5 at Precinct locations. Early voting for Runoff - July 28-August 1 at Board of Elections.
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CHAIR'S CORNER
By Mac Rawson
It’s an exciting time for Democrats nationally and in Georgia. This is a historical election, because the Democratic Presidential candidate will either be the first person of African-American descent or the first woman. At the state level, five Democrats are running for Senator.
In the 10th Congressional District, Bobby Saxon, a veteran of the Cold War and of Iraq and an active National Guard officer, has a realistic plan to bring conflict to an honorable end. As a successful small businessman and software consultant, he understands the challenges and opportunities of technological development and can help lead our region to fulfill the promise of technology. In addition, two promising candidates are running for State Senate Districts 46 (Sherry Jackson) and 47 (Tim Riley). Ms. Sherry L. Jackson is a respected local attorney, who will challenge Bill Cowsert. Dr. Tim Riley, who is a substance abuse counselor, is running against Ralph Hudgens. These are excellent candidates who deserve our financial and volunteer support. Please do what you can to help Bobby, Sherry and Tim.
One way each of you can help candidates is to volunteer at our new Democratic Headquarters at 220 Prince Avenue. We hope that our Democratic candidates will share the Headquarters and build a stronger presence in our community. With help from our friend, the owner Pat Tritt, the Democratic Party has a great headquarters in a highly visible location with ample space to support our candidates. Please join us and sign up to help Democratic candidates at the headquarters. ___________________________________________
Ken Dious speaking to a packed audience at the 10th Congressional District Democratic Caucus held April 19 at Clarke Central High School. Dious along with five other men and six women made their “pitches” to be chosen to be delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. Dious and Gwen O’Looney were elected as delegates for Obama, along with David Jarrett as an alternate. In a separate room, Christine Horan and Frank Williams were elected to be delegates for Clinton. In all , 322 ballots were cast by Democrats from all parts of the 10th District.
State representative Doug McKillip led off a summation of the recent legislative session at a Athens Area Democrats’ Breakfast at Trumps on May 10 with a short list of “bullet points”. He said that UGA fared well with funds provided for planning the Hargreave Special Collections Library and for getting the Navy School up and running in preparation for the partnership with MCG to train, initially, 40 medical students in Athens; a water plan was passed; a bill allowing landowners with 200 acres of timber to have their land taxed at a lower rate for conserving them; and a tax credit for renovation of historic properties. He also discussed what was not passed or what was passed but would be counter-productive. In the latter category was transportation. Because of a feud within the majority party, mass transit on a statewide basis was not dealt with. However, representatives were allowed to vote on a bill authorizing self-taxation for local road improvements, bike and walking trails, etc., within regions, that McKillip feels will do little to resolve the major problem of moving large numbers of people from north Georgia cities into and out of Atlanta.
Next up, Keith Heard said that in his many years in the House he had never seen a session like this one where “the governor throws his hands up and leaves town”.
McKillip and Heard at Athens Area Democrats’ Breakfast
Heard mainly focused on budgetary matters because he serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the Human Services Subcommittee. He explained that the legislature actually deals with two budgets each year, one for the coming year and one for the year just finishing. In the ‘08 budget, $58 million was allowed for trauma centers, an amount that is not enough to provide “level 1” care. This means that there are parts of Georgia “where you do NOT want to have an accident.” “Four hundred lives per year could be saved with adequate emergency care throughout the state.” He then described a number of items of the coming budget: Funds for a 2.5 per cent raise to state and university employees; funds to match a federal program that would provide four clinics in Clarke County; increased reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes; funds for meals-on-wheels and temporary assistance to families in need. Heard also mentioned frivolous or potentially dangerous bills that passed. Among the latter was one to allow concealed weapons in cars and restaurants, state parks, trains and work-place parking lots (HB89). Another piece of ‘landmark’ legislation he called “merlot-to-go” (HB393) that allows a bottle of wine bought at a restaurant to be recorked and carried in a car in the trunk or glove compartment. Useful nonbudgetary legislation that passed included SB430 that allows DNA evidence collected from arrestees not subsequently convicted to be shared with a national crime database and HB301 making it a felony to participate in the sport of dog fighting. In the question period, Heard explained in relation to the attempted elimination of the car tag tax, that the Republican leadership’s current philosophy is to limit local government control of tax money and also to force voters to vote on all taxes, shifting the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of elected officials.
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Five Democrats are running in the July Primary election as candidates to challenge Saxby Chambliss for his seat in the United States Senate, but as we “go to press” only three of them have made appearances to introduce themselves to Athens Democrats. One of them, Rand Knight, has been here twice – he spoke to the CCDC membership at its March meeting and appeared again with two other candidates – Dale Cardwell and Josh Lanier – at the April forum presented by the Young Democrats on the UGA campus.
Knight was born in Atlanta but hales from twelve generations of forbears in Glynn County. He was educated at the Christian School in Atlanta and Middlebury College, Vermont, and holds a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Washington. He is also a certified forester. He works from Smyrna, Georgia, as an environmental analyst in the private sector. He spent two years as a lobbyist for the National Ecological Observatory Network in the Washington, D.C. area, an experience that he says taught him how to “push the issues”. Like the other candidates, he is certain that a Democrat can take back the Senate seat in November: 52 per cent of the votes in the February 5 presidential primary were cast by Democrats, and Chambliss only won by 159,000 votes at his last election. Knight says it is time for Democrats to get behind “somebody” and that “somebody” needs to have “fire in his belly”. In the YD’s forum, it was clear that Knight’s central focus is the area of his expertise – science, technology and the environment, especially as related to energy. Other key issues tie into this – the economy, the need to rebuild infrastructure, the budget, and national security. His campaign manager is Denise Majette, and his website is knightforsenate.com.
Dale Cardwell is an investigative reporter at Channel 2 News in Atlanta. He achieved his “15 minutes of fame” by spending a week in January camped out on a 2½ -by-6 foot metal platform on a 320 foot high tower in Atlanta to publicize his frustration with media obsession with self-absorbed post-pubescent female celebrities while ignoring the people’s loss of control of their government. He said that this publicity event and the issues that he raised with it have given him name recognition throughout Georgia. Along with familirarity with him among Atlanta-area television viewers, this wide recognition makes up for millions of dollars in campaign funds that he does not yet have. His main concern is to break control of the government by special interests and to repair the taxation system (“Why should interest income be taxed at a lower rate than work?”) On health care, he draws insight through the work of his wife who is a hospice nurse. He says that we already have a universal health care system – it’s just woefully inefficient and expensive to the taxpayer. He favors shifting cost to preventive care and wellness and creating a baseline guarantee for minors. His website is dale08.com.
The word “senator” originally meant “elder,” and in the trio who spoke at YD’s forum, Josh Lanier at 56 fits this niche. He grew up in Statesboro and served in the Army in Vietnam. When he returned to the US and left the Army, he served on the staff of Senator Talmadge. He subsequently worked in and chaired numerous associations and organizations in Washington and did consultative work. He has retired to Statesboro and begun a new career as a writer. He displayed a detailed, “insider’s” view on many of the issues raised in the forum, peppered with stunning denunciations of Chambliss’s role in the senate. (Examples: Chambliss fought “tooth and nail” against a provision allowing equal time in US vs. deployment time in Iraq. Chambliss has been resistant to taxing cigarettes to support the Children’s Health Program and is himself supported by the tobacco industry.) Having fought what he called a “war against insurgents” in Vietnam, Lanier considers “Iraq the most callous diplomatic disaster in US history” and that it would be outrageous to go on covering Bush’s mistake. On energy and the environment he favors a carbon tax (“tax bad things, not good things”), and an exemption on capital gains for genuine entrepreneurs. He believes that we should adopt policies that take us beyond the Kyoto Accords. His own campaign is sometimes called an “uncampaign” because he will refuse any contribution more than $100. His website is joshlanier.com.
On most issues the three candidates were in broad agreement, and the tone of the YD’s forum was more like a symposium than a “debate”. They also shared scorn for the “no shows” and agreed that Saxby’s ultimate challenger should not “look like Saxby”. This was a criterion that all three met.
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Riley Declares for State Senator from 47th District
On the last day for qualifying, Tim Riley, a resident of University Heights in Athens and the owner of Aloha Counseling Service in Gwinnet County, entered his name to run for the Georgia State Senate, 47th District. Dr. Riley was originally from Warner-Robbins and graduated from Mercer University with an AB in Political Science. He holds a Ph.D. from Clark-Atlanta University in Counseling Psychology. In earlier years he was active in politics in the Atlanta area, having worked as an assistant commissioner for the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners where he dealt with such issues as historic preservation and problems of water runoff and erosion, greenspace provision and recycling. He feels that the most important issues today are, first and foremost, education, then trauma centers, transportation and conservation (both water issues and greenspace). In each of these areas, he says, Ralph Hudgens has let us down, either doing nothing or –worse - having made serious mistakes, as he has in allowing funding for education to decrease by $1.5 million without a fight. “If he were an employee of a company and performed so badly, he would be fired at once. That’s what the voters should do, fire him.”
When asked how he expects to win in the parts of the district outside Clarke County (e.g., Barrow, Jackson, Oglethorpe and Madison, where Hudgens prevailed in the last election), Riley said that voter registrations show that there are enough Democrats in those areas of the district to win, if they come out and vote. His contact information is, phone, 706-206-7181 and email rileyforgeorgia@charter.net.
Editor: John S. Willis
Contributors: Jenny Oliver, Mac Rawson, Karen Solheim, John Willis.
Mailing and distribution: Peggy and Bill Horton.
Clarke County Democratic Committee Officers:
Mac Rawson, Jenny Oliver, Shaye Gambrell, Mary Anne McGuire, Kay Richmond, Karen Solheim; Andrea Suarez Harlow, Charles O'Kelley.
Phone: (706) 546-7075
E-mail: contact@clarkedemocrats.com
Website: WWW.CLARKEDEMOCRATS .COM
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