Oconee County, GA Politics

I know it is trendy amongst some less enlightened members of the Georgia Congressional delegation to swear off earmarks , but their pledge goes against the grain of how things are done in DC and it only makes their districts suffer. As long as other people are getting a slice of the pie, we need earmarks here. Our GOP Congressman are not doing their jobs by forsaking local projects. Vote Democratic for candidates such as Bobby Saxon this fall.

Oconee County is way small sometimes, but that does not excuse our lack of participation in elections, be it one race or 12 on the screen. I whole heartedly join Sheriff Scott Berry in endorsing Dr. Cathleen Quillian-Carr for election as Coroner in the run-off election against recently fired Assistant Coroner Ed Carson. Athens Banner-Herald reporter Adam Thompson writes an even-handed story about the race for coroner. Recently while shopping at Publix, it was one of those times up and down the aisles when I saw someone who kept giving me odd looks and I could not place them. We even followed them out into the parking lot with the groceries. Evidently it was Mr. Carson's wife and daughter I was parked next to, at least as far as their huge magnetic sign on their door.

Take Back Georgia, Inc. Saxby Shameless Update Dear Friends,   We are excited to announce that we have secured funding for our first radio advertising buy against Saxby Shameless!   Our first ad, Pain at the Pump , will begin airing across the state of Georgia this Saturday, July 26, and run through next week!  We chose to begin airing on Saturday because that will mark 100 days until Election Day!   Click here to listen to our ad, Pain at the Pump! (60 seconds)   Find both our 60-second and 30-second radio ads  on our homepage at the bottom right!   But, this has always been your  campaign to take back Georgia, so we want your feedback on which ad we should keep on the air: our 60-second spot or our 30-second spot.  Listen to them both, and let us know your thoughts - it's a short 3-question survey that will help us make...

Great chance to buy locally. Keep up the good work and support locally grown products and help Oconee County's economy and agriculture. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Hi Everyone! This week, the market will feature: Cucumbers, Beans, Tomatoes, Basil, Eggplant, Carrots, Collards, Butternut Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Okra and Watermelon (yum!) Also, Banana Nut Bread, Wheat, Multi-grain & Raisin Breads, Bagels, Sticky Buns and Peanut Butter Cookies! And, cut Flower Bouquets for yourself or someone special! It is the height of the summer season for fresh, nutritious and locally-grown (the BEST) foods. Please come on out Saturday morning and join us at the Oconee Farmers Market! Thank you for your patronage. Karl EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Join me

More reasons and opportunities to get involved locally.    Carl McGrath has sent you an invitation to 'Obama Team  Oconee Meeting to Strategize' -- click here to view the  invitation and submit your response:    http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44fsw    ---    Thanks for checking us out! I hope you'll come back whenever you can. We're closing in on the last 100 days of this campaign and we need your help in rallying support for Obama!    Carl

More opportunities for helping out this weekend. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Join me Hello Athens Obama Supporters!   This weekend is a huge weekend for the Barack Obama campaign: Howard Dean will be in Georgia, we will be 100 days away from the election, and here in Athens we will be holding a huge voter registration drive out of our temporary office space at the Democratic Headquarters on Prince Ave (220 Prince Ave.) Please join us Saturday morning at 10AM, 11AM, 12PM, or this Sunday at 4PM. Let's show America what Georgia is all about this weekend with a massive kickoff to our voter registration campaign here in Georgia and here in Athens.   SATURDAY: 10AM, 11AM, and 12PM SUNDAY: 4PM.   Look forward to seeing everyone on Saturday!   -- Greg Ligon Georgia Campaign for Change (706) 380-9258

More Oconee County Democratic Committee and Republican, Greens, Libertarians and other Independents should help out Oconee for Obama. Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Here's a summary of our meeting Tues eve July 22 at the Sanctuary in Watkinsville:    Five more people found us! Welcome Dan Matthews, Sarahjane Love, Elyse Lang, and Keruh Andrews (please forgive any misspellings!). Hope you'll keep coming back . . . we really need your help with voter registration.    Who are we? Our group was formed on July 1st by the Athens Regional Field Director of the Obama Campaign. Our organizing fellow is Faye York, who told us she is completing the fellow program this week (bye, Faye!) and that our new liason with the Obama Campaign is Tiffany Kingery, Field Organizer (Welcome, Tiffany!). Our charge is to help get Barack Obama elected by aggressively engaging in voter registration until the Oct 6th deadline at which point our focus will shift to GOTV activities (as in Get ...

Don't call Martin Matheny on his cell, please Media Advisory: July 24, 2008 Contact: Stacie Paxton/ Michael Czin, Democratic National Committee 202-863-8148 Martin Matheny, Democratic Party of Georgia ATLANTA - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will be campaigning in Georgia this weekend, as part of the "Register for Change" tour. Governor Dean will visit Savannah, Macon, and Atlanta, attending voter registration rallies and Democratic events. Dean's appearance in Georgia underscores the Peach State's status as a battleground state in the 2008 election cycle. The cross country, "Register for Change," bus tour started in President Bush's backyard in Crawford, Texas, and will travel cross country, heading into the Democratic Convention in Denver. Since launching the tour, Governor Dean has visited Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina. SATURDAY, JULY 26 Savannah, G...

Come on down to Dublin FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 14, 2008 Contact: Angelia Knight Tel: 404-660-0034 E-mail: angelia_knight2002@yahoo.com LOCAL DEMOCRATIC LEADERS TO HOLD BANQUET IN DUBLIN Reception and Dinner, with appearances by Georgia's Democratic Congressmen DUBLIN, Ga . - The Georgia Association of Democratic County Chairs will hold its annual dinner on September 13, 2008, in the DuBose Porter Center at Heart of Georgia Technical College in Dublin. There will be a reception at 5 p.m., followed by dinner at 6 p.m. County Democratic leaders from across Georgia will meet and plan for the November elections while they celebrate the rising Democratic tide in Georgia. All six Democratic members of Congress from Georgia: Rep. Sanford Bishop, Rep. Hank Johnson, Rep. John Lewis, Rep Jim Marshall, Rep. John Barrow, and Rep. David Scott, have been invited to give keynote speeches. Also in attendance will be Democrats running for election in November. They will have the opportunit...

Dr. Paul Broun, Jr. wastes his office budget in record time on franking privileges and assorted ephemera. Here is the AJC's take on his fiscal irresponsibility. Really one can only expect more ridiculous behavior coming out about Broun given his track record of not being allowed to practice medicine in a hospital, flip-flopping on the issues that matter most, and all that other muckety-muck dredged up by Barry Fleming during the Primary .

Tonight another series of meetings in living rooms all over America continued the registration of voters and get out the vote assistance in conjunction with the Barack Obama for President campaign. A dozen-plus people gathered in the back of the Sanctuary to discuss campaign strategy with an Obama fellow, a full time volunteer from Houston, TX who came to Oconee County to help forge victory in November. Discussion centered on church and school registration among many other places. People have until early October to register to vote for the Presidential election. As I took my son to get ice cream afterward, we saw an Obama sticker on a car in the parking lot of Mirko Pasta. This is a good sign, as was the turnout at the Sanctuary this evening. There are some very organized and determined individuals with loads of experience and the desire to get the job done working at this meeting.

Got the heads up from Pat Priest that there is a meeting at 7 pm at the Sanctuary - an old lovingly restored church - at 2nd and Barnett Shoals Road in Watkinsville. Should be an interesting get together. Please attend if you can. Thanks and sorry for all the spam that has appeared here recently.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Johnathan McGinty < johnathan@frontporchconsulting.org > Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 5:17 PM Subject: Statement from Sherry Jackson on State Budget Shortfall To: sherryjackson4senate@yahoo.com Statement From Sherry Jackson On The State's $600 Million Shortfall   "I'd say it was shocking to see that our state is more than $600 million in the red this year, but after the inaction and infighting the past two years I'm not terribly shocked by much coming out from under the Gold Dome anymore. Our economy is struggling and our citizens are hurting, and the inability of the Republican leadership to recognize how these troubles would impact our overall economic situation is disappointing and distressing. We've just completed yet another session without the appropriate investments in education, without the appropriate tax reform we need to help our citizens and without the appropriate fiscal discipline we...

Dan Matthews, Jr. ( danjmatt@bellsouth.net ) has forwarded an email to you as a web page. To view click on or copy this link into your browsers address bar http://www.Swiftpage5.com/PCPOWERUSER.Bobby/C080718083500/SpeAsAPage.aspx?Addr=danjmatt@bellsouth.net The original email was a message from Bobby@BobbySaxon.com. If you do not want forwards of future e-mails from this list, copy to your browser or click on this link to Opt-Out. http://www.Swiftpage5.com/SpeSupIt.aspx?Org=&Group=&Page=PCPOWERUSER.Bobby&Addr=oconeedemo.crat@blogger.com

Dear Friends, I've posted a few thoughts on the Tuesday election. It isn't possible to know exactly what the results mean in terms of sentiments of the voters. The beauty of our system is that voting is a private matter. But I've offered a few interpretations that I hope are worth considering. Details, as usual, are at http://www.oconeecountyobservations.blogspot.com/ Lee

The Oconee County Democratic Committee needs to step up to the plate and do much more than bike rides and ice cream socials if they have any hope of electing any Democratic candidates this fall. Pat Priest has gone above and beyond the call of duty in doing a huge variety of projects and goals with next to no help from anyone in the committee. It is time to register voters for November. It is time to drop of voter registration forms at churches and schools. It is long beyond time to let people know it is OK to be a Democratic party member again in Oconee County. Minutes Oconee County Democratic Committee meeting July 15, 2008 Oconee County Courthouse, Watkinsville , Georgia     Vice-Chair Jonathan Veit called the meeting to order at 7:33 pm , as Chair Becky Vaughn was going to be late.   A quorum was declared present.   Minutes :  The minutes from the June 5, 2008 meeting were approved unanimously after a motion by Diana Jeffreys and...

I am just as flabbergasted at some of the results as the rest of you. The air was sucked out of the big upstairs courtroom last night as the final votes were tallied in the chair race. Sarah Bell ran a good race and emerged out of nowhere to challenge chairman Davis to the very end. I guess this means despite the perceived anti-incumbency fervor fanned by everything from Jim Ivey to secret meetings to courthouse moving rumors, Oconee County residents are reluctant to change leadership by a very slim margin. Looks like Oconee County voters rewarded John Daniell for his patience and smacked down Don Norris because of his suggestions about moving the courthouse. It also appears that there are more favorable memories of former fifth grade students of Kim Argo than there were people who actually voted for Ashley Hood. Hood knocked on many different doors in almost every subdivision in the county, but did not prevail despite an amazing collection of people helping her out. I really hope A...

Charlie says it best for what I am feeling right now. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Citizens By now you may have seen the election results.  I will write my analysis of the results in a day or so after time to reflect.   I was pleased to see that Horton, Hale and Daniell won.  Pritchett narrowly lost to Luke by 207 votes.  I was disappointed that Sarah lost.  She lost by only 100 votes.  Who says that our votes do not count?  I am sure there are folks who failed to vote for various reasons who are kicking themselves right now.  Sarah came from nowhere to take on an  entrenched incumbent and came within 100 votes out of over 6000 cast.  That in itself is a victory.  For the next 4 years Mr. Chairman will know that he is in that position by the thinnest of margins.  I hope you will let Sarah know of your appreciation for her super effort.  It is good to know we have leaders who are willing to take ...