Kasim Reed does not share my feelings about Mary Norwood’s TV ad talking about crime. Here’s a bit of a press release his campaign sent us.
(ATLANTA) October 21, 2009 – Today I am calling on Mary Norwood to take down her new campaign commercial where she exploits two recent high-profile murders. Like most Atlantans who have seen the ad, I was deeply offended that Ms. Norwood would stand on the hallowed sites of their murders – when she twice cast votes which led to the police and fire furloughs which resulted in a significant spike in crime and violence in our city. Ms. Norwood was warned repeatedly by the Mayor that her failure to support a modest tax increase would cause police to be immediately furloughed. Yet, she offered no alternative to the tax increase and voted to make Atlanta vulnerable to gangs and violent criminals, choosing political convenience over the safety of our city.
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hal⋅lowed [hal-ohd; in liturgical use often hal-oh-id]
–adjective
regarded as holy; venerated; sacred
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hallowed
Not sure about Reed’s use of that word.
He’s probably pissed that he didn’t think of it first… This whole “you woundeth me so!” act by politicians during election periods is completely annoying.
Ummmm… So how exactly did Norwood work to end the furloughs for police officers and firefighters — seeming as she voted against the tax increase to fund public safetly.
paul:
those furloughs were classic examples of “Gotcha!” politics. Budget cuts HAVE to be made, so the official chooses to cut in areas that he/she knows will cause a public outcry to try to avoid cuts altogether.
Resorting to the “Gotcha!” is usually a sign of a weaker candidate – unfortunately, the “Gotcha!” tends to be effective.
Jeff:
How is Reed the “weaker” candidate when: (1) He actually had the gumption to go on record and say that he supported ending furloughs (instead of complaining that he didn’t have the information to make an informative decision), (2) He actually proposed a solution to the problem — During the last legislative session, he sponsored legislation for a dedicated revenue stream to fund public safety, and (3) Before the council actually voted to increase taxes, he submitted petitions from over 5,000 Atlanta citizens which supported his position and urged the City Council to end furloughs.
What has Norwood done?
In other words, he used the “Gotcha!” politics to fuel his campaign.
REEKS of back-room politics….
Franklin and company did a great job of framing the whole tax debate around police and fire. What this is really about is fueling the bloated, political machine, that became even more bloated under Shirley.
What needs to happen is increase furloughs and/or have massive layoffs on all of Shirley’s patronage cronies at City Hall and don’t touch fire and police (one of the few functions a city is actually supposed to provide).
Of course the media buys into the whole “increase taxes or lose police and fire” PR spin hook line and sinker. All of the television and newspaper images showed fire stations and firemen, when it should have shown the parade of lazy bureaucrats entering City Hall.
It doesn’t take a genius. The population of Atlanta is smaller than it was 20 years ago, with massive increases on the City payroll, but very few increases at the police and fire departments.
Kasim doesn’t like the idea of cutting the payroll at City Hall because he hopes to ride the Jackson/Franklin political machine to victory, and then make it bigger for the next chosen one.
Sidewalks are antonyms to furloughs.
Adding sidewalks to one’s pol accomplishments is universally loved. Fuloughs are universally hated.
Gotcha!
I give Norwood and any other council member a lot of credit for voting against the tax increase. Mayor Franklin responded to one of Norwood’s comments from a debate and said that she was disappointed that Mary and others failed to step up and make the hard decision to vote for a tax increase.
The hard thing to do in a time like this is not raise taxes. City of Atlanta government has been reported to have 2000 more employees that cities of equal size. Instead of taking more money from the people, which would be the easy thing to do, they should look at how the city is run and cut the fat. That’s the tough decision and I support Norwood and anyone who voted the same.
*safety
Btw, @ joshua morris – Words can have more than one meaning…
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hallowed
hal·low (hāl’ō)
tr.v. hal·lowed, hal·low·ing, hal·lows
2. To respect or honor greatly; revere
Jeff:
How is Reed the “weaker” candidate when: (1) He actually had the gumption to go on record and say that he supported ending furloughs (instead of complaining that he didn’t have the information to make an informative decision), (2) He actually proposed a solution to the problem — During the last legislative session, he sponsored legislation for a dedicated revenue stream to fund public safety, and (3) Before the council actually voted to increase taxes, he submitted petitions from over 5,000 Atlanta citizens which supported his position and urged the City Council to end furloughs.
What has Norwood done?
No, actually, Reed did propose a solution.
Mr. Reed should run a similar ad instead of talking junk about Norwood’s ad.
So Paul – you bought the Mayor’s extortion argument as a vote against public safety. The vote you are referring to was the Mayor’s budget and she said if you don’t gimme a tax increase I’m gone make your children unsafe. The 7 Council members said we already have the highest taxes in the State and we have recession and we are not gonna ask our folks to pay anymore. The 8 that voted for it said we don’t care that we have the highest taxes in the State and employers are moving out of the City – afterall we have jobs and don’t need anymore…..
Paul – your candidate’s argument ain’t gonna fly cause everybody knows it just ain’t true – including the media. Your argument is really that City Hall is efficient and no fat could be cut or maybe it’s that of the 56 million generated only 18 went to public safety but who is counting…..
So now I know who Mary is up against – this should be landslide.
On another note, from reading his press release, Kasim clearly thinks the citizens of Atlanta are not paying enough taxes.
So Reed is running on a Pro-Ox platform?
An interesting article. Some leftist Emory Professor is now saying when you criticize the City of Atlanta’s government you are attacking black people. When the chips are down, and you don’t have any intellectual substance, it’s time to pull the race card from out of your sleeve.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/10/21/when-you-attack-city-hall-youre-also-attacking-black-politics/
http://notkasim.blogspot.com
If it bleeds, it leads.
or so the saying goes.
If 11Alive™ can use murder and gore to ’sell’ automobiles and drugs on the nightly news, then why can’t the clown car known as the Norwood campaign do the same?
Earth to Kasim: Desperate people do desperate things, even if it involves striding through the blood of others.
Hopefully you are not suggesting that Kasim have her hit to win the election,
yeah!
wait…what?
noooooo…..
Buzz and others PP Bloggers picking Norwood over the “dark horse”, shocking…
Folks talked about the audacity of peoples who looked like Obama voting for him – one wonders if this is really any different?
I can’t wait to see what Pete Randall has to say about Kasim Reed.
Yawn.
Why don’t you look to see what the bloggers have to say about Ceasar Mitchell. Seems like the only people who interject race into every discussion are the only ones evaluating candidates based on skin color.
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