Here are a series of photos from tonight’s candidate forum.
The hosts for the evening
Liz Carter (Ga-4) at Candidate Forum
Georiga Sec of state candidates Doug MacGinnitie & Angela Moore
I’d do more captioning but it’s nearly 2 a.m. I still have video uploading and I’ve been up since 6 so we will schedule this for the morning and pick things up when I wake.
This morning I spent a couple of hours in Mamie’s kitchen in Lithonia Ga talking to the various patrons and eating some breakfast.
Breakfast at Mamie's Kitchen
If there is one thing that being here in Georgia is going to do, it’s going to spoil me when it comes to Bacon, only the slab Bacon at Romano’s compares to what I’ve gotten here (I’d take Romano’s sausage but that’s fresh made and Italian. All sausage is local?) the breakfast was first rate and the people were pretty friendly especially considering that I was an outsider disturbing them during breakfast.
A steady line both at the counter and the drive through window
I talked to several people at Mamie’s of all different jobs, Truck Driver, landscaper, student and the CEO of a company that employs 150 people. Almost all of the people I talked to were transplants and the basic things I found was this:
Very few people seem to be following the race closely at this time.
There is an inordinate amount of transplanted people in this area (Lithonia).
There are two reason people come to GA in general and Ga-4 in particular Quality of Life (So far the food really backs that up) and Jobs.
Among the black community it is going to be very tough for a republican to draw votes.
From talking to the people, how they think and the way they live, this should not be so, particularly if you have a conservative values republican. Such a candidate should fit like a glove. This is a question I will need to explore deeper while I’m here.
One final thing that all the people I met had in common. I liked them. They are good people and I think every one of them would be a neighbor I’d like living on my street.
I interviewed several people on Waverly Ave about the raids:
The person I spoke to first was Marilyn
UPDATE: I know Marilyn was under the weather but whatever was troubling her seems to have affected the video, I’ll re-upload it asap.
Here is a quick pan of the neighborhood:
The most popular person in the neighborhood at least as far as the media was concerned was Barbara Lacerra who took video of the arrest of Mohammad Bakht Zameen
At one point the FBI headed for the Elderly public housing project next door
I went over to see what was going on but was turned away, supposedly they were having lunch. After all even FBI agents have to eat.
I took another pan of the reporters:
And then interviewed Bill
and then after a quick peek of Channel fives closing