Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,864
- 2,040
Hummmmmmm. Now who was that, who said it was the Republicans using scare tactics?
By JEREMY REDMON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/27/06
A group of Democrats began mailing a racially provocative campaign flier this week that compares Gov. Sonny Perdue's support of the state's overturned photo ID law to the struggle for black voting rights in the 1960s.
Aimed at black voters, the mailer includes a 1965 photo of a policeman swinging a club at an African-American, while other police break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. The headline says: "Remember this? Their last attempt to stop us from voting."
Angela Moore, a former Democratic candidate for secretary of state, admits she and others have distributed the flier.
Below that photo is a picture of the Republican governor with a caption that says he is signing the photo ID bill. The second headline says: "Their current attempt to stop us from voting."
The flier additionally warns: "Don't let the Bush/Perdue Republican mafia take away your vote!" And it urges voters to support Democrats running for statewide offices in Georgia, including Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, the Democratic nominee for governor.
Angela Moore, a former Democratic candidate for secretary of state, said she sent the flier by e-mail to 42,000 people Wednesday. Volunteers started distributing 1.3 million copies by hand and through the mail to voters across the state, she said. Moore said she has been delivering batches of them to volunteers in DeKalb, Fulton, Henry, Clayton and Rockdale counties, which have sizeable black populations.
"The same thing that Sonny is doing by signing that ID bill is in essence the same exact thing as turning a hose on people and letting the dogs loose," said Moore, who is best known for the catchy "Vote for Miss Angela" campaign rap song from her failed bid in the Democratic primary this summer.
Moore denied the mailing targets black voters, saying volunteers are handing them out to people of all races. "It is definitely not a black issue," Moore insisted.
Moore first said she didn't know who produced the mailer, contending that more than 300,000 copies were anonymously left at her home in DeKalb County. Upon further questioning, she said she and more than 50 others across the state, predominantly white Democrats, paid for it. Moore said the donors include local elected officials from counties across Georgia, but she declined to identify them or say how much the fliers cost.
"I don't want Perdue or Bush coming after me," she said of her initial reluctance to disclose her involvement.
The Perdue campaign called the mailer "a disgusting act by desperate people."
"Georgians of all races will be sickened to see just how low Mark Taylor and his Democrat friends will sink," Perdue campaign spokesman Derrick Dickey said.
Taylor's campaign had nothing to do with the ad, said Taylor campaign spokesman Rick Dent. Emil Runge, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said his organization also had nothing to do with it.
The flier doesn't identify its source. State law prohibits people from distributing any literature "in connection with any political campaign for any public office" unless the material bears "the name and address of the person or organization distributing" it.
Moore said she and the other people behind the photo ID flier are not working with any specific "political campaign," so their efforts are legal. A spokesman for the secretary of state's office, which investigates such matters for the State Elections Board, declined to comment on the legality of the flier.
The photo ID law, pushed by Republicans as a ballot security measure, was challenged in both state and federal courts, and ultimately found to be in violation of the Georgia Constitution as an unnecessary impediment to voting.
Political candidates routinely mail out attack fliers to fire up their supporters and drive them to the polls on Election Day.
"These are tried and true tactics used all over the country in order to stimulate turnout, especially in a mid-term elections when it is relatively low," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Univeristy of Virginia Center for Politics. "You have to get people agitated. You have to get them mad. So you pick hot-button issues. For blacks, denial of the right to vote. For social conservatives, gay rights."
During the Democratic primary this summer, for example, Taylor's campaign sent out a mailer saying Secretary of State Cathy Cox "stood by the new voting restrictions" in the photo ID law. The mail piece, aimed at black voters, included photos of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American civil rights legends, saying: "They fought for our right to vote. She voted to restrict it."
A spokesman for Cox said the mailer twisted her record and added that Cox opposes the photo ID law but had an obligation as secretary of state to legally defend it. Georgia's photo ID law was overturned Sept. 19. Photo ID is not required for voters in Georgia.
This month, Perdue hammered Taylor with a fold-out, full-color mailer targeting socially conservative voters. The mailer accuses the lieutenant governor of putting "the interests of the radical homosexual lobby ahead of our Boy Scouts," a charge Taylor denies.
Moore would identify only one other person who helped pay for the flier she is distributing, Dave Harris, a marketing and advertising worker from Riverdale. Harris said he is so strongly opposed to the photo ID law that he decided to make a "nominal donation" for the cost of the fliers and agree to hand them out at Southlake Mall and other shopping centers.
"I have watched the struggle," Harris said before mentioning King and other civil rights leaders. "These guys fought for what? Our right to vote. It seems like it is being taken away or we are being bamboozled out of it."
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2006/10/26/1027metflier.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/27/06
A group of Democrats began mailing a racially provocative campaign flier this week that compares Gov. Sonny Perdue's support of the state's overturned photo ID law to the struggle for black voting rights in the 1960s.
Aimed at black voters, the mailer includes a 1965 photo of a policeman swinging a club at an African-American, while other police break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. The headline says: "Remember this? Their last attempt to stop us from voting."
Angela Moore, a former Democratic candidate for secretary of state, admits she and others have distributed the flier.
Below that photo is a picture of the Republican governor with a caption that says he is signing the photo ID bill. The second headline says: "Their current attempt to stop us from voting."
The flier additionally warns: "Don't let the Bush/Perdue Republican mafia take away your vote!" And it urges voters to support Democrats running for statewide offices in Georgia, including Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, the Democratic nominee for governor.
Angela Moore, a former Democratic candidate for secretary of state, said she sent the flier by e-mail to 42,000 people Wednesday. Volunteers started distributing 1.3 million copies by hand and through the mail to voters across the state, she said. Moore said she has been delivering batches of them to volunteers in DeKalb, Fulton, Henry, Clayton and Rockdale counties, which have sizeable black populations.
"The same thing that Sonny is doing by signing that ID bill is in essence the same exact thing as turning a hose on people and letting the dogs loose," said Moore, who is best known for the catchy "Vote for Miss Angela" campaign rap song from her failed bid in the Democratic primary this summer.
Moore denied the mailing targets black voters, saying volunteers are handing them out to people of all races. "It is definitely not a black issue," Moore insisted.
Moore first said she didn't know who produced the mailer, contending that more than 300,000 copies were anonymously left at her home in DeKalb County. Upon further questioning, she said she and more than 50 others across the state, predominantly white Democrats, paid for it. Moore said the donors include local elected officials from counties across Georgia, but she declined to identify them or say how much the fliers cost.
"I don't want Perdue or Bush coming after me," she said of her initial reluctance to disclose her involvement.
The Perdue campaign called the mailer "a disgusting act by desperate people."
"Georgians of all races will be sickened to see just how low Mark Taylor and his Democrat friends will sink," Perdue campaign spokesman Derrick Dickey said.
Taylor's campaign had nothing to do with the ad, said Taylor campaign spokesman Rick Dent. Emil Runge, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said his organization also had nothing to do with it.
The flier doesn't identify its source. State law prohibits people from distributing any literature "in connection with any political campaign for any public office" unless the material bears "the name and address of the person or organization distributing" it.
Moore said she and the other people behind the photo ID flier are not working with any specific "political campaign," so their efforts are legal. A spokesman for the secretary of state's office, which investigates such matters for the State Elections Board, declined to comment on the legality of the flier.
The photo ID law, pushed by Republicans as a ballot security measure, was challenged in both state and federal courts, and ultimately found to be in violation of the Georgia Constitution as an unnecessary impediment to voting.
Political candidates routinely mail out attack fliers to fire up their supporters and drive them to the polls on Election Day.
"These are tried and true tactics used all over the country in order to stimulate turnout, especially in a mid-term elections when it is relatively low," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Univeristy of Virginia Center for Politics. "You have to get people agitated. You have to get them mad. So you pick hot-button issues. For blacks, denial of the right to vote. For social conservatives, gay rights."
During the Democratic primary this summer, for example, Taylor's campaign sent out a mailer saying Secretary of State Cathy Cox "stood by the new voting restrictions" in the photo ID law. The mail piece, aimed at black voters, included photos of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American civil rights legends, saying: "They fought for our right to vote. She voted to restrict it."
A spokesman for Cox said the mailer twisted her record and added that Cox opposes the photo ID law but had an obligation as secretary of state to legally defend it. Georgia's photo ID law was overturned Sept. 19. Photo ID is not required for voters in Georgia.
This month, Perdue hammered Taylor with a fold-out, full-color mailer targeting socially conservative voters. The mailer accuses the lieutenant governor of putting "the interests of the radical homosexual lobby ahead of our Boy Scouts," a charge Taylor denies.
Moore would identify only one other person who helped pay for the flier she is distributing, Dave Harris, a marketing and advertising worker from Riverdale. Harris said he is so strongly opposed to the photo ID law that he decided to make a "nominal donation" for the cost of the fliers and agree to hand them out at Southlake Mall and other shopping centers.
"I have watched the struggle," Harris said before mentioning King and other civil rights leaders. "These guys fought for what? Our right to vote. It seems like it is being taken away or we are being bamboozled out of it."
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2006/10/26/1027metflier.html
