I know that it's been a rough couple of days, but perhaps things are worse than I thought for the Taylor campaign. Tonight I saw a rather desperate ad that questions Cathy Cox's support of the lottery that funded the HOPE scholarship. Give me a break. It's clear that the gloves are off in this race, and that's fine, but let's look at the facts about Cathy's support of HOPE.
When Cathy Cox was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, she voted to increase school funding and to expand the HOPE scholarship. Not only did she vote for the first and second round of funding for HOPE, but she also voted to remove the eligibility cap on family income and to enact safeguards to protect the scholarship. She also toured South Georgia in support of the program. If you doubt any of that, here's the record:
Cathy Cox voted for budgets increasing education funding.
HB 202, 1995, HB 1375, 1994, HB 259, 1993: Cathy Cox's 1993 budget vote funded the first HOPE scholarships.
HB 202, 1993: Her 1995 budget vote removed the income cap on HOPE scholarships.
HB 202, 1995: In 1994, Cathy voted for SB 710, which mandated that no program started with funding from the lottery would be continued with general funds and for SB 711 which created a lottery reserve fund.
In 1995, Cathy was one of five state legislators that toured South Georgia touting the Democrats' record on HOPE. The Democratic presentations were focused on the technical details of Gov. Zell Miller's proposals to fund pre-kindergarten programs and the HOPE scholarship program.
Those are the facts that make it clear that Cathy Cox has always supported HOPE. Unfortunately, HOPE did not solve all the problems our schools face. We are still near the bottom in test scores and four in ten of our children disappear between ninth grade and graduation. It is almost obscene to brag about our accomplishments in education when faced with such grim results. This begs the question: What good is HOPE if you never graduate? Cathy Cox has put forward a detailed plan for the future of education in Georgia. Perhaps if Mark Taylor can stop staring in the rear view mirror long enough, he can tell us what "hope" he offers for the future.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Taylor Throws a Punch and Misses
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3 comments:
Both Cox and Taylor are smart to court women's votes, and they are. Women are likely to be 60% of the primary voters, and they make up the largest % of the late deciders. And, I think that Taylor played the gender card first and in a BIG way by idenitfying himself repeatedly as the Big Guy. No gal in that picture.
Not only has Amy done a great of job reporting the facts on Cathy Cox's support of HOPE. But now it looks like Taylor's source disagrees with "the big guy." He calls Taylor's story a "political fabrication."
The author of the article, that Taylor cites as his source, and the editor of the Miller County Liberal speaks:
http://www.cathycox.com/content/209/taylors-source-calls-attack-ad-political-fabrication
There's no way to defend this. This is just downright dirty, deceitful, and disrepectful to the intelligence of Georgia's voters.
How convenient to cite a source when it seems to back up your "political fabrication." But when your own source (who was there, btw) corrects you, that's not good enough? I just have to wonder, who is lying to themselves here?
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