Ossoff backers draw strength from health care, Comey actions
Robert Harbin Ledbetter Sr.
Robert Harbin Ledbetter, Sr., age 81, of Rome, GA, passed away on Wednesday, May 10, 2017 after an extended illness.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider memorial contributions to the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Georgia, P. O. Box 2939, Rome, GA 30162, or to the school, church, or charity of your choice.
Funeral services will be held on Monday, May 15, 2017, at 4 p.m. at Darlington School’s Morris Chapel, Rome. Dr. Nelson Price and the Rev. Jeff Chadwick will officiate. Following the ceremony, the family will receive friends at home, 1121 Kingston Road, Rome.
A proud mama sits on her nest as the first two goslings hatch. The Canada goose nest sits atop a beaver lodge in the lily pond off Kingston Road.
SANDY SPRINGS — The last time Harriet Zoller volunteered for a political campaign, she was too young to vote for the Massachusetts Democrat running for president.
“I was a Kennedy girl,” she says, smiling back to 1960.
Veronica Savoy’s previous campaign experience was volunteering multiple times for Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee.
“I’m not a political party person,” she explains.
Now, their shared concerns about Donald Trump’s presidency and the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill have drawn both women to the side of 30-year-old Jon Ossoff, an upset-minded Democrat running for Congress in the traditionally conservative Atlanta suburbs.
And the two women are just a small part of what has raised Georgia’s 6th Congressional District special election from a certain GOP victory to an early benchmark for what Americans think about monopoly Republican rule in Washington.
The enthusiasm and high stakes are evident in fundraising and spending totals for Ossoff, Republican candidate Karen Handel, the two major parties and a cacophony of outside groups.
All told, the various interests are on track to raise and spend $30 million or more, making this the priciest House race in U.S. history; meanwhile, voter registration forms continue to pour in ahead of Ossoff’s June 20 matchup with Republican Karen Handel.
Ossoff lead the first round of voting with 48 percent among 18 candidates, narrowly missing an outright victory and instead setting up the runoff with Handel.
While Ossoff and Handel both downplay the national tenor of the race, the stated motivations of voters like Zoller and Savoy tell a different story.
“Our democracy really is at stake,” Zoller says flatly, commenting specifically about Ossoff only when asked.
“I’m very pleased with him,” she says.
Zoller and Savoy say their viewpoints crystallized Doug Walker / Rome News-Tribune with House Republicans’ recent votes to gut the 2010 Affordable Care Act and the president’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey amid an ongoing investigation of potential ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives.
Savoy says she already backed Ossoff but wasn’t moved to volunteer until seeing House Republicans vote to gut the 2010 health care law.
“That’s absolutely why I’m here,” Savoy said, sitting at one of Ossoff’s campaign offices where a few dozen volunteers made phone calls and gathered in small groups headed to visit voters’ homes.
She described losing her infant daughter at the age of 3 months and her subsequent experiences as a nurse.
“We’ve got find our humanity,” she says, adding that Americans would suffer under Republican proposals to scale back expansion of Medicaid government insurance and making it easier for insurers to charge higher premiums based on a person’s medical history.