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There appears to be some disagreement among the Beltway experts on the direction of the 12th Congressional District race between Democratic Rep. John Barrow and Republican challenger Rick Allen.
One day after Roll Call dropped Barrow from its list of “most vulnerable” House members, David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report said that Cook is moving the race into the “tossup” category.
Wrote Wasserman:
Barrow is perhaps the most skilled straight-to-camera ad-shooting incumbent in the country, and he is once again running some of the best ads (and overall campaigns) of the cycle. Yet the fact remains: 2014 is the first midterm election he has had to run in since Republicans dramatically redrew his seat in 2012 to drop its Democratic performance ten points. The combination is perilous. . . .
He will highlight endorsements from the NRA, NFIB, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and BIPAC, among other traditionally GOP-leaning groups. In surveys, voters continue to give Barrow high personal marks, and he works the district with retail tenacity.
Yet President Obama’s approval rating in GA-12 is stuck in the low 40s, and there is data to suggest Barrow, a 10-year incumbent, is well under 50 percent at the moment. Allen’s campaign released a mid-September survey taken by Public Opinion Strategies showing Barrow up just 44 percent to 42 percent. We still see Barrow as an ever-so-slight favorite, but not by enough to keep it out of the Toss Up column.
Barrow’s campaign reacted to the ratings shift the same way every candidate reacts to any piece of news these days – it blasted out an email asking for more campaign contributions.
“Look – these guys got it wrong in 2012, and they’re wrong this time, but we can’t take anything for granted,” Barrow said in the latest fundraising plea. “Since Republicans gerrymandered this district in their favor, we knew this was going to be a competitive race, and this TOSS UP designation only underscores that. We know that we’ll win with your help.”
Barrow’s campaign also disclosed an endorsement from BIPAC (the Business-Industry Political Action Committee), a conservative PAC that more often endorses Republicans.
“During his time in the House, Rep. Barrow has advocated for American energy independence, balancing the federal budget and working across party lines to get things done,” said BIPAC’s Bo Harmon.
Sam Nunn speaks up for his daughter
Former senator Sam Nunn finally spoke up for his daughter Michelle this week, decrying as “shameful” the claim by David Perdue that Michelle Nunn’s volunteer service organization had funded terrorist groups.
Nunn made the comment during a lengthy interview with Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has long been the go-to guy in media for the Nunn family (Galloway worked for Sam Nunn as an intern in the late 1970s).
From Galloway’s AJC account:
Sam Nunn on Thursday condemned as “shameful” that TV spot from Republican U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue that accuses Michelle Nunn and the foundation for which she worked of giving money to terrorist-linked organizations.
“It’s shameful. Particularly when you know that everybody in the opposition campaign knows that that’s not true,” her father, the longtime former U.S senator, said in an hour-long interview. “It’s not like they believe it. There’s too much these days of anything that works, regardless of what lines it crosses.”
Michelle Nunn’s father also said his daughter, the Democratic nominee for Senate, has little obligation to support Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., should Democrats maintain the chamber in November – given that Reid, in the spring of 2013, asked her not to run for Sam Nunn’s old seat.
“They said they had their eye on another candidate,” Sam Nunn said. Presumably, that other candidate would have been U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Augusta, whom many Democrats were attempting to lure into the contest at the time.
Sam Nunn’s comment that Harry Reid wanted Michelle Nunn out of the Senate race is disingenuous, at best, and somewhat misleading.
The Searchlight Leadership Fund, a PAC founded by Reid in 1997, has contributed $10,000 to Nunn’s campaign.
Nathan Click, who is Michelle Nunn’s media spokesman, worked for Reid at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) before he came to Georgia in 2013 to join the Nunn campaign.
If Reid really wanted Nunn out of the Senate race, why would he have contributed $10,000 to her campaign and sent one of his staffers to work for her?
Jesse Jackson endorses MARTA vote
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson added his voice this week to those urging Clayton County voters to approve a Nov. 4 referendum question on that county joining the MARTA system.
Jackson came to Clayton County in 2010 to speak up for transit service when the local bus system, C-Tran, ceased operations.
“We were here four years ago and we’re back today because we’re long distance runners,” Jackson said at the Clayton County courthouse. “The one thing worse than not having the voting right we have, is to have it and not use it.”
© 2014 by The Georgia Report
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