Georgia Tipsheet

The president of Morehouse College has strongly denied allegations that the controversial change in the school’s graduation ceremonies that culminated in a prominent alumnus no longer participating was an effort to stifle political debate.

Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. wrote in an open letter Tuesday that the Rev. Kevin Johnson, a prominent Philadelphia pastor who was named baccalaureate speaker but allegedly found himself on the outs with top school administrators after criticizing President Barack Obama, was “not disinvited.”

Instead, Wilson said, the original speaker elected not to participate in a modified format that school administrators believed was “more creative.”

“I … made a decision to adjust the format of the Baccalaureate program and opted for a more creative, multi-speaker approach that is used by many leading institutions …” Wilson wrote. “In this instance, I decided to ask [Johnson] to share the Baccalaureate stage with two other speakers so as to reflect a broader and more inclusive range of viewpoints. To my chagrin, my decision has been wrongly construed by some as an effort to ‘disinvite’ this individual.”

Johnson, who wrote a column in a Philadelphia newspaper earlier this month in which he criticized the president’s majority-white cabinet picks, said Wilson had expressed reservations about his comments and suggested he resign his role in the graduation ceremonies.

When Johson rebuffed administrators, Wilson moved to expand the baccalaureate program from one to three speakers, a break from tradition.

The reverend refused that offer as well, according to East Atlanta Patch, and asked by letter that Morehouse honor its original invitation that he deliver the sole baccalaureate address. Instead, the article said, Johnson soon learned he had been replaced altogether by a trio of new speakers.

But Wilson vigorously denied the implication Tuesday that his decision to alter the format of the baccalaureate service was motivated by Johnson’s criticism of President Obama, who will deliver the school’s commencement speech.

“He was not disinvited, but rather declined to participate in the format,” he said. “Worse yet, this decision has led to allegations of censorship … These allegations are fundamentally deleterious and are undeserved.”

The college’s response came as two dozen prominent alumni publicly urged Wilson to reappoint Johnson as the sole baccalaureate speaker.

- James Richardson

A prominent pastor was allegedly disinvited from speaking at Morehouse College’s baccalaureate service this week after he criticized President Barack Obama, who will deliver the school’s commencement address.

The Rev. Kevin Johnson, a Morehouse alumnus and the senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Pa., wrote an opinion column earlier this month in the Philadelphia Tribune accusing Obama of neglecting the black community in his cabinet picks–they’re overwhelmingly white–and broader political agenda.

The day after the article ran, Johnson said, Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. phoned to express reservations about his “untimely” comments regarding President Obama. Johnson asked administrators to honor their invitation, but learned days later he had been replaced by three alternate speakers.

Now, a group of two dozen pastors who lead churches across the country are demanding Morehouse re-invite Johnson.

“If President Wilson turns his back on one of our most distinguished alums because of an exercise of free speech and political commentary, he will have set Morehouse on a dangerous course and departed from the great tradition bequeathed to us,” Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, Ca. told East Atlanta Patch, which aggregated the comments of other outraged alums.

UPDATE: In open letter to faculty, students and alumni, Morehouse’s top administrator vigorously denied allegations the school disinvited Johnson because he criticized the president.

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama and Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet will travel to Georgia in mid May for a high dollar fundraiser as the guest of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, according to a Democratic party official with knowledge of the event.

The May 19 brunch, to be held at the Atlanta headquarters of the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, will benefit the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has expressed tempered interest in Georgia’s 2014 U.S. Senate contest.

A Democratic official confirmed the event in an email to Tipsheet, but could not provide details on the cost of entry. Inquiries to Blank aides and other event organizers were not immediately returned.

Along with Blank, whose nonprofit has primarily contributed to Democratic candidates and causes since 2004, the president will be welcomed to Georgia by two of the state’s most prominent Democrats, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and former Gov. Roy Barnes.

Obama last visited Georgia in February as part of a two-state southern swing to drive support for the legislative agenda he unveiled at the State of the Union address earlier this year.

The May fundraiser was first reported by Creative Loafing.

UPDATE: Mayor Reed reacted strongly Wednesday to Creative Loafing’s report, accusing the altweekly of taking a “cheapshot” at the president’s expense by not mentioning the “purpose” of the southern jaunt.

@thomaswheatley what a cheapshot.You forgot to mention the purpose of the President’s visit is to give the commencement speach @ Morehouse.

— Kasim Reed (@KasimReed) April 24, 2013

The article’s author, CL news editor Thomas Wheatley, said the event’s invitation made no mention of the Morehouse commencement address, but amended his story at the mayor’s behest.

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Atlanta on Thursday, his first visit to Georgia in nine months, the White House said Saturday.

On Tuesday, Obama will deliver his State of the Union address, in which he will map the complicated political contours of a second term, and will leave Washington the following morning for a two-state southern swing that begins in North Carolina.

The White House did not release additional details on the trip, a bipartisan post-State of the Union tradition in which presidents and senior members of their administrations press the flesh to build public support for legislative pushes, though Obama is expected to address early-education funding.

The president twice visited Georgia last year, both times for fundraisers with wealthy African Americans in Atlanta, but lost the state by eight points in November after his campaign abandoned the prospect of an aggressive Peach State operation. (North Carolina was also won by Republican Mitt Romney.)

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama began the day on which he publicly assumed the oath of office for the second time with a special sermon from a prominent Georgian evangelical.

From the pulpit of St. John’s Episcopal Church, the 1816-built yellow church adjacent to the White House, the Rev. Andy Stanley charged President Obama to “leverage” his identity as the most powerful person in the room for the benefit of others.

Stanley, whose collection of metro Atlanta churches number a congregation of 33,000, recalled the life of Jesus and said it was the president’s responsibility to act in the same tradition.

“What do you do when it dawns on you that you’re the most powerful person in the room? You leverage that power for the benefit of other people in the room,” Stanley said. “Mr. President, you have an awfully big room.”

The call to serve others has become a common refrain in his own church, where members raised $1.5 million for 24 charities in a single day last year, but the trappings of Stanley’s Inauguration Day sermon effected an altogether unusual scene for a pastor whose Sunday best regularly includes blue jeans.

Stanley was included in President Obama’s first inaugural festivities, though in a lesser capacity at an interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral.

White House aides had originally intended the inaugural ceremonies to include another Georgian, Louie Giglio, who had been tapped to deliver the benediction at the president’s public swearing-in ceremony.

But Giglio withdrew within a day amid questions from gay rights groups over a years-old sermon in which he promoted controversial “ex-gay” conversion therapy.

- James Richardson

The prominent Georgia evangelical who was scheduled to deliver the benediction at President Barack Obama’s inauguration later this month has withdrawn from the ceremony after it was revealed this week the pastor had once promoted controversial “ex-gay” therapy.

The White House announced on Tuesday it had selected Rev. Louie Giglio, of the Atlanta mega church and annual youth conference Passion, to deliver the benediction at the president’s public wearing-in ceremony on Jan. 21.

But a decades-old sermon on the subject of sexuality and sin soon surfaced, showing Giglio advocating for conversion therapy–a process by which LGBT persons are to shed their same-sex attraction through faith–lest their “lifestyle” doom them to hell.

The White House has remained mum on the controversy in the days since the announcement, but ABC News reported that Giglio had “pulled himself out of the ceremony” amid the criticism from gay rights groups.

Giglio’s replacement has not yet been named.

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama has selected a conservative evangelical from Georgia to deliver the benediction at his inauguration later this month.

Pastor Louie Giglio, of the Atlanta mega church Passion City and annual youth conference that wrapped last week after raising some $3 million for non-profits working in the sex trade, will deliver the closing prayer at Obama’s public swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 21 in Washington, DC.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was chosen to deliver the invocation.

Those with knowledge of the vetting process said Giglio was chosen in part because he has become a “powerful voice for ending human trafficking and global sex slavery.”

In an official statement released Tuesday by the inaugural committee, the president said the pair’s contrasting profiles “reflect the ideals that the vice president and I continue to pursue for all Americans – justice, equality and opportunity.”

Giglio isn’t the first Peach State clergyman on whom the president has called to deliver the closing prayer at his inaugural ceremonies.

In 2009, Obama tapped Georgian Rev. Joseph Lowery for the benediction. And Andy Stanley, another prominent Atlanta evangelical, was among those included at an interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral.

- James Richardson

Despite the controversy stirred last week by Rev. Joseph Lowery, the civil rights icon will reportedly be at the side of the president and first lady as election returns trickle in Tuesday night.

Lowery drew international headlines last week for comments he made at a middle Georgia rally in which he said “all white folks were going to hell.” The reaction was so furious that most observers outside the civil rights community believed the episode had rendered him persona non grata.

But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday morning that Lowery, who was among the president’s earliest supporters in the state and delivered the benediction at his 2009 inauguration, would be at the Obama campaign’s election night party in Chicago. A campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for confirmation by Tipsheet, however.

Lowery has since clarified that his remarks were intended as a joke–one, he said, he’s told a “million” times previously–even as the small-town journalist who first reported them denies that characterization.

Conservatives were outraged, some prominent Republican campaigners even saying they would not consider Lowery an unacceptable choice to deliver the benediction should the president win a second term.

But the president, or those regulating who enters his orbit, was apparently unmoved.

- James Richardson

The man who delivered the benediction at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration said that he believes, as he once did in his “militant” youth, that all whites are hell-bound.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a patriarch of the civil rights movement and close ally of the president, said at a weekend rally in central Georgia that the “level and hatred and bitterness” borne of this election had made him a believer that whites were going to hell.

Lowery said, according to the Monroe County Reporter, it was the same belief he held at the height of the civil rights movement. Eventually he mellowed, believing that not all whites, rather only “most,” would get their brimstone comeuppance.

“Now,” the local newsweekly reported, “he is back to where he was.”

He also said he could not imagine any African American not voting for the president’s reelection.

“I don’t know what kind of ni**er wouldn’t vote with a black man running,” the frail 91-year-old said, according to the paper. “Nobody intelligent would risk this country with Romney.”

Lowery was one of Obama’s earliest supporters in Georgia in 2008 and has remained comfortably in the president’s orbit since his ascension to the White House four years ago.

He was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2009 by Obama and was elected earlier this year to lead the state’s delegation to the Democratic national convention.

Still, he’s managed to cause an outsized degree of heartburn locally. Just last week Lowery said at a Democratic rally that President Obama would necessarily win reelection if he “was white.”

UPDATE: Lowery says his comments were a joke, misconstrued by an overly-ambitious reporter.

- James Richardson

Republican Mitt Romney holds an 8-point lead over President Barack Obama in Georgia as the contest enters its final week, according to new numbers by SurveyUSA.

A new SurveyUSA-WXIA survey of 674 likey voters shows Romney maintaining a comfortable lead over the president, 52 to 44 percent. The poll, fielded last Sunday to Wednesday of this week, found only 4 percent of voters were undecided or supporting other candidates. (Digest the poll’s crosstabs here.)

Earlier numbers by the same outfit found an equal measure between the two men, though both increased their share of support by two points apiece.

Top line points:

• There is no GOP gender gap in Georgia. Romney is above the fifty-percent watermark with women, though men are four points more likely to cast their ballot for the Republican.
• Obama remains popular among young voters. He leads his challenger by 5 points among voters aged 18 to 34, but trails in every other age bloc.
• Nearly nine in ten African Americans are supporting the president’s reelection bid. Nine percent expressed support for Romney and another three percent were either undecided or supporting other candidates.
• Romney has built a huge advantage among self-described independent voters. A full 52 percent told pollsters they had or would vote for the GOP hopeful, while only 36 said the same of Obama.

- James Richardson

The Democratic quadrennial nominating convention last month seemed as much a fete for the party’s mayoral comers as it was an event to launch the reelection effort of the incumbent president, but Atlanta’s influential mayor was notably excluded from the dais.

Five mayors spoke on the opening night of Democratic confab and three more the following night. They hailed from Boston, Los Angeles, Newark, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Chicago but not Atlanta.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed had to settle instead for a spot on a tedious party rules committee, far from the action and cameras, a limelight omission many deemed a snub to the rising star.

But Reed, always the dutiful party surrogate on the Sunday news circuit, has apparently earned a belated concession from the Democratic high command.

President Barack Obama’s campaign has deployed 22 high-profile surrogates, including the young Atlantan, to Hempstead, New York, the site of the second presidential debate, to the spin room. (The GOP spin contingent is nearly twice that number, at 37.)

The first debate, in which Obama was outstripped by Mitt Romney, triggered a nationwide poll bump for the Republican hopeful. This debate–and Reed’s sharp-toothed crew of talkers–is designed to stop the blood letting among independents.

Reed may have missed his shot with the political press corp in Charlotte, but expect him to make up that deficit tonight with especially rough barbs for Romney.

- James Richardson

Political scientists insisted that Mitt Romney’s routing of Barack Obama in last week’s debate would have no impact, even ephemeral, on the state of the presidential contest.

They made the prediction as though all were in the race were equal with cycles past. But they ignored a hyperactive media that has conditioned ordinary voters to ignore the daily grind of the horserace and instead focus only on the big moments.

Tipsheet editor James Richardson explores that dynamic in an oped Wednesday for the UK’s Guardian newspaper:

Gallup found 72% of debate watchers thought Romney won, a full 52-point spread between the challenger and incumbent. That’s the single largest debate deficit ever recorded by the polling firm, the previously largest margin won by Bill Clinton in George HW Bush’s infamous “wristwatch-checking” performance.

Pew likewise tracked a draw among registered voters, though Romney had managed to build a 4-point lead over Obama when the sample was limited only to those respondents likely to vote in the November contest. Rasmussen’s latest daily tracking also measured support evenly split between the two men, at 48%, down from a modest upswing for the president.

…

The salience of contemporary presidential debates is largely a function of a hyperactive media environment that elevates to parallel significance a fumbled joke with a fumbled economy or a declaration of war. The daily grind – the painful minutiae of a horse race in which reporters and aides obsess over minor stump missteps – don’t drive the sentiment of ordinary voters. Stumbles of the pedestrian variety, like Romney’s recent birth certificate jest or Joe Biden’s largely forgotten invitation to a wheel chair-bound man to stand, don’t inform voter views.

Instead, it’s the big moments: the historic wins and losses, the inability of an incumbent president to make a serious case for re-election. For Romney, who has been trailing the president in polling for much of the race, the implication of a debate-wrought surge cannot be overstated.

…

For this operative, who labored for much of the last 18 months to ensure Romney never clinched the nomination, it was a bitter-sweet moment to watch as the Bay Stater lanced the president. I spent many a primary debate night working into the early morning hours, shuffling embarrassing Romney exchanges and news clips to anyone willing to hear the spin.

It was of no consequence that my candidate, Jon Huntsman, didn’t win, ever. What did matter was that Romney didn’t. But last week was different. It was historic, and the polls overwhelmingly reflect it.

Read the article in full at The Guardian.

Mitt Romney has widened his lead over Barack Obama to 21 percentage points in Georgia in a new Insider Advantage survey of likely voters.

They survey of some 500 registered likely voters asked which candidate respondents would support if the election were held today, with 56 percent choosing Romney and just 35 percent picking Obama.

The poll also found Georgians overwhelmingly trust Romney over the president to better handle the economy and national security. Obama was clocked at single digits in both measures.

Apart from the trust test, the survey also probed the brew factor — with slight tweaking. (Romney, like the only Georgian ever elected president, is an avowed teetotaler.)

In lieu of asking which candidate respondents would rather have a beer with, a generic measure of the everyman likability, the survey asked which of the two with whom respondents would prefer to dine.

Given the choice between the two dinner guests, 41 percent said Romney while only 5 percent chose Obama.

- James Richardson