As I wrote earlier on Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, it looks like Roy Barnes won’t be making the big announcement on June 1 – he has a trial that starts on that date, so it may be another week or two before he tells whether he will run for governor or not.
Some random speculations I’m hearing about Barnes and other political figures – accuracy not guaranteed:
If Barnes does get into the race, he may try to work around the Bobby
Kahn issue by having Chris Carpenter be the “front man” for the
campaign while Kahn stays deep under cover, out of the public eye.
It’s difficult to say whether that would appease the folks who think
Barnes should completely cut his ties with Kahn – and that group is
composed of quite a few Democrats.
If Barnes announces he’s running for governor, Labor Commissioner
Michael Thurmond will supposedly wait two weeks and then announce that
he is running for lieutenant governor. It would be a key part of
Barnes’ strategy to put a unified slate of Democratic candidates on the
ballot.
Some political operatives are giving odds and making bets on how many
days it will take for Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to be forced
out of the Republican primary by the publication of more Atlanta
Journal-Constitution articles about his past fundraising activities
(Oxendine has already been compelled to return $120,000 in questionable
insurance PAC contributions). One of my colleagues has set the
over/under at 75 days.
Questions have been asked for years about the
amount of money Oxendine has raised from people whose businesses are
subject to his agency’s regulation, but the AJC (and the rest of
the traditional media) have never really made a big deal about it. That appears
to be changing. The AJC still has a few good investigative reporters
on the payroll and two of them (James Salzer, Cam McWhirter) have been
poking around Oxendine’s disclosure reports. If the AJC also assigns
Alan Judd to the story, Oxendine may have some vexing media problems
ahead.
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