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4A THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2006 Houston BaHjjJmmral OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans Managing Editor Editor Emeritus Interesting campaign ahead When does political campaigning cross the line from “telling it like it is” and “dirty politics”? • It is a question that voters have to answer during almost every political campaign. Candidates may enter a campaign as gentlemen, but by the time things heat up the rhetoric does, too. We do not find anything objectionable when candidates stick to the facts and point out an opponent’s record, which sometimes may be less than admirable. We are turned off when candidates stretch the truth and sometimes outright lie about their • opponents. Voters need a spirited campaign from candi dates to learn about them. Naturally, candidates tell us all the good things about them selves, some times stretch ing the truth a little. To balance things off, voters like to learn things about can didates that would affect how they vote and this information is available only from opponents. Telling a lie about an opponent turns us off and actually serves as a smear on the candidate who does it. We are entering the political season this year. The primaries are over and candi dates for both political parties know who they will face in the general election in November. The big race in Georgia this year is for governor. Sonny Perdue and Mark Taylor already have begun sniping at each other in speeches and television advertising. It will be up to voters to sift through what they see and hear on the tube and the real facts. A little fudging, when talk ing about an opponent’s record, can be expected, but we hope that it goes no further than that down the stretch. The Republicans’ candidate - Gov. Sonny Perdue —naturally will run on his record in office. The Democrats’ candi date - Lt. Gov, Mark Taylor - also has a record of public service which will be scrutinized by Perdue’s team. Already they are accusing each other of ethics violations, which provides some thing for reporters to write about in this early stage of the campaign. However, all will be forgotten long before votes are cast. Significant distinctions between the two candidates for governor will emerge as the campaign progresses and vot ers will have information to make an informed decision, hopefully. Actually, all the television advertis ing is aimed at influencing only a small number of voters - the independents. Hard core Republicans and Democrats already know how they will vote. Most of the speeches that candidates make all over the state will be to mem bers of their own party and will be aimed at shoring up the base. Less than three months remain before the election. This is certain to be an interesting year. The big race in Georgia this year is for governor. Sonny Perdue and Mark Taylor already have begun sniping at each other in speeches and television advertising. It will be up to voters to sift through what they see and hear on the tube and the real facts. A little fudg ing, when talking about an opponent's record, can be expected, but we hope that it goes no further than that down the stretch. Like it or not ... Immigrants labor on in county Georgia has been identified as having the fastest growing pop ulation of illegal immigrants in the country. We are even told how many there are. How in the world can government officials or anyone - say how many illegals there are since they operate underground? How many of the Hispanics doing all the framing, brick work, concrete finishing, yard work and many other jobs have green cards? How many don’t? It’s anyone’s guess, but whether they are here legally or illegally, if they leave, construction, among other labor sensitive jobs, will come to a halt in Houston County and elsewhere. ■ ■■ Former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young made the news last week and had to give up his cushy job with Wal-Mart, when he said it was good that the retailing giant has caused mom-and pop stores to close with this statement: “Those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables ... I think they’ve ripped off our com munities long enough. First it was the Jews, then it was the Koreans and now it’s the Arabs. Very few black people own these stores.” He tripped over the same kind of prejudice and bigotry that he has been accusing whites of for years. Of course, he apologized when the heat was on him, but, as I have said before, true feelings come out in initial comments, not contrived apologies. J w Perdue L * NO x n \L> 4, 'All the marbles’ of high school football The date was November 2, 2001. We were in Pelham, Georgia, for a high school football game on a crisp, autumn evening - Clinch County vs. Pelham with the region championship on the line. I remember that night like I remem ber my 6wn smell - probably because, for the most part, they both stink. It was the oddest football game I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen a lot of them. For the past 12 years, I have been honored to be a part of the radio crew that brings Clinch County High foot ball to the masses via the medium of radio on WBTY, FM 98.7. On that night, Clinch and Pelham were basically playing for the region title. They each had one more region game on the schedule, but a win by either pretty much assured them the crown and a top seed heading into the playoffs. In the game, Clinch had 14 first downs to Pelham’s 8; 312 offensive yards to Pelham’s 234; scored on the opening kickoff; led 14-0 after 16 min utes of play; had two players rush for over 100 yards - and lost 28-14. The key statistic was probably that Clinch had 137 yards in penalties to Pelham’s 60. Ouch. When you have two players run for over 100 yards in one game, 999 times OPINION Recently I mentioned that FEMA has been paying SI,BOO a month rent in an upscale neighborhood for a woman since she came here after the Katrina hurricane last year. Since I mentioned it FEMA has shut this boondoggle down. ■ ■■ Speaking of FEMA, couldn’t this organization do a great job of screwing things up if put in charge of helping Lebanon’s displaced families get on their feet? Imagine the red tape and screw ups and misplaced money FEMA could create. On the other hand, the Hezbollah terrorists jumped into the breach with in one day and began giving cash to people to rebuild their homes ... not good news for our side. ■ ■■ Germany has refused to support the United States in the “fight against ter rorism” with the belief that “we are living on an island” safe from a ter rorist attack. Last week a home-grown Lebanese man was arrested for mak ing plans to blow up two commuter out of 1,000 in high school football, you win. But that wasn’t the case on November 2, 2001, and the long trip back to Homerville with my friends on the radio crew was filled with “coulda, shouldas, and wouldas.” Still sore about the game' when I got home late that night, I went inside and grabbed a tape. For road games, my wife sometimes records our broadcasts so I can listen to them later and cri tique our broadcast. With everybody asleep in our house, I rewound the tape, kicked back on the couch, and started listening to our pre game tailgate show. During the tailgate show, we inter view our coach, usually when he’s on the field while the team is warming up. But, sometimes, when we’re on the road, the home team has a dif ferent schedule and our sideline guy, Eric Harris, just has to grab the coach whenever he’s available. Foy Evans * Columnist mBL loyevansl9@cox.net Len f Robbins * ~ | Columnist v ~ n 1 1 }■ j airpub@planttel.net L .1.1 ' 11 HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL trains. Germany thought that, by stand ing by and doing nothing, Hezbollah would not order an attack on the country. “We did not fight in Iraq. And until now we assumed that if we behaved well in the world, nothing would happen to us,” an official said. Do you see what I see? Leaders in Germany were “behaving well” for fear of being attacked by terrorists and have learned an important lesson: Appeasement gets you nowhere. ■ ■■ Billionaire oilman T. Bone Pickens recently gave his alma mater - Oklahoma State University - $165 million to rejuvenate its foundering football program. Critics have come out of the wood work. They say he should have used his money in a more humane way, such as fighting poverty in Africa or some where in the world. It was his money. He earned it. How he disposes of it is nobody else’s business, but there are plenty of busybodies willing to sound off ■ ■■ I never gave it much thought until , a mother called it to my attention. “How,” she asked, “do the school bus drivers keep their schedules? Almost without exception, they pull up at pickup points almost to the minute they are supposed to.” It is quite an accomplishment that thousands of parents take for granted. I am familiar with one bus route. The driver is right on time day after day. And he always has a smile and a wave. At this time, our coach was Cecil Barber, now retired from coaching. Coach Barber is legendary for his fire ’em-up pre-game speeches, and Eric caught him as he had just delivered a rousing oration to the team and was leaving the locker room. This is the transcript from that pre game interview: Eric: “Well, coach, ya’ll got another big game tonight.” Coach Barber: (slightly out of breath) “Yep, this one is for all the marbles..*. Well, really, it’s not for all the marbles because we’ve still got another game next week. ’But this game is one big marble, and next week we have another big marble, and those two marbles together are one really big marble... and so, if we win both marbles, then that’s for all the marbles’ 1 ... or something like that.” I fell off the couch, aching in laugh ter. I rewound and listened to it about five more times before going to sleep that night with a big smile on my face. In high school football, you don’t know what’s going to happen on any given Friday night - on the field or on the radio broadcast. Do yourself a favor this fall. Take your family to a high school football game. Whether the game is “for all the marbles” or not, it’s a guaranteed good time.