Georgia Tipsheet

Dalton Mayor David Pennington’s formal announcement of a primary challenge against Governor Nathan Deal has been considered all but a formality, but the first delay in his timetable has been announced.

He originally said he’d have made a final decision by the end of this month, but an AJC report now says that he’s holding off until mid-June on deciding whether or not to mount a campaign against the incumbent governor.

The reason given was the need for more meetings across the state with potential supporters.

“We’ve had some very positive meetings across Georgia,” Pennington told the AJC.

A March speech at Poole’s BBQ in Ellijay, in which the Dalton mayor predicted that a Deal re-election would lead to a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion come 2018, was met with Deal spokesman Brian Robinson questioning whether or not Pennington could win his own Whitfield County.

-Brandon Howell

On the same day Wright McLeod took himself out of the running for a shot at taking on Rep. John Barrow, the National Republican Congressional Committee is stepping up the heat on the Blue Dog Democrat.

“Republicans are showing an early commitment to winning John Barrow’s congressional seat with the launch of a mobile billboard today against Barrow – illustrating Georgia’s continued role as a major battleground for control of the U.S. House of Representatives,” stated NRCC spox Katie Prill.

A 10:30 a.m. press conference on Greene Street in Augusta signaled the onset of the group’s latest assault, which comes in the form of a mobile billboard campaign.

“Congressman Barrow’s plan?” reads the billboard. “Put the IRS in charge of your healthcare. Fed up?”

Following the Augusta morning presser, the NRCC was out with a release heralding the campaign’s kickoff.

“It’s time that John Barrow is held accountable for his support of ObamaCare, especially now that the scandal-ridden IRS has been put in charge of enforcing the program,” stated Andrea Bozek, the group’s communications director. “In light of the IRS scandal, John Barrow owes his constituents an explanation as to why he supports having the IRS involved in our healthcare system.”

In an email to the Tipsheet, Barrow spokesman Richard Carbo responded to the campaign’s launch, which continues efforts at tying the Blue Dog to the Affordable Care Act, still unpopular in the district.

*”Despite the facts, the NRCC’s continuing their hyper-partisan attacks on Congressman Barrow, but the folks in the 12th District are aware of their motives,” read the statement. “While it might irritate these folks in Washington that Congressman Barrow rises above the petty politics, the folks in the 12th District are counting on him and trust him to do what’s right for them.  At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”

The statement from Barrow’s office further highlights a Politifact study rating claims that the Blue Dog helped support Obamacare’s implementation as “Mostly False,” as well as a letter sent from his federal office to President Obama asking for answers on the Benghazi, IRS, and DOJ scandals that have plagued the administration in recent weeks.

*Story was updated with comments from a Barrow aide.

-Brandon Howell

What’s likely to be a crowded field of Republicans jockeying to take on Rep. John Barrow in 2014 just got one smaller, with Navy veteran Wright McLeod using Facebook to take himself out of consideration.

“As much as I want to run and serve the people of the 12th Congressional district, I will not be a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2014,” a Tuesday morning Facebook post read. “My desire to be a part of a meaningful solution to our Nation’s problems, however, remains steadfast. I am not going away.”

McLeod, who finished behind Lee Anderson and Rick Allen in last year’s GOP primary fight to challenge Barrow, had been considering a second bid for the Republican-bent congressional seat. Allen is also said to be looking at another campaign for the spot.

Barrow’s decision to seek re-election over pursuit of the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Saxby Chambliss, has kept the race on the radar of national GOP groups, including the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is launching a mobile billboard campaign against the Blue Dog Democrat today. Had he chosen to seek statewide office, it’s likely the race would’ve been decided in a Republican primary, given the district’s conservative tilt.

To date, John Stone is the only announced Republican candidate. He was trounced by Barrow, to the tune of a 32-point margin, in 2008, but that district was bent more towards Democrats than the current one.

-Brandon Howell

The National Republican Senatorial Committee isn’t waiting on a formal announcement from Michelle Nunn on whether or not she will become the first announced Democrat in the race for Georgia’s open Senate seat, issuing a press release dubbing her a “liberal extremist” and calling on her to disclose unknown policy positions.

“While Sam Nunn would be considered a conservative extremist by Washington Democrats’ standards today, his daughter Michelle Nunn is to the left of Barack Obama and believes the Occupy Movement is the future of America,” NRSC press secretary Brook Hougesen said in reference to Nunn’s famous father. “Why has Nunn been silent over her stances? Because Nunn’s extreme record of praising radical liberal groups like the Occupy Movement illustrates just how dangerously out of touch she is with voters in Georgia.”

The release further cites a report claiming that key Democrats are still learning where the Points of Light CEO “stands on key issues,” and dubs her “all they have at this point” when it comes to fielding a candidate in Georgia.

Nunn herself has yet to make a formal announcement, but a weekend report from The Hill stated that she was gearing up for a summer announcement, likely to come in mid-June or early July.

-Brandon Howell

Senator Saxby Chambliss minced no words when it came to his feelings on President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism address today, which renewed his call for the closing of Guantanomo Bay in Cuba while rejecting the idea of a “global war on terror.”

“The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” said Chambliss via press release. “We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work. Yet, today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen.”

Obama’s speech “there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened,” with regards to Gitmo. He further announced the lifting of the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen while calling on Congress to act on approving a facility for detention and military trials here in the United States.

Chambliss, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wasn’t amused.

“With the recidivism rate now at 28% and the increased threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Yemen, GTMO must stay open for business,” he concluded.

-Brandon Howell

The next chairman of the Georgia Republican Party is unlikely to support the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians or likewise encourage LGBT persons to seek public office, according to a survey of the candidates by the Georgia Christian Coalition.

In a lengthy written questionnaire circulated to GOP activists ahead of the Saturday vote for state chairman, candidates BJ Van Gundy and Seth Harp said they would oppose legislation that would extend the franchise of marriage to persons of the same gender.

A third, Seth Johnson, declined to state his position on the grounds it was “secondary to the grassroots,” while the fourth, John Padgett, did not participate in the survey.

Georgia popularly adopted a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004, but voter demographics and issue sentiment have shifted in the nine years since.

A national survey by the Pew Research Center in March revealed that nearly 28 percent of voters had changed their minds on gay marriage, also finding many of those voters who came of age in the years since the referendum was greenlighted are fundamentally opposed to a ban.

According to the poll, support for the freedom to marry among Millennials, those young adults born during the years 1981 and 2000, registers at 70 percent.

Of the three men who did complete the questionnaire, all said they would not “encourage candidates who are openly GLBT to run as a Republican.” (Whereas Van Gundy and Harp provided only one-word answers to the question, Johnson qualified his negative response, saying he would “not encourage anyone to run as a Republican based on their sexual orientation, but based on their policies and platform.”)

The survey also measured the candidates’ positions on affirmative action, a recently-approved lobbyist gift cap for legislators, and taxes.

Karen Handel, the former secretary of state who later became a top executive at breast cancer nonprofit Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said she would run for Georgia’s open U.S. Senate seat.

“States, especially those with Republican governors, are doing a good job — they are balancing budgets with targeted spending cuts, creating jobs, and tackling tax reform,” she announced in a statement Friday only hours before GOP activists were set to huddle in north Georgia to elect a new state party chairman. “The biggest problems we face today are in Washington, and that’s where we so desperately need fresh thinking, bold solutions, and real leadership.”

She is the fourth Republican to launch a bid to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, joining a field uniformly populated by men.

Handel’s announced rivals are all sitting U.S. congressmen who (mostly) have deep campaign pockets, but it is a fourth, possible opponent that may pose the greatest threat with fundraising and institutional support.

Earlier this week, businessman David Purdue launched an exploratory effort to test the waters for a possible Senate bid. He is the former chairman of discount retailer Dollar General, but more importantly the cousin of ex-Gov. Sonny Perdue, for whom Handel once served as deputy chief of staff.

Well-placed Republicans say Handel, in her early examination of the contest, originally believed she could jointly lean on the political and donor networks of the former governor and Rep. Tom Price, an ally who recently forswore a campaign of his own.

But that blueprint has already begun fraying even before its ink dried: on Tuesday, the governor forcefully endorsed his kin’s as-yet-unannounced campaign, and it is said much of his own political network has followed suit. (“I believe he is exactly what our state and nation needs,” he said.)

Even without Perdue’s reinforcements, Handel allies insist she maintains an appreciable advantage over her rivals: she’s won statewide.

Her opponents, while subject to the whims of redistricting, have represented only slivers of the state, whereas Handel served statewide for three years as secretary of state.

She resigned her post in 2010 to focus exclusively on a bid for the governor’s mansion, which she narrowly lost in a primary runoff with the current occupant, Nathan Deal.

Deal, then a House lawmaker from north Georgia, was the consensus choice among the Republican establishment–the state’s entire GOP congressional delegation, save only for Price, ultimately endorsed him–but won the run-off by less than a half-percent.

In her announcement Friday, Handel said she’s prepared once more to take on the “status quo.”

“Georgians want a conservative senator with the courage to take on the status quo,” she said in a statement,” and to fight for them and our constitutional ideals, to be accountable to them — and not to Washington.”

- James Richardson

A national taxpayer watchdog has accused a local health department in Georgia of abusing federal grants to lobby for broader tobacco restrictions.

Cause of Action, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that investigates regulatory overreach, says it uncovered evidence that the Dekalb County Board of Health misappropriated funds made available through the Communities Putting Prevent to Work, a $373 million federal grant program, to underwrite overt political activities.

Grantees of the 2011 initiative, which is managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was designed as vehicle to educate the public about the dangers of obesity and tobacco, are not allowed under federal law to use the funds for lobbying activities.

But DeKalb’s public health department, along with six others across the country, violated that law when it advocated on behalf of a clean air indoor ordinance (CIAO) and a steeper excise tax on cigarettes, according to the new watchdog report.

The 19-months-long investigation revealed DeKalb officials had “partnered with the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention … to train coalition partners and finance a media campaign in support of state cigarette tax increase.”

The report also found evidence the department had conducted a focus group with local exotic dancers to determine support for an expanded indoor smoking ban.

The county’s grant proposal said it would it would use the funds to support smoke-free ordinances throughout the state.

That DeKalb’s application was approved despite federal regulations barring the use of congressionally-appropriated funds to influence government officials or the legislative process, the report said, “blatantly show systemic corruption” at the CDC.

A spokesperson for the DeKalb County Board of Health did not immediately respond to an inquiry Thursday by Tipsheet.

- James Richardson

A former adviser to Rep. Jack Kingston will pursue the Republican nomination for Georgia’s first congressional district, one of three GOP-held seats whose current representatives are campaigning for U.S. Senate.

At a waterside news conference Wednesday in Savannah, David Schwarz, a lobbyist and one-time legislative aide to Kingston, praised his former boss but said the district needed new blood.

“Jack Kingston has been a tremendous representative for our area, and I am proud to call him my friend and to have worked by his side for our community,” Schwarz said. “Now, it is time for the next generation of conservative leadership.”

Schwarz, 37, will square off in the primary with Senate Majority Deputy Whip Buddy Carter, a conservative Republican who represents a sliver of the first district in the state senate, and Darwin Carter, a ex-political appointee in the Reagan administration who ran unsuccessfully for commissioner of agriculture in 2010.

The coastal district is one of several seats being vacated this cycle by Georgia House Republicans who are vying for a promotion to the upper chamber, though it remains unclear if Kingston will play kingmaker for his old staffer.

The political costs are clear–the potential for blowback in the Senate race from a national conservative group who disagreed with the House endorsement, chief among them–but the benefits are less obvious when a primary field includes a popular state lawmaker.

A Kingston aide did not immediately respond to an inquiry by Tipsheet asking if the congressman would make known his preference in the race to replace him.

- James Richardson

Two tea party groups headquartered in Georgia say they were among those conservative lobbies whose applications for tax-exempt status were inappropriately scrutinized by the Internal Revenue Service.

A report released Tuesday by the agency’s inspector general had revealed that some conservative groups, including a number whose names included the words “patriot” or “tea party,” were singled out for invasive questions about membership and funding.

Now, officials from the Woodstock-based Tea Party Patriots, a prominent national consortium of some 3,000 local outfits, and the Marietta-based Georgia Tea Party have told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they were asked to provide information about donors and political ties.

“This is tyranny at its best,” Debbie Dooley, a Peach State conservative activist and national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said. “And groups on the left need to understand that if the IRS gets away with this, its’ a matter of time before a Republican administration comes after them.”

Dooley said the financial cost of her group’s dispute with the IRS over its petitioned designation as a tax-exempt social welfare group had cruised into 6-figure territory.

The Georgia Tea Party, meanwhile, says it felt a lesser financial squeeze but was no less burdened by the tax probe. Their application was eventually greenlighted, chairman J.D. Van Brink said, but not before they were forced to submit a lengthy questionnaire that required a “thousand printed pages” and cost $250 in postage.

“It’s corruption, is what it is,” Van Brink told the paper, “and it’s an abuse of power.”

- James Richardson

A top Georgia Republican Party official has proposed abandoning primaries in favor of a caucus system in which federal, state and local GOP candidates would be nominated at party conclaves before competing in a general election.

Dale Jackson, who was elected last month as third district chairman of the Ga. GOP under a platform of reorganizing the primary system, says the current primary regime is easily influenced by outside money and will move to reform the process at the upcoming state convention.

“As I traveled the 3rd district, campaigning for district chair, everyone wanted to know what I would do to grow the party and involve the grassroots in that process,” Jackson wrote an in opinion editorial Wednesday at a conservative blog. “The answer … a nominating convention!”

Jackson said the “only negative” of his proposal, which would radically upend the state’s tradition of primary elections, is a “simple” perception problem: disenfranchisement.

“This will appear to the average voter as exclusive, rather than inclusive,” he wrote. “yes, that is a fair assessment, but that is simple PR, and if we can’t overcome that, then the leadership of the Republican Party needs to just pack it up and go home for good.”

Today, only ten states rely solely on a caucus system, according to the Federal Election Commission, though at least a pair of states have begun considering primary initiatives amid diminished participation and reporting headaches.

Republican activists will converge this weekend in Athens to elect a new state chairman. GAPundit, the site at which Jackson’s editorial was published, reported Jackson and his allies were preparing a caucus resolution for consideration at the same meeting.

- James Richardson

Democrat Michelle Nunn would make the general election contest to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss a highly competitive one, registering in contention with four possible Republican rivals in a new survey released Monday by a local progressive advocacy group.

Better Georgia, the upstart activist organization that has busied itself with foiling Gov. Nathan Deal’s legislative agenda but shown new interest in the Senate race with the possibly that the progressive-favored Nunn would run, says the results of a recently-fielded robopoll places the Democrat neck-and-neck with the full slate of possible GOP contenders.

Nunn, the poll finds, would lead Karen Handel, the former secretary of state who is openly considering a bid, by 8 points in a hypothetical match-up and would tie with Rep. Phil Gingrey.

She fared slightly worse against Reps. Paul Broun and Jack Kingston, trailing the former by 3 points, slightly outside the 2.4 percent margin of error, and the latter by 6.

Another Democratic poll–Better Georgia bills itself as nonpartisan, though the group’s partisan leanings are no secret–released last week by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed Nunn trailing Kingston by a slim one-point margin. (Republicans criticized the timing of the survey’s release, which came amid Democratic concerns the party had squandered a rare southern pickup opportunity by failing to coalesce behind blue dog Rep. John Barrow, and for not disclosing Nunn’s numbers relative to the other possible GOP nominees.)

- James Richardson

Former Dollar General CEO David Perdue formally launched an exploratory effort aimed at testing the waters on a run for the retiring Saxby Chambliss’s Senate seat.

Perdue, who is also the cousin of former Governor Sonny Perdue, has been speculated upon as a likely candidate for over a month now, with onlookers calling his entry likely after he resigned his position on the Georgia Port Authority early last month. The announcement came via the launch of both a Twitter account and website. The announcement tweet can be viewed below:

Excited to announce the official launch of my US Senate exploratory committee. RT & stay tuned for updates! #gagop twitter.com/Perduesenate/s…

— David Perdue (@Perduesenate) May 14, 2013

-Brandon Howell

Trice Pridemore, who served until recently as a top economic development aide to Gov. Nathan Deal, will announce next week a bid for Georgia’s eleventh congressional district, the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey as he pursues a promotion to the Senate.

A well-regarded conservative activist who ran unsuccessfully for the state GOP chairmanship in 2011, Pridemore will launch her campaign Monday evening at a popular Marietta BBQ restaurant, according to an operative with knowledge of her plans. (Details of her announcement are available here.)

She will join an already crowded field featuring two prominent state lawmakers, House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey and state Sen. Barry Loudermilk, and Bob Barr, the on-again-off-again Republican who once represented a nearby-district a decade earlier.

CQ-Roll Call rated the suburban Atlanta district, which Gingrey has represented since 2003, as “safe Republican” in the last election.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

House Republicans wasted no time in reassuring Georgia Rep. John Barrow that he remains a top-ten turnover target, warning the conservative Democrat Thursday that his decision not to run for Senate means they will devote considerable party resources to finally bouncing him from office.

Until Tuesday, when Barrow made the surprise announcement he would seek reelection to the House, it appeared increasingly likely the blue dog would finally do for Republicans what they’ve proven unable despite millions in outside spending and successive redistricting efforts: eliminate the lone white House Democrat from the Deep South.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House GOPers, showed new resolve in its efforts to defeat Barrow on Thursday with the launch of its Red Zone program.

The new initiative will focus exclusively on defeating 7 vulnerable Democrats, Barrow included, in the coming election.

“It’s not a secret that we’ve gone after these guys, and they keep finding ways to elude us even if they’re in conservative districts,” Annie Kelly, a top shelf GOP operative steering the program, told Politico. “We’re starting early and putting these guys on notice that just because they’ve gotten away doesn’t mean we’re giving up.”

In a statement, a NRCC spokeswoman said Kelly will “have a dedicated staff” whose sole focus will be forcing a turnover in Georgia’s twelfth congressional district.

Other Red Zone targets include: Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber of Arizona, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.

- James Richardson