A First for U.S. Senate Campaign in Georgia

I've done some checking, and near as I can tell, this has never been done before in a U.S. Senate Campaign in Georgia. Tomorrow evening, the Martin Campaign is coordinating a statewide "Virtual Town Hall" event for women. Women attending the event will have an opportunity to ask questions of the candidate, unscripted, in real time, and the media is invited to participate.

This Virtual Town Hall Meeting will also be streamed live. Follow this link. Only those attending one of several parties around the state will be able to ask questions of Jim, but everyone can watch the live stream. And, lucky you in Middle Georgia, Lauren Benedict is hosting one of the parties at her home, and YOU are invited to attend. Here's the info:

Media Advisory: October 13, 2008
Contacts: Lauren Benedict - (478) 973-0630, llbenedict@bostonlawmacon.com , or
Amy Morton – (478) 747-7450 amymorton@aol.com

Middle Georgia Women to Participate in “Virtual Town Hall” With Jim Martin

Macon, Ga. – Women from around Middle Georgia will participate in a virtual town hall on Tuesday, October 14th with Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Jim Martin. Supporters and undecided voters will gather at the home of Lauren Benedict Tuesday evening at 6:30 to call in and ask Martin Questions about the issues on their minds.

The gathering is free and open to the press.

WHO: Democratic and undecided women; Jim Martin, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.

WHAT: Virtual Town Hall, participants will call in to Martin’s campaign headquarters for an open question and answer session.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 14th, 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: 360-A Vista Circle
Macon Georgia 31204

PARKING: Please, park in the blank or unnumbered spaces.

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There's a New Blogger in Town

Welcome, Macon City Councilwomen, Lauren Benedict, the newest contributor to GWV! We're looking forward to hearing more from her about city business.

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Caption Contest

I snapped this photo at the Hirshhorn Museum last week. The medium here, if you cannot tell is paper covered coat hangers. One proposed caption is below the picture. Submit your own. The best will make the front page at the end of the day.

"Lauren Finally Organizes Her Closet"

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Breakfast Before the Caucus

Lauren Benedict, Tom Ellington and I would like to invite you to join us for breakfast before the caucus tomorrow. In the 8th congressional district, Tom and I are both running to be Obama delegates, and Lauren is running for an alternate post for Obama. The breakfast begins at 8 a.m. and the caucus begins at 10 a.m. There is plenty of parking behind my office, and it's an easy three block walk from the caucus location, Mercer Law School. So, join us for some breakfast, and then go with us to caucus for Obama. Here's the invite:

Candidates for Delegate for Barack Obama

Lauren Benedict, Tom Ellington, and Amy Morton

Invite you to Join us for

Breakfast

315 College Street, Ste., 150

Macon, Georgia

Saturday, April 19, 2008

8 a.m.

Before the

Historic Democratic Caucus

Mercer University School of Law

1021 Georgia AvenueMacon, Georgia

10:00 a.m.

*Parking is awailable behind 315 College Street, witihin walking distance of the Law School.

Please come, join us for breakfast, and then go with us to vote for delegates for Sen. Barack Obama. RSVP to (478) 741-1138 for breakfast.

*Doors to the caucus will open at 9 a.m., and participants MUST be in line to register NO LATER than 10 a.m.

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Politics and Lunch, Redux

POLITICS AND LUNCH IS BACK!
Friday, March 28th at Noon
SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: MACON MAYOR ROBERT REICHERT

We’ve heard you. After taking three months off, Politics and Lunch is back and promises to be better than ever. Make plans NOW to be part of the special kick-off luncheon on Friday, March 28th at noon. We will be at a BRAND NEW location, The City Club of Macon, 355 First Street, Fourth Floor and Macon Mayor Robert Reichert will be our special guest speaker. As always, Politics and Lunch is a monthly “lunch and learn” event for all who are interested in how politics connects with public policy and quality of life in our community. There is no membership requirement and everyone is welcome to attend, but there are some important changes:

· We do need to know that you are coming, so RSVP to AmyMorton@aol.com by 3/26.

· The cost for lunch, including an excellent buffet, non-alcoholic drink, tax and tip is now $15.00. All who attend will be expected to pay for lunch, so plan to come and enjoy a delicious meal.

· NO CREDIT OR DEBIT CARDS. PLEASE bring correct change or plan to write a check to the City Club. The City Club is not set up to take individual payments, so local attorney Jim Rockefeller will be acting a treasurer and collecting the money for the group. Help Jim by having your correct change ready!

Special thanks to The Boston Law Firm and Macon City Councilwomen Lauren Benedict for making it possible to have the luncheon this month at The City Club. Finding a great restaurant with enough space has been a challenge. This is a trial run this month at the City Club to see how we like it and how it works out for the Club. We can help make this the permanent home by giving the Club an accurate head count, so please be sure to send your RSVP to AmyMorton@aol.com or call (478) 741-1138. See you there!

Lauren Benedict
Amy Morton
Jim Rockefeller

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Sources Say

Democratic Macon City Councilmembers Lauren Benedict, Tom Ellington and Larry Schlesinger may be toying with the idea of forming a PAC in support of embattled speaker Glenn Richardson-an acknowledgement of Richardson's recent advocacy for a women's right to choose and the daily bad press the Speaker provides for the Georgia GOP. Embattled blogger and Macon City Councilman Erick Erickson has been tapped to design the logo.

I am, of course, joking, but Erickson, Benedict, Ellington and Schlesinger are together in Athens this weekend at the newly elected officials training, and appear to have a little too much time on their hands.

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Macon City Councilwomen Lauren Benedict

Lots of folks who read this blog supported Lauren Benedict in her house race in 2006. You may not know that she was elected to Macon City Council this year, and those who supported her in the house race helped make it possible. She was sworn in Tuesday night. Congratulations, Lauren!

Here's photographic evidence:

Erick Erickson, Nancy White, Lauren Benedict

12/11/2007, Macon City Council

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Kudos to Some New Macon Council Members

Macon's new city council, including some certified newbies, will be sworn in on December 11th. Long before the swearing in-and well before the inevitable swearing at-a number of the newly elected members have made it their business to attend committee meetings, council work sessions and regular council meetings. Lauren Benedict, Larry Schlesinger, Virgil Watkins and Tom Ellington have attended often, and Lonnie Miley has attended occasionally. Of course, Miley has been on council before. Two work session-orientation session have been held, one Nov. 29th and one on Nov. 15th. Benedict, Schlesinger, Watkins and Ellington all attended both sessions. Outgoing council member Cole Thomason even came to the first orientation session to offer helpful advice. I hear that Erick Erickson may have missed these work sessions, and I find that surprising, though I know it does take a lot of time to be, what was it, the 69th most influential conservative...

While there's no requirement that newly elected members of council start attending meeting prior to taking office, it certainly seems like it would make the transition easier for the city and for the new members. So, big props to those who have chosen to begin serving even before they are "official." I think this bodes well for the council's future work.

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Who Should Be President of Macon City Council?

Who should be the next President of Macon City Council? Of the fifteen members of Macon City Council, the five who are elected city-wide are eligible to become the next President of Council. Voters don't choose the President-the Council members do-but, here's your chance to have your say. Vote here, and feel free to post your reasons in the comments:

Opinion Polls & Market Research

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Is Race the Third Rail?

Race is just hard for us to talk about; at least it is in my community. Social security may be the "third rail" in national politics, but in Macon, the "third rail" is race. Touch it, and you might die. We live in a wonderfully diverse community. Folks here have continually tried to talk about race, in both formal and informal ways, but it remains the third rail, the thing that we're afraid to touch-perhaps for good reasons.

Our school system is facing a vote on a controversial redistricting plan. Race is an issue in that plan, and we can't talk about it openly. But we must.

Yesterday, Phil Dodson wrote a column for the Telegraph suggesting that the next City Council President be an African American, and today he's drawn fire. He makes the not-so-subtle suggestion that unless Council elects Miriam Paris then they are "just a bunch of politicians out to improve their lot." I like Miriam, but I think that Dodson's conclusion is a stretch. Also, in the article, when he says that Lauren Benedict has actively sought the President's spot, he's just dead wrong.

And, over the last two weeks, I've watched as two wonderful women, Dr. Catherine Meeks and City Councilwomen Nancy White, touched the third rail, and there were plenty of people waiting to point and chatter. I know these women. They are both good people. They are often part of the solution. Neither deserved the filleting they got.

Today, Joni Woolf, a women who seems to grow more wise every day, who has been part of this community for a long time, wrote the following letter to the editor of the Telegraph. She says what I want to say, far more eloquently than I can:

Denying history no way to press forward


During the past several weeks I have read with interest the columns and letters related to the torturous and unresolved status of race relations in our community and in our culture. They bring to mind a quote from the legendary Mississippi writer, William Faulkner, who said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
As a culture accustomed to living "in the moment," we simply cannot accept that reality. Everything begins anew, right now, today. We love that expression, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Well that may be, but we all have histories, and for blacks in this community and throughout the South (and some of the North), modern black history did not begin the day school integration became the law of the land. And to say that blacks have had equal opportunity ever since Brown v. Board of Education is to deny all of the history that went before that decision, and much that has transpired since.
We are all the sum total, not only of our own experiences, but of the experiences of our parents and grandparents - experiences that were repeated over and over and became family lore; experiences that short-changed generations of parents and grandparents and great-grandparents who were not allowed to learn to read and write and study at our schools and universities, based simply on the color of their skin. These are realities. Passing a new law that says we all go to school together does not automatically give us all equal footing at the starting gate.
Race is an uncomfortable topic for most of us. We would rather believe that everything is fine (and if it's not, it's their fault); that we are comfortable with things the way they are, and just forget the centuries of violence and injustice that destroyed the hopes and dreams of generations of black Americans before today's "equal playing ground" arrived. We may not like to talk about it. And we may keep denying our own culpability in the patterns of racism that still permeate much of our culture. Our denials don't change the reality: The past is never dead. It's not even past. It's time we looked it in the face. Then, perhaps, we can move on.

Joni Woolf is a Macon resident.

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Photographing History

Every now and then, you happen on history, and happen to have a camera. Below are some photographs of Thursday's press conference at the Capitol.

Barnes stood in the rotunda of the building where he once governed and endorsed fellow southerner, John Edwards for President. He was joined at the podium by a number of elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, Sen. Seay, Sen. Fort and our own Lauren Benedict. I can't remember the last time Taylor and Barnes appeared together at at press conference at the capitol, but this was Taylor's first press conference since the 2006 election. In the audience and at the podium, there were individuals who represented key constituencies of our Party: elected officials, party establishment, young democrats, civil right leaders, fundraisers-all together, at the place where Democrats once held the reigns of power. The moment was rich with symbolism that was lost on no one.

Here are some pictures:


A reporter asked Barnes why he thought that Edwards could win the Georgia primary in 2008, when he did not win in 2004. Barnes replied, "Sometimes, you learn more from defeat than from victory."

Barnes' sense of humor was intact, too. At one point in the conference, we heard a sneeze from somewhere upstairs, prompting Barnes to quip, "Sonny, is that you?"

Lauren Benedict and Melita Easters Endorse John Edwards



Barnes and Taylor Appear Together at Capitol Press Conference to Endorse Edwards

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Lauren Benedict Stands Up for Mary Long

See what Lauren Benedict, DPG State Committee member and soon-to-be Macon City Councilwoman, has to say about Mary Long's candidacy for DNC representative. This position will be elected at the State Committee meeting in Macon on Aug. 4th.

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Lauren Benedict Caught in the Act

The act of qualifying for the Ward 5, Post 1 Macon City Council Seat, that is. Qualifying for all seats ends tomorrow. As you can see in the pictures, her special assistant, and Goddaughter, Isabelle Cusson, was among those accompanying her to the Board of Elections. Best of luck, Lauren. You'll do a great job on City Council!

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Showing Some Love for Lauren

Wow, this is pretty cool. Announce you're running one day, get a letter of support in the paper the next. Here's the letter from the Telegraph:


Benedict for Council

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse the candidacy of Lauren Benedict for City Council. I have known Lauren for many years and have found her to be an open and honest person. When our church was in a time of transition, Lauren took a strong role in the leadership of the church and helped it through a difficult time. I am sure she will bring this same strong decisive leadership to the City Council.

Michael Webb Macon

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Benedict to Run for Macon City Council

This just in...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



May 8, 2007

Contact: David Cusson

Phone: (478) 803-0113 Fax: (478) 803-0162

E-Mail: electlaurenbenedict@yahoo.com



Lauren Benedict Announces Candidacy for Macon City Council



Macon – Lauren Benedict announced her candidacy for Macon City Council, Ward V, Post 1 today. "The people of Macon deserve a representative on Council who will be their voice and who will insist that government is both fiscally responsible and accountable to the people," said Benedict. "That's the kind of council member I will be.”

Benedict, a 2005 graduate of Leadership Macon, is already actively engaged in the community as member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, past member of the Junior League of Macon and pro bono legal council to the Executive Director and Board of Directors for Loaves and Fishes, a homeless and transitional housing ministry.

“My desire to serve the people of Macon on City Council is a natural extension of the work I am already doing in the community,” Benedict said.

As a partner in the Boston Law Firm, practicing in the areas of Workers’ Compensation and Social Security, Benedict is a daily advocate for everyday working people. As a business owner, she understands the importance of the City's interface with the business community and the importance of economic development.

“In every challenge Macon faces, I see an opportunity," said Benedict. “ I know that with the right leadership, we can work together to make Macon a stronger and more vibrant city.”

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