Randy's Views

Once while on a trip, the pilot came on the intercom to explain why, yet again, the flight would be delayed. He explained that safety was the airline’s principal concern. Of course, the clear suggestion of the message was that safety and timeliness were the only two choices, and safety won. When given that choice, no one disagreed. The problem was, of course, there was a third option - get there safely AND on time.

Listening to the current debate about energy triggers the same thought.

Somewhere along the Al Gore path to a cooler planet, there developed the ideas that “environmentally safe” and “increased domestic production” were mutually exclusive options. The green revolution hit, and everyone started doing their part to help save the planet. This is a good thing - like a plane reaching its destination safely.

Unfortunately, sometimes good goals can get used to cloak some really bad policies. For example, if a flight is only half full, an airline might decide that it would be “safer” to combine it with another half full flight to create a full flight. Or, if the flight crew is running late, an airline might decide it would be “safer” to hold the plane until the late crew arrives rather than bringing in a new flight crew. For expense focused airlines, the answer is always “safety” although it might just be expense. Who can argue? After all, no one can seriously question a safety issue, even when it makes no sense.

So along comes the green revolution, and no one could argue with saving the planet. As part of that green revolution, the decision is made to effectively stop finding new fuel supplies here in the United States - no more drilling; no more new nuclear plants; no more expanded coal production. If it involves fossil fuels, the answer is always no.

The green movement presupposed that America should never accept the environmental risks that its energy demands would require of other oil producing regions around the world. At the same time, the green movement chanted the “one world” mantra. Is it not at least slightly arrogant to think that a jaguar exposed to an oil spill in Venezuela is of lesser concern than a caribou in Alaska? More significantly, who can best address those concerns - America or a lesser developed country less focused on protecting the planet with fewer resources to do so?

The options that the unchecked green movement has left are limited: (a) rely on more foreign fuel supplies from increasingly unstable sources; (b) do without; (c) use food to make energy; or, (d) drive a wind-driven car.

Option (a) has not worked out so well. Having effectively shut down increased domestic production, the United States has become increasingly dependent on foreign fuel supplies. Prices have skyrocketed. Gas prices have soared past three dollars per gallon toward four dollars per gallon and the “rely on others” option has failed.

Option (b) became reality. Now, folks are forced to do without - not because gas is no longer available, but instead because they can not afford to buy it.

As options (a) and (b) failed, many politicians then jumped to their political comfort zone - more taxes (like a windfall profits tax). But, not even the bureaucrats could figure how raising taxes would lower the price of gas at the pump.

Then, came option (c), the really bright idea of using food (corn) to make fuel. The unintended consequence has been that, in addition to paying higher gas prices, the average American must now pay higher food prices as well.

While Washington D.C. insiders get driven around by full time staffers, average Americans now face unbearably high gas prices with the prospect of higher and higher food prices on the way.

But what choice is there - everyone agrees that saving the environment is a high priority. There is another possibility - protect the environment AND develop new sources of energy including available domestic resources.

Newt Gingrich summed it up well with his slogan – “DRILL HERE. DRILL NOW. PAY LESS” at www.americansolutions.com. As he points out, three out of four Americans agree that with appropriate safeguards to protect the environment, the United States should permit drilling for oil off America’s coasts to reduce dependence on foreign oil. It is an option that no one wants to talk about unless they too have to face the gas pump personally and buy their own groceries.

Or, there is always option (d) - the wind driven car. With all the hot air blown on this issue in Washington, D.C., it might just work - there. Back here in Georgia, it might have to be Fred Flintstone’s car. Ouch!

Georgia’s role in the 2008 Presidential Election could be interesting. Georgia’s fifteen (15) electoral votes have long been assumed as safe for Republican Presidential presumptive nominee Senator John McCain. After all, Georgia has cast its Electoral votes for the Republican nominee in the last three consecutive Presidential elections and in five of the last seven Presidential elections (i.e., since President Jimmy Carter).

Yet, the only thing that has been predictable about this year’s Presidential election has been that it has been unpredictable. The Democratic Presidential presumptive nominee, Senator Barack Obama, easily won the Georgia Democratic Presidential Preference Primary with over sixty-six percent (66%) of the vote amounting to over seven hundred thousand (700,000) votes. In contrast, Senator McCain was not even Georgia Republicans’ first choice. Governor Mike Huckabee carried Georgia with just over one-third of the Republican Presidential Preference Primary vote. To give some context, Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain - combined - received seven hundred and thirty-thousand (730,000) votes.

Even in failure, Georgia Democrats may have some reason to hope. After all, the failure of the Democratic Party of Georgia to recruit candidates down the ballot may actually work to its advantage in the Presidential race. While Obama supporters will have every reason to vote for a historical candidate, rank and file Republicans will not have to show up to protect their local state representative or county commissioner. Indeed, Senator McCain will have to make the case to win as opposed to relying on local party affiliations to carry the day.

Make no mistake, however, it does help Senator McCain’s cause that popular Republican Governor Sonny Perdue, Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, and a powerful army of largely unopposed State Senators and State Representatives have lined up in lock step to support the Republican nominee. In addition, Senator Chambliss’ contested United States Senate race could be the race that entices Republican voters to the polls in November. Yet, nothing is automatic in this political environment.

Oddly, it could be the third-party candidacies that turn the outcome of the President election in Georgia upside down. Already, the Libertarian Party has nominated one well known Georgian as its nominee for President of the United States. On May 26, 2008, the Libertarians met in Denver, Colorado (the same city where Democrats will meet to officially select their nominee in August), and nominated former Seventh District Congressman Bob Bar. It took six ballots for the Libertarians to select Robert Laurence “Bob” Barr as their nominee. But Bob Barr was their selection and he is no stranger to the national political scene. He polls around seven percent (7%) nationally.

Meanwhile, on July 10-13, 2008, the Green Party will meet in Chicago, Illinois to select their Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees. The current delegate leader (by a wide margin) for the Green Party nomination is none other than former Fourth District Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. From 1993 to 2003, and from 2005 until to 2007, the notable and quotable Congresswoman represented, among other areas, DeKalb County.

It would be an understatement to say that former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and former Congressman Bob Barr represented different ends of the political spectrum. Ms. McKinney made her name speaking for the far left from a predominantly black and urban Congressional district. Mr. Barr made his name speaking for the far right from a predominantly white and rural Congressional district.

(Interestingly, as diverse as their opinions, former Congressman Barr and former Congresswoman McKinney do not disagree on everything. Both agree that current Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be replaced - just for dramatically different reasons.)

So, what could their impact be on the potentially close Presidential election in Georgia? Unclear.

Certainly, Senator McCain’s campaign team has to be concerned about the possibility that Congressman Barr could become an easy ‘objection vote’ for conservatives who are unhappy with the McCain nomination.

And, Senator Obama’s campaign team has to wonder if Congresswoman McKinney’s core constituency might remain blindly loyal to her notwithstanding the fact that most of Congresswoman McKinney’s ardent followers support Senator Obama.

If the election is close, it would not take much to swing the election either way.

And, another question: how will the Presidential debates work? Just imagine the fun if former Congressman Barr and former Congresswoman McKinney join Senator Obama and Senator McCain on the stage. Now that would be entertaining.

CNN accurately reported the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush on June 12, 2008 when it said: “The decision marks another legal blow to the Bush administration's war on terrorism policies.” It is a blow to the war on terror.
The Boumediene decision involved whether terrorist aliens held at Guantanamo who have been designated as enemy combatants after being captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere abroad by the United States have the same Constitutional rights to habeas corpus protection as United States citizens. Seemingly oblivious to the implications, the Supreme Court held in a five to four decision that alien enemy combatants do have the same constitutional privileges of habeas corpus as American citizens. (Habeas corpus petitions are the procedure used to challenge criminal detentions in the United States.)

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for five members of the Supreme Court left no doubt when he wrote: “We hold that Article I, Section 9, clause. 2, of the Constitution has full effect at Guantanamo Bay.”

The historical importance of this decision cannot be exaggerated. Justice Kennedy conceded as much when he stated: “It is true that before today the Court has never held that noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution.” Justice Scalia noted the history when he stated: “Today, for the first time in our Nation's history, the Court confers a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war.”

How important is this unprecedented action in our nation’s history? Justice Scalia noted that the “nation will live to regret what the court has done today” on June 12, 2008.
Justice Antonin Scalia described the context for the Court’s opinion best when he said:

“America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60-61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.”

The impact of the decision is real: Justice Scalia noted that “The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the Nation's Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us.”

Consider that - the Court has made the war harder on us. What will this mean? Justice Scalia put the costs in real terms when he said that the Court’s decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

But why? Why would the Supreme Court grant such extraordinary relief to enemy combatants? Was there no option or other protection for these detainees?

Chief Justice John Roberts answered that question easily enough with the following conclusion: “Today the Court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The Court rejects them today out of hand, without bothering to say what due process rights the detainees possess, without explaining how the statute fails to vindicate those rights, and before a single petitioner has even attempted to avail himself of the law's operation. And to what effect? The majority merely replaces a review system designed by the people's representatives with a set of shapeless procedures to be defined by federal courts at some future date. One cannot help but think, after surveying the modest practical results of the majority's ambitious opinion, that this decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants.”

As a result of the Court’s opinion, it is a decidedly better day for detained enemy combatants accused of presenting an imminent threat to the people of the United States. For U. S. citizens, it is not so good; no, not so good at all.

All indications are the Lieutenant Governor, Casey Cagle, will be a candidate for Governor of Georgia in 2010. Governor Sonny Perdue is term limited, opening the door for Lieutenant Governor Cagle, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, and others to seek Georgia’s highest office. With the rumors persisting that former Governor Roy Barnes is interested in getting his old job back, it could actually be a competitive race. If former Secretary of State Cathy Cox jumps in, it could be downright interesting in both primaries and the General Election. Yet, it could be the open Lieutenant Governor race that offers the most intrigue.

Unlike the President and Vice President, the Lieutenant Governor in Georgia runs on a separate ticket than the Governor. As a result, it is possible to have a Republican Governor (like Sonny Perdue) with a Democratic Lieutenant Governor (like Mark Taylor). If that was not odd enough, the Lieutenant Governor’s job (other than succeeding the Governor in the event of the Governor’s death) is to preside over the Georgia Senate. Yet, the Georgia Senate can be controlled by one party while the Lieutenant Governor is from a different party. Since the Georgia Senate can actually sets its own rules and picks its own committees (when it wants to), the Office of Lieutenant Governor has little meaning other than what the Governor and the Senate want to give it.

Interestingly, for an office with so little real power, there are a lot of folks who want to become the next Lieutenant Governor. Most of them come from the Georgia Senate and want to move up to presiding officer. Others see the office as the inevitable stepping stone to the Office of Governor. For Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, twenty five years as Lieutenant Governor translated into a Democratic Primary win and a General Election win. For Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor, it did not work out as well.

So far, three Republican State Senators have expressed interest in becoming Georgia’s twelfth Lieutenant Governor. (The office was first created in 1945, and Zell Miller, Pierre Howard and Mark Taylor held the office for forty of those years.) There are no frontrunners at this point - just potential candidates.

President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson is the highest ranking Republican in the Georgia Senate to express interest in becoming Georgia’s next Lieutenant Governor. He is an architect from Savannah, Georgia. Notably, he led the Senate Republicans from minority status to the majority party with the help of Governor Sonny Perdue. When Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor was in office, Eric Johnson was charged with running the Republican controlled Senate from the President Pro Tempore position. Since Georgia elected Republican Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, Senator Johnson has returned to his job of managing the Republican Conference. He has done a good job. For Georgia, if there is one person who would change the direction of Georgia education for the better, it is Senator Eric Johnson.

Republican Senator David Shafer of Duluth, Chairman of the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee and Vice Chairman of the Insurance and Labor Committee, Georgia will also be in the mix. Having served as the Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party and as Governor Sonny Perdue’s Floor Administration Leader during the 2004 Legislative Session, Senator Shafer has built a network of support that extends around the state and throughout Georgia government. He has the experience of being a statewide candidate and has established himself as one of the most powerful Senators in the Georgia Senate. He has proven his skills as an effective Senator and as a result should have an inside track on building a consensus in the Senate as a presiding officer.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman and Economic Development Committee Vice Chairman Chip Rogers, a Republican Senator from Cherokee County, is also expected to enter the race. With oversight responsibility for the financial services industry, Senator Rogers has gotten first hand experience in state governance at the highest level. Most agree that Senator Rogers made his mark with tough proposed legislation dealing with illegal immigration issues. His dogged persistence earned him the reputation of being a stalwart for conservatives who could not be shaken by the rough and tumble politics down under the Gold Dome.

Democrat Senator Steve Thompson could also enter the race. If a strong Democrat steps up for the gubernatorial race, Senator Thompson might make a move up to seek the Lieutenant Governor slot. But the real dream ticket for Democrats could be a return by former Governor Roy Barnes as the Democratic nominee for Governor and former Secretary of State Cathy Cox as the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor.