Posted on 05/25/2002 11:49:28 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
A T L A N T A, May 25 —
Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue is facing sharp criticism and not just from Democrats for a new campaign video that depicts Gov. Roy Barnes as a giant rat.
In 10-minute video, Barnes is portrayed as a huge rodent wearing a "King Roy" necklace. He is shown stuffing himself with wine and fruit at the governor's mansion and lovingly hugging the state Capitol as a narrator calls him "shifty" and "crafty."
Perdue plans to send 2,000 copies to supporters, and the short movie was made available free on his Web site Wednesday.
Perdue's challengers in the Republican primary called the video "disgusting" and "malicious" and called on Perdue to stop distributing it.
"This cartoon approach and personal attack on Roy Barnes defines the credibility of Sonny Perdue, not Roy Barnes," fellow GOP candidate Bill Byrne said in a statement. He said Perdue should apologize.
Barnes campaign manager Tim Phillips called it "shameful."
A top aide to Perdue, meanwhile, said he wasn't worried the video would come off as too mean-spirited.
"It's like a 1970s Godzilla movie. It's funny. We don't think people are going to overthink it too much," said the aide, Dan McLagan.
From the story. This is cool stuff. Rats!@@#$%^&
The "King Roy" bit is hilarious. King Roy climbing over Stone Mountain, and climbing up buildings in Atlanta. Anyone who lives in metro Atlanta will agree.
The other Republicans that criticized the film are just sorry they didn't think of it.
Reconstruction
Within a few months of the surrender, white Georgians regained their political rights: President Andrew Johnson permitted them to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention. Johnson's plan of restoration, or Reconstruction, of the Union was to reestablish the state governments and then readmit the states to Congress. The delegates duly repealed the 1861 ordinance of secession and recognized the abolition of slavery. They failed, however, to give blacks the right to vote or to testify against whites in court. In general, the new constitution maintained white supremacy. Constitutions drafted in the other Confederate states were similar. The legislatures of Georgia and the other states also passed black codes, a series of laws severely restricting the liberties of the newly freed blacks.
Partly because of these acts by the Southern states, the radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress wrested control of Reconstruction from President Johnson and imposed the harsher regime called Radical Reconstruction. In March 1867 Congress put all the ex-Confederate states except Tennessee under military rule. Readmission to the Union was made conditional on their adoption of new constitutions acceptable to Congress. They were required to extend the vote and basic civil rights to all men, regardless of race. The Republican Party now gained control in Georgia, based on a coalition of blacks, businessmen, and white small farmers from the northern mountain counties. This coalition in 1868 elected a Republican governor, Rufus B. Bullock, and a legislature that ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment extended citizenship to anyone born in the United States and promised all people the equal protection of the laws. Georgia was readmitted to the Union in 1870.
Republican rule was soon undermined, however, by the violence of a secret terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, which acted as a clandestine arm of the state Democratic Party. In 1868 alone, more than 300 Georgia blacks were murdered or assaulted by white terrorists. It was soon apparent that most white Republicans in Georgia were not strongly committed to equal rights. Several months into the 1868 legislative session, many Republicans joined with the Democrats in expelling black legislators although they had been fairly elected. The following year the legislature failed to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited race from being used as a requirement for voting.
Despite a feeble attempt by the U.S. Army to restore order, the Republican Party in Georgia was finished. When a new legislature took office in 1871, Governor Bullock fled the state to avoid being impeached. Despite charges of corruption against the Republicans, it is clear that Democrats were also involved in dirty dealings; and corruption did not end with the return of Democratic rule. The state was under one-party rule by the Democrats for almost the next 100 years.
And now it is the mean nasty Republicans that are the racist! Go figure????
Thanks for the clarification Cagey.
I should have said no Republican Governor Since Reconstruction!
Thanks for the ping Rush.......
Ig it makes the KGB mad I say keep doing it!
www.votesonny.com
He's a Republican retread, having been a Democrat for most of his elected life and just recently switching parties. He was the architect of the gas "deregulation" scheme that sent rates through the roof. His base seems to be limited to the rural south Georgia area and he doesn't seemt to deliver his message with much conviction.
Linda Schrenko, the State School superintendent doesn't seem to be able to garner much financial support and has had a lot of negative publicity in the press.
The sleeper may be Bill Byrne, the chairman of the Cobb County commission. Under his leadership the county has lowered taxes - both the property and the sales tax, promoted and gotten a lot of new business and has a favorable financial rating matched by only 14 other counties nationwide. Plus he seems to have practical solutions to a lot of the problems facing Georgia like eliminating the need for the Northern Arc by expanding existing corridors which would take half as long and cost half as much. Byrne website/A>
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