JOHNNY BE GONE – FOR GOOD

“It’s all good,” as the contemporary saying goes.

Embattled and embittered Alpharetta Councilman John Monson announced Friday he is abandoning his uphill bid for re-election for a second term, and will leave office when his current term expires in December. Monson, in an email to city officials, said he was taking on a new job that would conflict with his duties as a public servant.

We wish Mr. Monson well in his new professional endeavor.

THREE ALPHARETTA CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES SO FAR

There are three viable candidates that we know of vying for what are now at least two open seats on Alpharetta’s City Council in the November election. Councilman David Belle Isle (R), who is running for State Senate (D-56), still maintains he will not give up his seat until the April 2010 Senate filing deadline, even though it will cost the taxpayers he represents an extra $80,000 for a special election. The candidates include Windward Homeowners President Tom Miller, who told me Friday he was running for Monson’s seat; former Alpharetta Council candidate Michael Kennedy, who lost to Brandon Beach in 1999; and neighborhood activist Jeff Stallard, an ally of Councilman Doug DeRito. The other open seat is that of Mayor Pro-Tem Jim Paine, who cannot run for re-election due to Alpharetta’s term limits, but who plans to run for Alpharetta Mayor in 2011 when incumbent Arthur Letchas retires. We expect more candidates to emerge in August.

ROSWELL MAYOR UPDATE - A NEW SLOGAN FOR TOLLESON?

A longtime Roswell resident and well-known community activist who is not affiliated with any of the three mayoral campaigns called me earlier this week to recommend a new tag-line for the David Tolleson for Roswell Mayor campaign:

“Vote For Me! I Live East Of The Highway!”

The activist said the level of support Tolleson has harnessed on Roswell’s east side befuddles him. “My friends are down right giddy with the prospect of electing ‘one of their own’ - I just don’t get it,” he said. “They are acting like this is some magical moment in time for east Roswell. Who cares where who lives?” He asked. “This territorial electoral notion falls somewhere between silly and pathetic.”

Regardless, votes are votes and this dynamic puts Tolleson in the drivers seat to make what is certain to be a December run-off. The race is shifting almost by the day, and remains wide open. 

Don’t miss the inaugural debate co-sponsored by The Beacon and WGKA Radio 920 on August 13.

KAREN HANDEL CAMP: "WE'RE GOING TO WIN"

The top political strategist in the Handel for Governor campaign, Dan McLagan, took me to task last week, chiding me for reporting that his candidate, Madame Secretary, may pull out of the gubernatorial race by Labor Day. “We have never discussed it, and it is not on the table, nor has it ever been,” McLagan said. “It’s an unfounded rumor circulated by those who know Karen will win this race,” added the senior operative. McLagan, a veteran political campaign guru, emphasized that the Handel effort was “right on plan” in terms of fundraising and organization. McLagan emphasized that the Handel campaign has more than 900 donors to her campaign which “far outstrips any other candidate - despite their year head start,” and added that most of their donors can “keep on giving while [many] of Deal’s and Johnson’s [donors] are maxed out.”

McLagan further enumerated that the Handel campaign has signed up “500 volunteers across the state that are actively doing things every day” while simultaneously accumulating a data base of “nearly 30,000 who have expressed their support online or by telephone.” To top it off, McLagan said 27 county commissioners have endorsed Handel.

Addressing Handel’s sagging fundraising results, McLagan quipped, “The notion that the candidate with the most money wins is true, except that it never is.”

McLagan also dismissed recent polls that have reported serious voter slippage for Handel, insisting they were statistically insignificant. “Polls are irrelevant one year out,” McLagan said. “Just look at Linda Schrenko (GOP candidate for Georgia Governor) in 2002 and Hillary Clinton in 2008. Both had overwhelming poll leads one year out and neither won their respective races.”

MEANWHILE, SCOTT WALKS HIS WAY THROUGH GEORGIA

Taking on the role of the campaign’s Lewis and Clark expedition, long shot candidate Austin Scott, a little known state legislator from Tifton, continues his 1,000 mile trek through Georgia.

Scott’s “Walk of Georgia” endeavor started earnestly on June 27th in Chickamauga, and his campaign says he has just completed 500 miles. The walk marathon is designed to take Scott through 48 Georgia counties. “Candidates talk about listening to the voters of Georgia but never really give them a chance to be heard. I’m changing that with my Walk of Georgia,” he explained.

Scott is registering about two percent in recent polls, battling Gadfly State’s Rights candidate Ray McBerry for cellar dweller status in the GOP nomination pecking order. But you have to hand it to him, at least he’s found the only real solution to overcome the state’s horrific transportation woes: don’t drive - just walk. If he was traveling on foot from North Fulton County to Midtown on Ga. 400 at rush hour, he’d probably beat most cars down there. So the guy may be onto something.

IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP

GOP frontrunner John Oxendine seems to be the one candidate all his rivals, on two sides of the aisle, love to mock and defrock. Campaign officials - Republicans and Democrats - keep predicting to me that his demise is imminent like a mundane drone drumbeat. One likened the Oxendine campaign to a “deer that has been shot – it keeps on running for awhile, but then soon collapses and becomes a nice venison dinner.”

But Oxendine, quirky as he is, still maintains a commanding lead in the polls and we suspect that a good bit of his support is harder than anticipated, and cuts well beyond the soft name recognition that his rivals claim are boosting his numbers. Plus his volunteers are young, energetic, vibrant, and omnipotent. They’re everywhere. Last week, when cleaning out my truck, I uncovered about 500 Oxendine for Governor brochures that I kept tossing under the seat, given to me one at a time at virtually every event I’ve covered in the last three months by one of his many teenage volunteers brandishing those obnoxious “I’m for Ox” T-shirts. 

Oxendine is sure to be attacked relentlessly next spring by his GOP opponents, with accusations stemming from state car crashes he may have tried to conceal to leveraging his insurance cronies for campaign money and other goodies. But we still are not certain these heat-seeking missiles will resonate enough to knock him out of the run-off. To grasp our analysis, you have to look beyond the obvious.

A few months ago our loony-leftist editorial colleagues at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched a massive investigative reporting initiative against Oxendine. They marshaled what is left of their best journalistic talent and ran a four part, front page series over six weeks that was designed to discredit their target, who just happened to be the GOP poll-leader at the time (coincidental, no doubt). The result after all that: Oxendine gave back $120,000 of campaign money. His standing in the polls remained unchanged. No one cared much. Yawn.

But here is why this is as telling and trenchant as it is potentially predictive. The AJC’s journalistic assault on Oxendine was more about them then about him. They had just gone through what seemed like their tenth downsizing in as many months, and their new executives were eager to prove that what they reported on still mattered and carried real weight, even though their product had just morphed into “McPaper” status. The AJC was desperate to flex their muscle, so we surmise they chose what they believed to be an easy target. If their reporting wounded his standing, they could prove to us all they were still the state’s editorial kingpin. In some ways, they had higher stakes in this "investigative" initiative than the Oxendine campaign itself.

The outcome was a bust; the whole affair amounted to a hill of beans, and the Oxendine campaign, although $120,000 lighter in the wallet, emerged virtually unscathed politically. As we watched this unfold from our journalistic perspective, we witnessed a candidate who displayed more savvy and poise then meets the eye at first blush. More revealing is that the AJC’s accusations, some potentially serious, failed to oscillate with cursory voters. Maybe the allegations didn’t matter to people or maybe not enough metro Georgians care anymore what the AJC reports. Either way, we have to see better evidence before we write Oxendine off, and predict his looming and impending downfall.