Over Coffee

June 9, 2006

   I went to the poorly attended Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce political forum on June 7, 2006, specifically to hear the candidates for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. There are a flock of them, too, but not all of them showed up. State Senator Casey Cagle spoke first and used his allotted ten minutes to present his impressive credentials and vision for our great state. You will know from past columns of mine that Casey Cagle has been my choice in this race for a very long time for several reasons. In his closing remarks, Cagle said, “Life is not about self. Life is about service to others.” That, my friends, is a big reason why I like this man. He has ethics.

   Lobbyist-for-hire Ralph Reed certainly does have an impressive number of young campaign functionaries and lackeys working for him and he brought a lot of them to this forum. I suppose he’ll have to find state jobs for them all if he should happen to be so extraordinarily lucky as to win this state job of Lt. Governor for himself. Reed is a very smooth talker and is adept at outlining pie in the sky for us, which, I guess, keeps our eyes away from what he’s putting into his own pockets. He must have been sweating bullets over whether or not somebody in the audience might mention his longtime association with convicted buddy Jack Abramoff . Nobody did.

   The only Democratic candidate who showed up was Rufus Terrill , who is so conservative he sounds like a Republican at times. This is his first run for public office and his public speaking needs a little fine-tuning, but I must tell you, my friends, the man has impressive ideas. Check him out at www.rufusterrill.com . 

   If conventional wisdom is true that says only 25 of the 159 counties in Georgia will return around 90 percent of the whole statewide vote, then Casey Cagle ought to be in a very good position to win the Republican Primary on July 18, 2006. Presumably, those important 25 counties must be located mostly in the Metro Atlanta “ring.” There must be a few other strong pockets of voters elsewhere in the state. This Metro Atlanta area is the area where Cagle has collected a great deal of support, support which is growing stronger every day.

   The Cagle campaign has thus far stayed on the high road and merits my respect for doing so when Ralph Reed has been such an easy target, what with all his troubles with dirty friends. Watch what the Reed campaign does in the coming weeks counting down to the Primary. Let’s see if those Reed folks stay on the high road or not.

   The thing that has been so puzzling for me is that I have not yet read nor heard Ralph speak candidly about his association with Jack Abramoff. It would seem to me that if Ralph had indeed been snookered by a man he thought was a friend, he would be glad of all opportunities to explain the disconnect. Instead, all the public has really been offered are short canned statements by campaign spokespeople. When you expect an explanation and there just isn’t one forthcoming, you tend to draw conclusions of your own that may or may not be correct. If Ralph Reed is such a brilliant strategist, why did he miss this?

   You know, folks, I think this particular election is all about trust. Trust, pure and simple. Which of these men do you trust? Ask yourself that question. That’s how I’m looking at things.

***

   Father’s Day is coming up very soon. If your Dad is a history buff, I cannot recommend a better book than Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Mayflower.” The award-winning author, who lives on Nantucket Island, packed the Carter Center on June 6, 2006 for a presentation of his new book. It was fabulous to see that many people turned out for a book instead of a movie, and for an inscription by the author! My husband raved about this book; it is something different than what you probably learned in the third grade! I’ve read the author’s “In the Heart of the Sea,” a book about the Whaleship Essex that was a real page-turner and kept me up quite late reading steadily. Philbrick has done the same thing with “Mayflower.” 

***

   Well, poor District 4 Commissioner Kevin Kenerly is back in the AJC again this morning in an article about a gambling trip to Las Vegas. Kenerly is up for re-election this year and somebody evidently set him up by secretly publicizing this jaunt he took with developers. According to the newspaper report, it sounds like Kenerly personally paid for everything one would expect him to pay for. The damage then is in the story itself, the revelation of the gambling trip itself…hardly a respectful activity of an elected official even though everything may have been on the up and up. Kenerly just hasn’t got the best of sense.

   We heard about another gambling trip that Chairman Charles Bannister took a couple of years ago, but that was country-come-to-town and people really just shook their heads over it. I don’t believe Bannister will do anything like that again as the public relations fallout was pretty bad. Bannister was up-front about everything that time and said that he thought it would help him get to know these developers better. He also paid for his share of the expenses. I guess Kevin Kenerly evidently didn’t learn anything from that episode which occurred shortly after Banister got elected.

   We don’t hear stuff like this about our other commissioners. I’m so sorry that candidates for office think they have to consult the dark influence of Bill McKinney . That fact alone makes me want to steer clear of them. Politics need not be a nasty business, my friends. Candidates need to surround themselves with people who will stay on the high road and see great benefit from doing that. I feel sorry for the voters of District 4 in this election. There doesn’t seem to be any good choice for them now, does there? I know I am a voice in the wilderness on this subject of ethical behavior and political mudslinging. My rules of engagement have high standards.

***

   We have had four straight nights of visits from our deer friends. The hosta looks like sticks, all leaves and stalk buds are gone from most of them. The deer got the daylilies and quite a bit of the red bee balm. It’s a good thing that this particular bunch of deer do not favor ruby begonias, Stokes’ asters, or purple penstemmon, at least not at the moment. That’s about the only colorful plants left in the garden. The roses are taking a rest; they prefer cooler weather. The stargazer lilies are in bud now and I’m hoping the deer repellent will save them. The phlox are up, but not yet in bud so I’ve sprayed them as well. Deer dearly love phlox and stargazers! 

  I had a geranium in a cement pot that wintered in a fairly protected location. Most of the geranium died with the cold temperatures, but one little green shoot weathered through the winter. I pampered it come Springtime and it grew. Now it is the most gorgeous peach-colored geranium I’ve ever had! It is robust and so big that I’ve had to prop it up with bamboo sticks. My father could winter geraniums, but I’ve never had any luck doing that until now. 

   Hope all is well. Thanks for reading.

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