Folks,
I'll start with the fundraising plea and then get down into it.
Georgians are quite angry about the rescue plan that has been just been passed and made into law. At a time when Atlanta just finished choking on fuel shortages, and the rest of the state higher prices than nationally due to short supply, when many Georgians are looking at the bad side of housing value shifts, and dealing with other problems, it has been shown just how close Wall Street and Washington are.
Personally, I think there is a little more hype about the downside of this rescue plan than the mitigating factors. The price will likely not be nearly so high as $700B, and avoiding an economic meltdown is vitally important. However, charity on the issue is hard to come by when one compares how much concern the Bush administration has shown for Main Street (Katrina, a hostile labor board, a blind eye and middle finger turned to those suffering foreclosures), and then how quickly it runs to the rescue when its ex-Sachs Treasury Secretary finally gets clued in that the financial world isn't doing so well.
Saxby Chambliss' vote in the Senate for this bill has thus opened a golden opportunity in the race down here in Georgia.
Jim Martin has a history of fighting financial interests (who turn out to be a danger even to themselves at times) on behalf of the little guy. Predatory lending practices in Georgia where a pillar of his 2006 Lt. Governor campaign. He has had a fair amount of involvement in the drafting of previous Georgia measures on lending practices, and thus has some credibility on these issues.
Now, Jim does have the luxury of not being in office, while Saxby Chambliss may have had to hold his nose. Nonetheless, Jim knows an opening when he sees it, and is out to take out his adversary.
Jim's press release:
"I am disappointed, but not surprised, to see that Saxby Chambliss voted for another typical Washington solution to a very real problem. It's classic Saxby Economics - $700 billion for Wall Street, while Georgia families get stuck with the bill. That's just wrong. This updated package still fails to address the fundamental problems created by the deregulation of Wall Street, which Chambliss went to Washington and voted for every step of the way. And it lacks consumer protections to stem the abusive lending practices that are at the root of this crisis - practices that I sounded the alarm on two years ago, long before the mortgage crisis began.
"I strongly believe that action must be taken to stabilize our economy in order for us to start reversing the failed Bush economic policies that have proven so disastrous for the middle class. But what I am not willing to do is to stick taxpayers with an enormous and costly bailout bill, rushed through in haste, which won't even solve the problem and which is now full of pork barrel projects. The only thing worse than having to pay $700 billion today would be having to pay another $700 billion tomorrow because Washington and Saxby Chambliss could not find the courage and common ground to stand up and make a real change in the system. If the bailout bill ultimately passes in its present form, I will work with our next president and the congressional leadership to address these flaws so that we can ensure that another crisis of this magnitude does not threaten our economy in the future."
Jim has also taken to the airwaves to attack Saxby Chambliss on his corporate giveaways in general:
It likely will not be long before his team puts together some ads directly addressing the bailout and what it means for Georgians.
Saxby is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. Jim Martin will be capturing independent votes due to Chamliss' vote, and the Georgia wingers are mighty pissed off. Saxby is to them what the most callow Blue Dog Democrat is to us right now. In the end, there may be a fair amount of nose holding, but Bob Barr and Alan Buckley (the Libertarian candidate for the Senate) may be able to convince a lot of protest votes to come their way this time around.
Also, keep in mind how close the latest polls have been. There's only a few points separating the two now, and a solid push (and depressed Republican turnout) could really turn this thing our way.
With these kinds of issues, Jim Martin is a vote that President Obama is going to want very much on his side if he wants to try and rebalance our economy for the middle class.
Please help make it happen.