About Last Night’s Dems-For-Senate Debate

I took the camera with me last night to the GPB Atlanta Press Club U.S. (D) Senate debate over on 14th Street, but neglected to bring my bat light, so my video interviews with Snuggles and Dale “Fox Mulder” Cardwell were too dark and murky to bother packaging. Besides, the country-a** yokels here would just p*ss all over my efforts anyway, so you’ll get my quickie, text-only wrap around instead:

Josh Lanier is a quick-witted, worldly, southern gent. Responding to that eager-beaver zeal dispensed by the idealistic, youthtful Rand Knight, the elder statesman-esque Lanier cracked the live audience up with, “Rand, you’ve got the fire. I’ve got the belly.” Meaning together, those two, no matter who won the (D) primary, would go tackle ‘em some Saxby Chambliss (R) red bear come real soon.

Vernon, aka Snuggles Jones, has got to be the phoniest politician on the planet. No one believes a word out of his mouth, particularly when he says stuff to the camera, true or not, such as “I’m really just a country boy.” Yeah sure… and I’m Daisy Duke. Fire up that tractor, Snuggles. Vroom, vroom.

Snuggles showed his feisty side when I asked him, after the debate, whether he’d “had his feelings hurt” when Obama dissed him so bad last week on the side-by-side flyer controversy. For my efforts on bringing-up that unfortunate little incident, I was called the dreaded LM (”you people in the liberal media”) as Vernon clung to the notion that he and Obama are just two peas in a ‘lil ‘ole pod.

Again, Rand Knight was well-spoken, intense, earnest, enlightening, and quite telegenic. Interesting even. I’m not sure red Georgia can go immediately as green as he’d like us to go, but young people love that kinda talk about creating jobs by green initiatives right here at home, the kinda stuff that Rand is so good at talking about, given that he’s a PhD in eco-something. Now if those zippy youngsters would just go vote in the primary tomorrow. Imagining that happening is about like imagining Georgia with no off-shore drilling rigs come 2016 or thereabouts. Ain’t gonna happen.

Could Rand handle the Saxby-Repug political machine come November? Hmmmm. Hard to say. But heck, Dale Cardwell sure could! The way he stabs right at the heart of the matter, everyone’s a blood-thirsty, money-crazed, craven crook. And they all should be thrown in jail - STAT. I actually like Cardwell’s message best of all… All Washington Politicians are Just Paid Monkeys For Evil International Conglomerate Corporate Swine, Particularly Saxby Chambliss.

I still can’t quite figure out if Cardwell was somehow trying to implicate, carrying on as a TV jury and judge, Snuggles in the murder of Derwin Brown, but let’s just say that Cardwell did manage to bring that unfortunate little DeKalb County murder incident up as sharply and as meanie-like as he, Agent Cardwell, possibly could.

As for Jim Martin, the alleged front runner, and most likely to make it to a runoff, he (Martin) was notable only for his blazing un-remarkableness. Martin is a studiously bland campaigner and completely forgettable overall, running on a record that is apparently quite forgettable too, other than Dale Cardwell sticking a knife to his gut during the debate over Martin’s tenure at DFCS including deaths of children in state or foster care. That was just pure uncomfortable I must say. But Martin barely reacted to Cardwell’s ugliness, continuing a tradition of appearing to be almost in a trance while on camera.

If you want to see the re-play of last night’s Dems For Georgia Senator debate, you can scroll around here to find it. Happy voting tomorrow!

Tagged as: Atlanta Press Club