Mark Your Calendars: Trump Gets Dunked Again in Georgia 4 Days After New Year's

 

On January 5th, the voters in Georgia will need to go back to the polls for a crucial run-off election. There's some thought out there that it'll be another referendum on Trump (I add to that thought below against my will because I want so much to be done with him). Those voters in Georgia also done with Trump will need to come out on January 5th with greater force than they mustered last Tuesday, which was a lot, because control of the US Senate is on the line. My peeps in Georgia need either to vote early (early voting will go on for 3 weeks and will start just a month from now -- yikes!), or request an absentee-by-mail ballot, or plan to show up appropriately dressed at a local poll on January 5th -- to select not one but two US Senators. Both Republican Kelly Loeffler's seat (she was just appointed this year and has to run in her own right by state law) and Republican David Perdue's seat (he's finishing his 1st term) are on the line. They're forced into runoffs because neither received 50% + 1 of the vote last Tuesday. Loeffler got 25.9% in the three-way special election, trailing Democrat Raphael Warnock by over 341,000 votes, while Perdue is currently leading Democrat Jon Ossoff with 49.8% of the vote, not 50% + 1. Currently, because the count is still going on in Georgia. Perdue leads Ossoff by 90,274 votes. 

My main political ops contact down there told me this:

Yes, there is a chance [Democrats could win those seats]. 

However, Blacks are historically iffy on participation in runoffs. That it’s in January is a problem, too. 

Warnock proved to be a great surprise and would have won outright if only Lieberman’s kid and those other bozos dropped their vanity campaigns [7 other Dems were on the ballot with Warnock including former Senator Joe Lieberman's son]. Still the key to victory for either or both will be GOTV.

The other factor is the sheer power of the Republicans to galvanize quickly around bozos and, in the case of Loeffler, bozettes. Clearly, she can be beaten because she's still pretty easily baited. Perdue just hides. I doubt he’ll do a real interview or open town hall type thing through the process. Point is, it will be tough, but I think it can be done.

I personally know three people in Watauga and Caldwell counties who plan to go down and volunteer their time and shoe leather to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight org, which has been a major mover of the Black vote and which can be totally credited if Joe Biden ends up carrying Georgia (which seems likely). Currently, Biden leads Trump in Georgia by 10,196 votes.

There'll be hundreds, if not thousands, of Democratic activists heading from all over the nation to Georgia, from now through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Guest-housing is going to be at a premium. And money's gonna gush on both sides. You know McConnell will turn on the hose and so should Democratic money-bags. If you (not that you're a money-bag) want to donate to Fair Fight, go here.

Will the Runoff Be a Referendum on Trump?

You betcha.

From the looks of it, Trumpists are prepared to deny reality going into the next millennium. Trump has every intention of fanning those flames. Will their resentments and lust for revenge drive even more Trumpists to the polls on January 5th? Or will they get over it by then? Doubtful the latter, reasonably to be expected the former (although maybe by January 5th they'll still be hungover from the combo of bust-head and fantasy scenarios of mass extermination). Isn't it likely that Trump, still in performance mode as King Lear, will bestow his blessing on both Loeffler and Perdue to keep his legacy alive in the Senate?

Because if both Loeffler and Perdue lose, the US Senate goes to a 50-50 split with Kamala Harris empowered by the Constitution to break ties. Now that's a prospect -- unlikely as it may be -- to galvanize volunteers and electrify a voting population historically accustomed to losing but now transformed by Stacey Abrams' amazing energy. The new majority will be looking to nail some pelts to the old smokehouse door.

About the 50% + 1 Rule in Georgia

In most other states -- the vast majority not below the Mason Dixon Line -- a plurality of votes in a primary wins even if 50% + 1 didn't choose the winner. The 50% rule is popular in the South because ... well, think about it. Loeffler has a runoff with a Black candidate:

Georgia’s runoff law was created in the 1960s as a way to preserve white political power in a majority-white state and diminish the influence of Black politicians who could more easily win in a multicandidate race with a plurality of the vote, according to an Interior Department report.

Since the 1990s, Democrats have won only one of seven statewide runoffs in general or special elections, according to Inside Elections, the nonpartisan political newsletter. [Luke Broadwater]

The Two Democrats

I've written about Ossoff multiple times, but this is probably the money shot. No, this is the money shot, courtesy of YouTube -- the moment in Ossoff's one debate with Perdue when Ossoff called him a crook to his face and Perdue had no defense nor denial. This is the moment when many woke up to the possibility that Ossoff is a Democratic bad-ass and therefore worthy as a standard-bearer. Perdue canceled a follow-up debate.

 

I wrote about Raphael Warnock back in August. I was impressed with his introductory video, and he clearly has the personal magnetism to move voters:

Next Door in Georgia, Both US Senate Seats Are On the Ballot; One Probably Won't Be Settled Until January 2021

 

Sometimes Georgia just confuses the hell out of us!

One US Senate seat in Georgia will be settled on November 3rd, the fate of incumbent Republican David Perdue, who's running for another term against Democrat Jon Ossoff. You may remember Jon Ossoff from a special Georgia election in the 6th CD in 2017, which he lost. We're expecting him to do better this year.

The other US Senate seat in Georgia that's on the November ballot is currently held by Republican hair-model Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat in January of this year to replace the ailing Johnny Isakson. The November ballot for this seat is actually a primary ballot, because everyone from all parties runs together and if no one gets to 50 percent of the vote -- which seems highly likely, considering there are over 20 candidates -- then the run-off will decide the winner next January.

Kelly Loeffler is often described as the richest member of the Senate, which is saying something. She's a former Wall Street type executive, is married to the president of the Wall Street Stock Exchange, and attracted some attention lately for dumping millions in stock after receiving privileged briefings about the coming COVID catastrophe. She's been let off the hook, apparently, for any wrong-doing, while NC Senator Richard Burr is not off the hook for the same accusation.

The last polling I saw had Loeffler trailing slightly her biggest Republican challenger, Doug Collins, the snarling Trumpist attack dog on the House Judiciary Committee. Frankly, it's entirely possible that the top two finishers in this primary could both be Republicans, though we have high hopes for at least one Democrat making it to the January run-off.

There are at least eight Democrats on the ballot, but the front-runner is generally conceded to be Reverend Raphael Warnock, the pastor of famous Ebernezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. His introductory video biography is polished and compelling:

Warnock turned heads when he posted the highest First Quarter fundraising numbers of any candidate.  He has the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and of powerhouse Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams.

The FBI, Knock Knock Knocking on Dick Burr's Door

The Los Angeles Times broke the news last night (their site is protected by a paywall, so I'm relying on a secondary source) that Sen. Richard Burr surrendered his cell phone yesterday when the FBI served a search warrant at his Washington home. The G-men are investigating "whether Burr used information he obtained as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to sell a significant share of his stocks before the coronavirus outbreak upended the markets."

Apparently, there was a previous (first) search warrant that was used to collect information from Burr’s iCloud account. Some of the data collected from Apple was then used as evidence to obtain the warrant for Burr’s phone.

"Burr was one of just three senators who voted against the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which extended insider trading regulations to U.S. senators and representatives. At the time, he called the legislation 'ludicrous.' ”

“This is a very, very big deal,” Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, tweeted Wednesday night. “This is not something the FBI or DOJ does lightly. It requires layers of review, the blessing of a judge, and consideration of severe reputational harm to a sitting US Senator.”

"Reputational harm"? You don't say.

"A search warrant indicates that investigators were able to show to the satisfaction of a federal judge or magistrate probable cause to suspect a crime occurred and an expectation of the search yielding evidence."

So if a serious investigation of Richard Burr's activities are underway, one wonders what's going on with the similar stock-dumping accusations against Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and for that matter the accusations against senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) that date from the same time.

Some people are already forecasting a resignation for Burr and two, not one, US Senate seats on the ballot in North Carolina in November. I'm maybe more interested in the conspiratorial suggestion that Trump's grudge against Burr, for once upon a time subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. in the Russia investigation, has motivated his handmaiden at the Department of Justice, William Barr, to send the FBI against Burr.

The Self-Interest of Richard Burr Ain't Unfortunately Unique

ProPublica reported late yesterday afternoon:

Senators Burr and Loeffler

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.

A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.

On Thursday, Burr came under fire after NPR obtained a secret recording from Feb. 27, in which the lawmaker gave a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the coronavirus than what he had told the public.

Senator Burr's not the only public servant to use inside knowledge to benefit himself. Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia (appointed to the seat on January 6) is coincidentally married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. The Daily Beast article that outed her stock sell-off points out that she and Burr were in the same Senate briefing that warned about what was probably going to happen to the stock market because of the Coronavirus:

The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures’ worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities. 

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus.