Paul_Yates's Blog

The Georgia General Assembly enters the final days of this year's session with outcomes still to be decided on the key issues of tax cuts and trauma care and transportation improvements. This legislative deadline-crashing now occurs under Republican leaders who watched decades of Democratic feuding. Georgia GOP leaders have shown they know how to fight pitched battles against each other as well.

After a heated conclusion to last year's gathering, legislators face the election-year challenge of reconciling competing tax cuts. Will the car tag tax be eliminated as the House wants? Will the state's income tax be reduced as the Senate has proposed? What will be the impact of Gov. Perdue opposition to both tax cut proposals during the economic downturn?

The governor also has clearly demonstrated his opposition to Sunday package sales of alcoholic beverages. Sunday sales advocates must decide whether to make a last-ditch attempt to win approval for the measure anyway.

As for the governor, he will spend the scheduled final week of this year's legislative session in China. Delta took him there for a trade mission on the airline's inaugural direct flight to Shanghai. It may or may not have been a good time to get out of town.

Jamie Sibold is a Dunwoody lawyer and the chairman of the DeKalb Republican Party and an enthusiastic volunteer supporter of Sen. John McCain. He just returned from a week at his own expense in New Hampshire with an interesting story on the results for his candidate and others.

Jamie ran a phone bank for the McCain campaign targeting independent voters. He reports his squad of young callers had significant success in winning vote pledges from the all-important New Hampshire independents. According to his anecdotal evidence, many of those voters were leaning toward support of Sen. Obama, but with some polls showing a big Obama lead against Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race, they decided to cast ballots in the Republican contest.

Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton got badly-needed wins and we are left to contemplate the influence of polls and unintended consequences on election outcomes