Yep that was me on the panel Sunday for the Republican 12th and 13th Congressional District runoff debates that were broadcast from Georgia Public Broadcasting. The makeup made me feel like Cleopatra!

As you may know the debates are sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club, and they are a great way to get to know the candidates. Well, that is, if they show up. One of the debates featured just one of the two candidates. The moderator, Lisa Rayam, WAGA, even said, “Ray McKinney is represented by an empty podium.”

One of the districts — the 12th — is out near Savannah so there’s less local interest. But the other debate featured the two Republican candidates for a district that includes parts of Cobb, Fulton, Dekalb, Douglas and other metro Atlanta counties so their answers, when they did actually answer the question, were of great interest.

I asked about high-speed and commuter rail. But I think at least one of the candidates didn’t hear that! Maybe I speak too softly. Regrettably rail is overlooked in favor of such hot-button issues as immigration, abortion and if you can believe, states’ rights.

Anyway, if you missed this debate, you can find it here. You can also find the debates for Governor and other offices archived on the site.

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Maria Saporta asks some great questions today in her regular Monday column at SaportaReport.

Namely, why did civic groups and private businesses rally to save Grady Hospital but no one is rallying to save MARTA or C-TRAN for that matter?

Maria quotes Mayor Kasim Reed as saying recently, “I…want to send a message to the economic development community and business people.”

‘If budget cuts force MARTA to cut back service to six days a week, he said, it will weaken metro Atlanta’s economy, especially tourism, and it will weaken the state’s attractiveness to business.’

“If Atlanta is going to remain dominant, if Atlanta is going to continue to be the economic engine that drives metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia, how are we going to do that with a train line that runs six days a week?” Reed asked.

(Or half the number of buses that run now, for that matter).

You can read her column here.

There was also a great op-ed about MARTA recently in the AJC by Jim Durrett, who is executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District and sits on MARTA’s board.

Thanks to kind reader Darin, you can see Durrett’s piece here.

What caught my eye was that the Buckhead is home to many businesses and residents that don’t rely on MARTA, and yet this group is smart enough to know that transportation is key for any community.

Durrett makes so many great points. For example, he says:

“The state Legislature should do three things. First, pass long-term transportation funding legislation (that has been considered for four years now) that includes transit operations and maintenance as allowable uses of the new funding. Second, permanently eliminate the 50/50 restriction on the MARTA sales tax revenues. Third, provide short-term funding assistance to MARTA during the next three years, such as state-supported bonding for capital projects, which, coupled with elimination of the 50/50 restriction, would help MARTA to make ends meet.”

So many smart people here in Atlanta and yet MARTA may have to cut 30 percent of its service next fiscal year (i.e., in July) and C-TRAN is on life support.

At this rate, I think I’ll stop trying to be smart because all of these “smart” people are giving smart a bad name.

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The most interesting point made by Galloway is how much rural areas rely on government jobs. UGA sociologist Doug Bachtel told him in a fifth of the jobs in Coffee County, where Sims lives, are in the public sector. And the portion is higher in other rural counties. In other words, for all their pull-yourself-by-the-bootstraps, cut-the-pork talk, rural Georgia politicians  — and their constituents — feed at the trough more than the typical Atlantan.

So when the going gets tough, Sims — the “conservative” — turns out to be all for big government: He doesn’t want to see all those jobs cut to make up for the state’s $1-billion-plus budget shortfall. What’s his solution? Eliminate the sales tax on groceries!

What Galloway doesn’t mention shows how far political discussion in Georgia has fallen: Grocery taxes are a class of tax that falls heavily on average Georgians and most lightly on the wealthy. That’s because middle class and poor people spend a big chunk of their money on necessities, especially groceries, while wealthier people spend a lot on goods and eating out (which already are taxed) and on services (which aren’t taxed).

If you’re a middle-class family of four spending $8,000 on groceries, reinstating the food tax will cost you $360 a year. If you’re stockbroker who makes $160,000 a year and eats out every lunch and dinner, the food tax might set you back $20.

Gov. Zell Miller, of all people, made precisely those sorts of points in the early 1990s when he pushed the Legislature to eliminate the grocery tax. It was the largest tax cut in Georgia history and, most likely, the biggest reduction ever in the tax burden on Georgia’s working families.

But the harm to average folks that would come with reinstating such a progressive tax cut didn’t even warrant a peep in Galloway’s column. The possibilities, as he presents them, are only between Republicans who will cut government services and Republicans who want to make groceries more expensive.

Other tax hikes could reduce the upcoming shortfall in Georgia’s budget without forcing working people to count pennies at the supermarket. The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute has a whole slew of suggestions along those lines. Among them:

• Temporarily tack a 1 percent income tax hike on couples that make more than $400,000 a year and individuals that make more than $200,000. That would put $200 million toward closing the budget shortfall.

• Stop allowing tax filers who itemize on their federal returns to include their state income taxes as itemized deductions on their state returns. It amounts to sort of double-dip deduction for people who tend to be at the upper end of the scale. The take: $450 million.

• Temporarily increase by just half-a-percent the sales tax rate on everything currently taxed: $600 million.

• Expand sales taxes to a certain (mainly luxury) services: $185 million.

Galloway did mention in passing another idea mentioned by the institute: Raising the excise tax on cigarettes by a dollar a pack. That would plug $300 million to $400 million in the budget hole. It’s the tax hike receiving the most serious consideration in the legislature — other than, apparently, making it more expensive to by groceries.

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As Ariel puts it, “The loss for the streetcar is one more drop in the bucket of metro Atlanta’s mass transit misery.”

She has all the details here.

It’s times like this that I like being a blogger. Because it would have been hard to write the story Ariel had to write.

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Gov. Sonny Perdue seems to be cramming for his finals.

“Too little, too late” never seemed more apt.

After doing not much more than grumbling about metro Atlanta’s growth problems for seven years, Sonny Perdue finally is pushing lawmakers to pass water conservation and transportation funding bills. Not only that, last week he proposed converting four statewide elected offices into appointed positions — a bold idea that any good government type should be celebrating.

The perplexing thing is that Perdue’s doing all this in his eighth and final year as governor, when his influence is surely too low to bend the Legislature to his will. He won’t have any way to followup to ensure that his ideas are implemented effectively, either.

I’m not all ga-ga over the governor’s water and transportation proposals. As if to underscore his desire to wash his hands of both messes, neither bill actually would take effect until well into 2012 — nearly two years after he’ll have left office. The water conservation bill doesn’t go as far as needed, while the transportation bill does too little to ensure that anything but roads will get adequate funding.

Still both measures are likely to be steps in the right direction, and some form of each is likely to pass.

I’m more amazed about the governor’s proposal to change elected statewide offices. Perdue wants the legislature to approve a referendum for a constitutional amendment to convert the agricultural commissioner, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner and state school superintendent into appointed positions.

On Election Day, Georgians find too many races on their ballots that they know nothing about, so almost every time people either fill out only part of their ballot or default by voting for the incumbent. And if there’s no incumbent, the Republican wins — regardless of qualifications — because the Republican base is more likely to spend the time to vote in down-ticket races.

The result has been to have the same agriculture commissioner in office for 40 years — an 80-something Democrat who runs his department like a fiefdom — and to have the venal and unethical John Oxendine as insurance commissioner four terms. Despite numerous scandals, Oxendine could have served as commissioner-for-life had he not decided to run this year for governor; now (to the nightmares of many Republicans), he’s the GOP frontrunner in the governor’s race.

Jay Bookman argues on his blog this morning that it would be best to keep the school superintendent elected so that the office would continue to be a power base to fight for what’s good for children. But it hasn’t worked that way with the current superintendent (who’s gone along with the big cuts to education); her predecessor actually won office by beating a better qualified bureaucrat who was a lousy politician — then she went to jail for abusing her office.

The thing is it’s difficult to imagine the switch to appointed positions passing in the last year of Perdue’s two terms. And the governor hasn’t exactly laid the groundwork for such a controversial reform to win approval from lawmakers — many of whom hope to run someday for those very offices.

The proposal has the feel of Sonny’s parting shot to the political class, which seems typical of the often unproductive way Perdue’s has handled his office. Part of the problem is that Perdue seldom exhibited the patience to build consensus for worthwhile policies.

But another part is that his own party has put him in a tough spot. By constantly ladling out tax cuts and other pandering portions of populism, Georgia Republicans have made it pretty much impossible to govern while sticking to supposed Republican “principles.”

At times, Perdue has served as a moderating, if grumpy influence on the all that posturing. That’s left him in the odd predicament of serving as Dr. No to some of his party’s stupider ideas, of going along with a few of them, and of occassionally flinging his own decent ideas out there — only not to lack the support to push for them effectively.

So while other states have worked to solve major problems like education, transportation and growth issues, Georgia has slipped further and further behind. Sadly, that will be Sonny Perdue’s legacy.

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But a passing reference to an unrelated rumor was more interesting. And it said a lot more about the way the Tea Party rank-and-file gets worked up over things that aren’t even happening.

This week’s baseless rumor apparently is that President Obama is planning to ban protests on the National Mall. “Treason,” one Tea Partier responded when he heard that. Another yelled something about “revolution.”

Here’s the video. Below’s my explanation of why the rumor appears to be totally baseless.

The actual cap-and-trade portion of the meeting was boring. A retired CEO of the local electric membership corporation offered a one-sided account on climate change legislation: a lot of suspect numbers and scary misrepresentations. Of course, it was a article of faith that climate change actually isn’t actually happening. Basically, it was the climate change briefing you’d expect at Tea Party meeting.

But then an audience member asked for more information on “the plan to, quote, shut down all gatherings on the Washington Monument mall after this year, not allowing any more demonstrations or protests or whatever on the Washington mall after this year.”

Whoaa, I hadn’t heard that one! And, judging from the howls, neither had a lot of the audience members.

Jim Richter, who led the meeting, told the crowd the rumor was true: “Trust me. It is in the works. By executive order by our, uhm, great leader, he’s going to try to push it through. I’ve already seen a copy of the proposed regulations. … It’s against our First Amendment Rights, but they don’t give a damn what we think.”

That really got the crowd going. “Treason.” “Revolution.” And lots of jeers and cheers.

One problem, of course. There’s no evidence for the rumor.

I sent an e-mail to Richter two days later: “Do you have any more information about the ban on National Mall protests. I’d love to get a copy of that Executive Order.”

His answer: “I sent a question to the National group yesterday to see what the status of this is. I will pass the info on as soon as I receive an answer.”

So I did my own research. I sent my note straight to the source — the National Park Service, which manages the National Mall. Here’s the answer I got from an NPS spokesman:

We have no idea where that rumor came from.For nearly 100 years, it has been the mission of the National Park Service to not only preserve and protect our nation’s natural and historic resources, but also to make those areas available for use by all Americans.

On occasion, that use transcends mere education or recreation, as evidenced by the numerous First Amendment activities on the National Mall. National Park areas provide a forum in which citizens can exercise their constitutional rights, including the freedom of speech and assembly. The United States Constitution guarantees everyone the right to speak freely and to assemble peaceably, regardless of the content of their message.

In approving requests to demonstrate on the National Mall, the National Park Service is not condoning the message being delivered by their members. Rather, we are providing an arena in which they can deliver their message, the validity of which will ultimately be decided by those who hear it.

And of course we are providing the opportunity for those with a dissenting point of view to make their beliefs known as well.

The National Park Service hosts hundreds of First Amendment activities each year at nearly 400 sites across the country. Though the messages delivered are as diverse as the parks that host them, the one constant is that each of those assemblies is a living, breathing example of our nation’s democratic ideals and freedoms.

We host numerous first amendment demonstrations on the National Mall each and only ask that organizations obtain a permit and abide by the various rules and regulations.

We have no restrictions or “bans” on any groups.

Gee, that sounds pretty unequivocal. When I sent Richter a copy of the spokesman’s note, however, the story changed. This time, he wrote back that, “If I remember correctly it was the Capitol police that were proposing this restriction and I was told they report to Nancy Pelosi!”

OK, so Bogeyman #1 (Obama) isn’t involved because he’s in the Executive Branch, right? So it’s gotta be Bogeyman #2 because she supposedly controls the Capitol Police.

Richter now says he’s waiting for information from “the source” — but he’s not saying who that source was. We can all form our opinions about where the rumor came from. Somebody could have made it up whole. Somebody could have misunderstand some innocuous document somewhere. Who knows?

What’s more disturbing is the crowd’s gullibility. Two-hundred or so people left a meeting on climate change this week convinced that President Obama was signing an executive order designed to shut them up, and they were pretty darned incensed about it. It never seemed to occur to them that they were basing their fury on no evidence.

Will they ever be told their anger was founded on a baseless rumor? Would anything ever convince them it was a baseless rumor anyway?

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The John Oxendine shooting accident had nothing to do with this man.

Aha! Now I’ve figured it out. That “not a Dick Cheney” hunting accident involving John Oxendine, his sons and some guy straight out of an episode of Petticoat Junction wasn’t an accident after all.

It was a reconnaissance mission on behalf of the thirsty people of Georgia.

Think about it: Yesterday, Oxendine announced that, if elected governor, he’ll take up with the U.S. Supreme Court a Georgia request that Tennessee let us pipe water from the Tennessee River to metro Atlanta.

Could it be mere coincidence that someone in Oxendine’s hunting party peppered a northwest Georgia man with buckshot just one week earlier?

Hear me out: The incident occurred on Walker County property owned by a man whom the current insurance commissioner  is supposed to be regulating — the same guy, as it happens, who’s implicated in a scandal over more than $120,000 in allegedly illegal contributions to Oxendine’s campaign for governor. A campaign spokesman said one of Oxendine’s sons did the shooting and dismissed the incident as “not a Dick Cheney situation.”

But it did yield this beyond marvelous video interview of buckshot receptacle Russell “Monty” Robertson, who insists that he’d still go hunting with Ox because they’re such good buddies. Robertson explained that he was shot because a low-flying bird went in “the wrong direction” and he “was in the way.”

Oxendine says the whole thing’s being blown out of proportion because “I am the most likely Republican nominee for governor. … It’s unfortunate that if I blow my nose, it’s a story.” Asked why he and his sons didn’t have hunting licenses, the insurance commissioner insists they didn’t need them because they were on private property.

(The state Department of Natural Resources doesn’t interpret hunting regulations that way. DNR insisted yesterday that Oxendine and his sons enroll in hunting safety course.)

Here’s where the reconnaissance part comes in though: Oxendine also announced yesterday that he’ll try to grab that water from the Tennessee River to solve metro Atlanta’s looming water shortfall. Consistent with his Ox-in-a-china-shop reputation, the Republican revealed that plan — and the threat to go to court over it — during an interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press, where people don’t look too kindly on Georgia talk about taking Tennessee River water. (In another interesting spin, it was the husband of Oxendine’s former wife, state Sen. David Shafer, who started the talk about taking Tennessee River water during the 2008 legislative session.)

But think about it. The hunting preserve where the shooting incident took place is in Walker County, not far from the Tennessee line and just a wee bit further from the spot where the Tennessee River dips closest to the Georgia border. Could it be that the shooting “accident” was merely a cover for something selfless that good ol’ Ox was doing for Georgia? Could it be that he actually had traveled to the state line so that he could investigate how Georgians might be able to get to some of that delicious Tennessee River water? Could it be that our “likely Republican nominee for governor” is sacrificing his own reputation as an outdoorsman so that he can help you quench your thirst, keep your grass green and develop your new suburban subdivision?

We’ll never know for sure, I suppose, because Ox would be the last guy to boast about anything.

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Needless to say, both.

It doesn’t look like you can access the whole article online but you can read a taste of it here. (It’s worth getting your hands on a copy of the actual magazine to take a look at the whole piece).

The suggestions were published in conjunction with the proceedings of a roundtable the magazine convened to discuss Atlanta’s problems and what we can do to fix them.

The magazine solicited ideas from people all around Atlanta, and while many of the ideas are a bit self-serving — someone involved in a volunteer organization thinks every Atlantan should start volunteering — all of the suggestions merit consideration.

I think the best single comment comes from Creative Loafing’s Andisheh Nouraee. (You may think we are biased in favor of Creating Loafing folks here since Ken worked there for so long but I never worked there and I don’t even know Andisheh. I just like good ideas).

While I don’t agree with every idea, I love the way he presents his thoughts in a very no-nonsense way that just says, “Let’s get going.”

Here’s his comment:

“Treat critics with respect instead of as enemies. Honor responsible homeowners by cracking down on serial code violators whose derelict properties are magnets for criminals. Create an Office of Transparency and empower citizen watchdogs by putting every new government report and document online in real-time. Admit the BeltLine is a park with a bike path, not a mass transit project. Require large parking lots to install secure bike racks. Mobilize Atlanta business leaders against rural GOP lawmakers who revel in hurting the city. Hire more cops, and tell the ones directing traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson to stop being such dicks.”

Alright so let’s get going!

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One of the biggest winners coming out of Copenhagen was Barack Obama. And, depending on what happens over the next 12 months, we could all turn out to be winners, because Copenhagen at least kept that possibility open.

That’s not the conclusion you’d get by listening to screaming cable anchors and reading a mainstream press obsessed with “balancing” opposing sides and hyping failure. Then, again obsessing on balance and hyping failure don’t often produce an accurate view of truth.

Check out the article at My Green ATL. It’s, ahem, brilliant.

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MAYOR: Reed 52, Norwood 48

COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Mitchell 54, Muller 46

CITYWIDE POST 2: Watson 63, Farokhi 37

DISTRICT 6: Wan 59, Coyle 41

OK. Share please.

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