?The first statewide poll of Georgia in a post-shutdown era shows voters doling out blame for the mess, naturally, according to their political inclinations.
According to the survey by the GOP-oriented team of Landmark Communications/Rosetta Stone, conducted for Channel 2 Action News on the first day of the shutdown, 46 percent of 1,000 Georgians surveyed blame President Obama and Democrats.
Thirty-nine percent blame Republicans. See the crosstabs here.
By race, 58 percent of white voters blame Democrats, and 72.8 percent of African-Americans blame the GOP. From John Garst of Rosetta Stone:
Ten percent of the Republicans surveyed blame the Republican-controlled House and 11.5 percent of the Democrats surveyed blame either President Obama or the Democratic controlled US Senate.
The numbers among self-described independents is more informative, with independent voters blaming the Democrats by an aggregated margin of 53 percent-29 percent.
All of the above explains why the Georgia GOP contingent in the U.S. House isn't budging. But if there?s a number that Republicans should be worried about, it?s this: A plurality of Georgia women, 44 percent, put the onus for the shutdown on the GOP. Fifty-three percent of Georgia men blame Democrats.
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An interesting Tweet this morning from U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell, of the 6th District:
FYI to GA06 families: While POTUS may be shutting down the national parks, local/city park access to Chattahoochee River still open.
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Former congressman Bob Barr, currently attempting to reclaim a seat in the U.S. House, has a restrospective on the 1995-96 federal shutdown at the website of Time magazine:
I never thought I?d long for the days when Bill Clinton was president, but Barack Obama?s arrogance and lack of political savvy has pushed me to that point. These past days, during which the Congress and the White House have engaged in a game of budgetary brinksmanship, have made clear Obama possesses neither the willingness nor the ability to negotiate in good faith like his Democratic predecessor. Obama is no Bill Clinton; and the country is the worse for it.
Curiously, Barr offers no comparison between his former Republican leader, Newt Gingrich, and the current House speaker, John Boehner.
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During a reporting scrum on Wednesday, Gov. Nathan Deal was peppered with questions on the Obamacare roll-out. Christina Cassidy of the Associated Press offers this tidbit:
Deal said he was concerned about reports of discrepancies in premiums across the state under the health insurance exchange. He said the state insurance commissioner would be looking into the issue, and acknowledges part of the problem could be the availability of medical personnel in certain areas who are willing to participate in the health insurance exchange.
Hudgens, as we reported last night, is currently out of pocket.
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While supporters of the Affordable Care Act say heavy demand is what has slowed the new web-based marketplace to a crawl, hard numbers on how many people have actually committed insurance policies under Obamacare have been hard to come by. From the Washington Post:
Some insurers and policy specialists speculated that the small trickle of early enrollments reflects prudent decisions by consumers to shop carefully, exploring the price and coverage under the various health plans newly available to them. ?I wonder if, besides the glitches, people aren?t going on to the system and being smart consumers. If they can get on, looking and comparing .?.?. but let?s not make a decision immediately,? said William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former top official at the insurer Cigna.
On the other hand, others said that the early kinks, especially if they persist, could undermine consumer confidence in a law that already has sparked fevered political opposition and widespread public confusion. ?Everybody will give you a few days,? said Peter Beilenson, the chief executive of Evergreen Health, an insurer that is selling policies on the Maryland exchange. ?But by next week, it?s got to be up and running.?
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The New York Times offers this stark paragraph in a look at, via census figures, who Obamacare won?t reach:
The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion are home to about half of the country?s population, but about 68 percent of poor, uninsured blacks and single mothers. About 60 percent of the country?s uninsured working poor are in those states. Among those excluded are about 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks and 253,000 nurses? aides.
?The irony is that these states that are rejecting Medicaid expansion ? many of them Southern ? are the very places where the concentration of poverty and lack of health insurance are the most acute,? said Dr. H. Jack Geiger, a founder of the community health center model. ?It is their populations that have the highest burden of illness and costs to the entire health care system.?
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In the 2012 GOP race to dethrone U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Augusta, one of the main sticking points was the reluctance of the eventual nominee, the everything-but-loquacious state Rep. Lee Anderson, to debate his opponents.
In the 2014 cycle, that issue has already been disposed of. Lawton Sack, chairman of the GOP in eastern Georgia's 12th Congressional District, announced Wednesday that Augusta businessman Rick Allen and former congressional aide John Stone, also of Augusta, will hold four debates, stretching from February to the May 20 primary. Timing is still being worked out, but the venues are locked in: Augusta, Statesboro, Dublin and Douglas.
Allen was the runner-up in the 2012 GOP primary in Barrow's district. Stone ran against Barrow and lost in 2008.
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Chris Carr, the long-time chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, is leaving that job to become the commissioner of the state Department of Economic Development. In a tribute to Carr from the Senate floor on Wednesday, Isakson noted the reach of a network of Isakson veterans:
?While it?s a loss for me, personally, it?s a continuation of economic development in my state, where my fingerprints still lie. Because he will be replacing my former state director, Chris Cummiskey, who has been the commissioner of economic development in the state of Georgia. Which means I?ll still have that fingerprint there.?
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