Yesterday, the Lee County GOP hosted a forum for all FIVE GOP candidates who hope to challenge Sanford Bishop this fall. Yes, you heard that right, there are now FIVE GOP candidates – Lee Ferrell of Albany, Mike Keown of Thomasville, Rudy Adams of Montezuma, Bobby Brown or Thomasville, and the newcomer Rick Allen of Columbus.
I was in attendance with my video camera, and I’ve posted all of the speeches and questions to the SWGAPolitics.com youtube channel. I am also putting them here, as per my usual custom. I also want to just briefly mention that at least one Lee County Commissioner picked up a Mike Keown sign after the event, and I simply wish to publicly remind this Commissioner that said sign cannot be placed in the Commissioner’s yard – or anywhere else in the County – prior to May 21 under the Lee County Sign Ordinance. If this Commissioner wishes to place the sign before that date, the Commissioner needs to work with the other Commissioners to suspend or repeal at least the political sign regulations of this Sign Ordinance.
The candidates were given 10 minutes for their initial speech, and Rudy Adams and Rick Allen went over this time, hence their speech being broken into two roughly 5 min videos. The other three candidates’ speeches came in at under 10 min, and are therefore unedited in any form, other than to add the “swgapolitics.com” in the bottom right corner. After the speeches was a question/answer time, with Charlie Prochaska, James “Country” Hattaway, Don Cole, Jimmie Brown, and Tom Heldenberg questioning the candidates about various issues. Charlie asked about taxes, James about the End the Fed movement and “sound” money, Don about campaign organization and current financing, Jimmie about healthcare reform, and Tom asked about term limits.
Without further ado (other than the jump), here are the twelve videos from the event:
Rudy Adams Part 1
Rudy Adams Part 2
Rick Allen Part 1
Rick Allen Part 2
Bobby Brown
Lee Ferrell
Mike Keown
Prochaska Question
Hattaway Question
Cole Question
Brown Question
Heldenberg Question
Nicely put together Jeff. Thanks
Mike Keown definitely won the debate.
First, what I was disappointed in from Mike:
First, I was disappointed that he wasn’t totally informed on the Federal Reserve, but at least we’d have a Congressman that is honest with us and doesn’t try to “b.s.” his way through it.
And second, during the questioning time he let his head hang down quite a bit. As an award-winning public speaker, I guess it’s just a preference of mine to see candidates with their heads held up because leaving them down signals defeat in the minds of the people.
Onto the positive about Mike:
He was energetic! I could barely hear the other candidates and was practically asleep through some of the speeches. Mike was clearly fired up and ready to take on Congressman Bishop.
He proved that he has the grassroots necessary across the district in order to beat Bishop, something the other candidates lacked. He also proved he is strong fundraiser, having over $200,000 in the banked which is half of what Bishop has, but compared to the other Republican candidates who have virtually nothing, that’s impressive.
And the cheap stabs taken at him before and after the forum:
All of the accusations up against him almost made me want to laugh. When Rudy Adams said that a candidate didn’t need money to win the race, I had to hold myself together not to burst out saying, “how in the WORLD are we supposed to beat Bishop if we can’t pay for advertising, gas to travel across our HUGE district, and direct mailings, along side other campaign necessities?!”
He was also slammed for being the only candidate with experience and for serving in the GA state legislature. Is being an elected official a crime? I don’t have a problem with him for being a state legislature for two reasons:
1) He has had a clean record and he has voted for what his constituents have wanted 100% of the time.
2) He is disliked by the Republican “establishment.” The Republican leadership in Atlanta doesn’t like Mike because he doesn’t, “tow the party line.” Mike actually votes for what his constituents want, not what the Speaker of the House tells him to vote for.
And the accusations coming from Lee Ferrell’s campaign (I heard the accusation come straight from his mouth before the forum started) about Don Cole being Mike Keown’s campaign manager are absurd. Mike has no campaign manager as of this moment. Mike DID hire Don’s consulting firm to get his campaign of the ground last August, but did not hire Don as an individual to work on his campaign.
In summation:
All-in-all, Mike is the only candidate with the passion, the fervor, the knowledge, the campaign experience, and the ability to beat Bishop in November. And on top of all of that, he’s a great guy.
Rudy Adams came across as a crazy, “birther” and conspiracy theorist. That’s definitely NOT what we need.
Rick Allen was unpolished and unready, though in the future he could be a force to be reckoned with. I’ll be keeping a close eye on him.
Bobby Brown has been called Mike Keown’s, “biggest threat” up until this point. In the forum, he was quiet and read right off the script (no passion!). Bishop would tear him to shreds.
And Lee Ferrell, well Lee showed all of us that he couldn’t beat Bishop ’08. His fundraising proves he doesn’t have the networking to pull off a win. And that goes for all of the candidates; even Mike Keown’s networking doesn’t extend far enough to get Bishop out of office yet.
Really? I have to agree with the comments from Kyle. Mike definitely won this round; it was clear that he had the passion as well as the knowledge and experience.
I couldn’t believe Lee Ferrell began by stating that he was trying to figure out what he was going to say when his speech fell out from when he first announced his candidacy. Really? Wouldn’t you come to this type of event prepared?
My attention was not well kept with most of these speeches, but Mike did capture my attention with his passion (and volume). I know where to look when I need help sleeping at night, though!