Speaker Summaries

Randy Evans, General Counsel to the Georgia Republican Party, presented a Presidential Politics update to Madison Forum members at their breakfast meeting, January 27, 2006.

He started by explaining that he represents former Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich, as well as J.C. Watts, for U.S. Representative from Oklahoma, and he talks to them every day.. He said that Mr. Hastert has endorsed Mitt Romney as the Presidential candidate, and Mr. Watts is likely to support Senator John McCain.

Mr. Evans said that presidential politics is an ebb and flow. It is the river of political events leading to an inevitable destiny which will occur on Election Day of 2008. Looking at this we can begin to see the manipulations and developments of some interesting things. As an insider, he will share what we see happening.

Today, pollsters and consultants think they know us better than we know ourselves. Mr. Evans said he, personally, doesn’t believe that. He believes the American electorate has become sufficiently sophisticated that we have begun to manipulate them more than they manipulate us. Polls are skewed, and we will we will see more and more of this as the year goes on.

Mr. Evans said Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. The dynamics are such that the combination of the resources, the way in which their primary process works, and the degree to which they have monopolies on venues of communication, make it impossible for any other candidate to have a serious chance. It doesn’t work that we have a national primary and everyone votes on the same day. We start in Iowa. And in Iowa, who will the candidates be for the Democratic Party. We have Hillary, John Edwards, Senator Obama, Bill Richardson. The first point to make here is, no one is going to win the Democratic Primary out of the box. The question is what will happen after Iowa and then New Hampshire, and as they move toward New Jersey, Nevada, or South Carolina, what will happen. He said his expectation is they are going to run through Iowa and then go to New Hampshire. What is the most significant thing we know about New Hampshire Democratic Primary? The single largest media market that dominates the primary is New York City. New York City has more TV channels available to dominate a media market.

Hillary Clinton spent millions of dollars in the New York media market, in a basically uncontested election, in the last race. Why? Maybe that means she is going to win right out of the box. But there will be a tension that develops. There will be the Hillary and there will be the not-Hillary candidate, because there will be a group of folks who believe she cannot win in the general election, or who have some other disagreement. There will be some who think she’s not left enough, and there will be some who think she’s too left. But there will be a horse race coming out. And who has a chance of owning the not-Hillary piece? Richardson? He served under Bill Clinton. A master strategist like Bill Clinton would think they are not going to win the primary out of the box. Any strategy that assumes they would win that easily is flawed, so what needs to be done when they get to the Hillary-non Hillary race, they would need people from the non-Hillary race endorsing them. So you have people from your camp in the non-Hillary camp. Mr. Evans said he didn’t think Richardson has a chance, but if, the day after Iowa, he comes out and endorses Hillary as the inevitable nominee, what good impact that would have. And if you look at the list of the other lesser known candidates on the ballot, many are all former Clinton people. That’s no accident. Look at the shared donor list. All the candidates have the same donors. It may look like a sophisticated hedge – that if Hillary fails, they will still have candidates from the Clinton camp, because they want to own the party. Mr. Evans said he thinks it is much more a calculated strategy to say – this is our best way of managing the dynamics as the process moves on.

Mr. Evans said we should remember the name of the person who has the most likelihood of re-emerging his desire to be President of the United States – Al Gore. If they come out of Iowa/New Hampshire and have a Hillary-non Hillary division and the non Hillary division becomes about saving the Democratic Party. This isn’t anything other than – we have to save us from ourselves, and we have to have someone who’s not from the Clinton camp – Gore is not. He made that separation at the Democratic National Convention. And he steps forward and says I’m the one who is going to save us from ourselves. And then they come south.

The big problem for the Democratic Primary in the south is that the largest single dominate voting group that decides many primaries in the south is African-American, which is why Hillary will be the nominee. The process has been stacked in a way where the very sequencing of the states. Nevada is a good state to move up, because the Nevada Democratic Party is mostly people who retired from Washington, DC, in the Clinton Administration, to live in Las Vegas. The next state to move up the list is New Jersey, because it is dominated by the New York City media market.

In the Republican race, Mr. Evans said, the traditional thinking currently is that the Republican race will come down to a McCain – non McCain race. The attack against Senator McCain that has the most traction is that he is the Dole candidate, which means that he has waited his turn, it is his time. He probably can’t win, but it is his time. That is not a theme that has been consistent over time. Senator McCain is not Bob Dole. Senator Dole was a great American and served admirably in the Senate and never, ever was out of lock-step with the Administration policies. You cannot say that about Senator McCain. At the end the McCain ability to succeed will depend on their ability to win that core argument. It’s very difficult at this level, because as a candidate you do want to create a formidable presence so you’re the institutional establishment candidate so the sheer momentum of candidacy helps you wipe out competitors. However, it you go with that flow, you run the risk then of becoming the Dole candidate. So, at some point you have to say – I’m not that person. I am not Dole, because here are the ways in which I have challenged the Administration, been out of step with the Establishment, and been different than the institution. But when you do that, you lose the ability to wrap up the monopoly of the Establishment powerhouses. So, it’s a very difficult line to walk.

The second candidate everyone talks about is Governor Romney. In Washington they call him the 41 President, which is the re-assembling of the team that elected Bush 41. The toughest attack, really, for Governor Romney, by opponents will be to force an answer the question – Are you genuine? Why would that question be so difficult for him? Because, if the answer is – yes, I’m genuine, then the response is - then you must be genuine Mormon. And if the answer is – I’m not genuine, then what? You’re not genuine. It is a very difficult situation. When you look at focus groups, virtually no one cares what your religion is. It is not the religion, and anyone who thinks it’s the religion is just wrong. The problem with the Mormon piece is the role the Mormon Church has for women. The problem is a person’s vision of the role of men and women in society. And that is a different vision from that of the Mormon Church. This will be the difficult challenge for Governor Romney, and that issue will continue on as the process moves forward.

Then there is Mayor Giuliani. Mr. Evans said it is unclear to him if the ex-mayor will get in the race, because it is a formidable issue. Senator McCain does have an enormous lead and resources, endorsements, leadership. Mayor Giuliani fully understands how complicated it is, given the nature of the primary process. He has to defend some of his positions on key issues as he comes to South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. It is very challenging. However, there is an issue that trumps all of those issues. That is if we have a terrorist event, because Americans first want to be safe. There is no question among most Americans, that if we were put in that situation, of all the currently available field of candidates, the person they would feel most comfortable with protecting them, if we were in a state of crisis following a terrorist incident, is Rudy Giuliani. They feel comfortable that he would control the police force, the fire department, and those kinds of things. That is the wild card that is out there, and certainly those issues are there.

Newt Gingrich, says Mr. Evans, has a completely different approach. Newt is not a candidate for the President of the United States. He will decide in September whether he wants to become a candidate for the presidency. But, instead he has a new idea, called American Solutions, a 527 political organization, who says – “we think the best resource for addressing the problems we have today is us – the American people. And I want to create a facility, a vehicle that permits people with ideas to exchange and vet their ideas. Because I am confident that what will happen is the best ideas will bubble up, the cream will rise to the top, and then those ideas will get refined and vetted and become an agenda for a new set of coalitions for the future. And then the people who participated in generating those ideas will be sufficiently vested in those ideas that they, too, will want to participate in transforming the country.” An important part of this is that it will involve a different set of coalitions and groups than we currently have. Mr. Evans said he was convinced that a red-blue strategy means the Republicans lose the general election in 2008. He thinks the party has lost too much ground in Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and in Michigan, and in Florida. The likelihood that the party could cobble together a loose coalition of states to add up to 270 votes is pretty unlikely. As a result we have to say that the traditional alliances and coalitions that existed in the past aren’t going to carry us to the future, and instead we have to look at a new set of issues, which are not necessarily partisan, but are necessary to having a secure America and a wealthier America, and a safer America. Some of those issues are Immigration, which is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. There are people on both sides of the aisle who understand the necessity to secure our borders. Another of Mr. Gingrich’s issues, says Mr. Evans, which is also dear to his heart and which he believes, is that with the right resources, we can eliminate cancer s a cause of death within ten years, especially when you consider the advances made in cancer research in just the last three years. Also, we need to take into consideration that the present generation has whole sets of issues that are different from the ones in previous generations.

Mr. Evans’s final point was for conservatives to be patient. If you’re right, you’re right. Everything just has to filter out, and we’ll be OK. And don’t let anybody tell you when the patience has to come, or the patience should run out, or when you should prompt more action. It may take two years, which means that in 2008 we rally, we take the House and the Senate and hold on to the Presidency. Or it may take six. The key is just to understand that we’re right. All we have to do is sustain ourselves to win.

John Konop’s presentation to Madison Forum members at the regular lunch meeting February 12 was taped by WGKA 920 for presentation, on his talk show, at a later date.

Mr. Konop said that his perspective on the state of the GOP is not just his perception. It is the result of the response from bloggers and callers to his Saturday Radio Talk Show from all over the country. About half of the calls come from outside the state, and they came from all political parties.

Mr. Konop said the best way he could sum up the Republican Party is that it is being broken down into two areas that are very upset about the Party. One group is the Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs conservatives who are upset about the current Party’s trade and immigration policies. That group has been very vocal. It’s very obvious that both parties have basically been giving us lip service about our immigration and trade policies. It’s the greatest disconnect between what the people think and what the party’s doing. He said he spoke before the Democratic Party and brought up the same issue. He found that he was arguing with the Party leadership, not the members

The other group within the Republican Party that he finds is falling apart is more the Goldwater/Libertarian end of the Party. This end of the Party is clearly upset about this seeing, for the last six years, the largest expansion of the government since beyond the Johnson years.

He said that both parties have basically been bought off by the lobbyist money-changers in Washington. We will have Congressmen saying they voted for a particular highway bill because it is good for us. Yet they are spending money that doesn’t exist, and we have projects being built that are basically being bought and paid for by lobbyists. It’s equal to both sides of the party. Because of this, we now have a system where we have bills that are passed with 6,000 earmarks. Can anyone imagine any good coming from a bill that has 6,000 earmarks in it? We have a President who has never vetoed a spending bill. And, we have a Presidency currently where the word of a drug dealer is taken over that of a Border Agent.

Mr. Konop said what he sees, from the radio show and the blogs, about one-third of the Republicans have had it, about one-third are still kind of hanging in there, and the last third wouldn’t leave no matter what happened. The only thing keeping the Republican Party together is the incompetency of the Democratic Party. They have the same dysfunctional problems going on among their leadership. One part of their party is the way-off hippy-like group, and the other side making people mad is the Clinton-Gore side which has sold out to the middle class.

Mr. Konop said he predicted a year and a half ago that the next election will pit a Clinton-type candidate against a McCain-type candidate where, if you look at their trade and immigration policies, we won’t be able to know the difference. That is the situation we are faced with today. It’s a concept that basically the rule of law and American sovereignty do not matter.

Mr. Konop went on to explain the principle of The Invisible Hand by Adam Smith. One important point in this principle, which is not discussed by either party, is that you do not have free economics unless labor has the human right to negotiate, which is why we had this debate in our own country about slavery. If you look at debate today about why we do child and slave labor deals with countries like China, it’s the same slave debate we had in our Civil War - if we stop doing it, our economy will fall apart. And at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is, you have both parties selling out to lobbyists in Washington, They are pitting small business and American workers against child and slave labor.

His pointed out the recent Parade Magazine article listing the top ten worst dictators in the world. China has been there for awhile. If these countries can violate any rules, steal intellectual property rights, do anything they want, are these really, truly free trade agreements? And that’s the biggest lie of them all. Mr. Konop said that Al Gore is the person who gave us that policy. When he makes any comments about the environment, we need to remember that his trade deals did more to destroy the environment across the world than anything else, because basically, in these countries, they have no rules. So what we have is a very simple race to the bottom.

He believes we are going to see firstly, the emergence of a third party, secondly, the emergence, similar to a Jim Webb-type candidates, who will flip over to the Democrats, and thirdly, a huge swing either toward voter apathy which will get higher, or a huge swing toward a third-party solution. And the interesting part is that maybe Bob Barr might have a lot of legs in terms of what he’s doing today.

Georgia State House Representative Ed Setzler spoke to Madison Forum members at the regular breakfast meeting Saturday, February 17, 2007. His topics were Biological Privacy and School Choice, two issues currently being debated at the current Georgia Legislative Session.

He congratulated the Madison Forum members for their interest in issues, and encouraged members to consider what forums like this can do by moving from being grassroots forums to being prevailing organizations that can prevail on public policy – not just discuss issues, and being right on issues, but can cross from being great grassroots organizations to being prevailing organizations. He said that if grassroots can’t raise a million dollars for a Congressional candidate, we will never elect grassroots people to Congress who will be sensitive to issues that concern voters.

Mr. Setzler said he first became aware of the possible consequences of biological profiling when he took his family to Disney World and was asked for his fingerprint in order to enter the park. When he questioned it, he was told it was a security thing in case they lost their tickets. He protested, and was told all he had to do was sign the ticket and show ID.

He said the incident made him wonder what is being done with indelible biometric information, and what kinds of privacy intrusions are we submitting ourselves to in the course of our everyday lives. At the last legislative session, House Resolution 1558 initiated a study committee to focus on the issue of biological privacy dealing with all forms of tracking from DNA, to fingerprints, to personal tracking technologies, and all other means of tracking individuals and maintaining indelible information.

Mr. Setzler framed some of the issues that were being looked at in House Bill 276, the Biological Information Protection Act. For years people have been photographed and fingerprinted, but there has been no integration of that information so that a person could be tracked through daily life. But when digital and other technologies, along with an interest in tracking people, come together, the capabilities go from rudimentary and disjointed to integrated and powerful.

It raises the question of what is an appropriate level of intrusion by government.
Part of the intention of the bill is disclosure. If information is being collected and maintained on a person, that person should know about it, excluding signatures and non-digital photographs. He said the state government is attempting to get ahead of technologies, from a governmental standpoint, and outline obligations of businesses and how they may use this information, and what disclosure and fair practices should be in play in using these technologies.

Mr. Setzler said the next issue taken up was genetic exceptionalism. We have the ability to look at the human genetic code. There are tremendous incentives for businesses and, potentially, government entities to use that for commercial purposes. Georgia law prohibits the use of genetic screening for the purposes of health insurance or property casualty insurance. But, with pre-natal testing so available, should there be some expectation of privacy with respect to indelible, uncontrollable genetic traits that ought not be known and ought not be leveraged for economic advantage. That’s why the insurance industry is regulated. The legislature looks at what is the appropriate level of regulation. They want to minimize regulation and make sure the industry is controlled in an adequate way.

Case law outlines what reasonable search is and what it is not, so given the technological advances, is it a reasonable expectation that someone shouldn’t have to submit to a 4th Amendment search to go to the grocery store, open a bank account, get employment. Should there be a basic expectation of citizens to practical obscurity. The House Bill says that a bank can’t require a biometric search of people who have an account there. It is just based on the principle of not having to submit to 4th Amendment searches to go through the course of daily life.

Mr. Setzler briefly discussed Lt. Governor Cagle’s School Choice bill and the advantages that will come to Georgia’s students by expanding the kinds and number of entities allowed to certify Charter Schools.