Last night Cynthia McKinney and Hank Johnson finally had a major debate. Because for the first time Cynthia McKinney decided to show up for a major debate! It was only 30 minutes and more mud than substance. Hank Johnson started out trying to talk about the issues and how ineffective McKinney has been in Congress for her district. But McKinney and the members of the media asking questions seemed to stay focused on matters outside of the actual issues involved in being the Congressperson for the 4th Congressional District of Georgia.

I think McKinney’s ability to divert from the issues led Mr. Johnson to feel he did not do well in the debate, but I think he did fine. McKinney focused on bringing up his past bankruptcy issues and asserted that he’s received money from landfill operators. Hank Johnson swiftly denied taking contributions from land fill operators. If he’s received money from them via any other means it has not resulted in any ethics complaints.

The latest poll shows Hank Johnson has the lead.

Much of the mud in the debate centered around who has been funding the candidates’ campaigns. McKinney tried to bring up that some Republicans have given Hank Johnson money in a Democratic campaign. I’m not sure why McKinney thinks that matters when Denise Majette beat her in 2002 receiving money from some Republicans. McKinney tried to play Hank’s ability to work with both parties as a weakness when it is actually a strength, that a Democrat can work with people on both sides of the aisle. McKinney calls herself an “Independent Democrat” but she’s only independent because even people in her own party don’t want to touch her. As was pointed out during the debate, Hank Johnson received money from a well known Democrat and some well known Democrats are not offering McKinney an endorsement.

And speaking of money, McKinney is only getting 35% of her individual campaign contributions from within the state of Georgia, while Hank Johnson has received over 90% of his from within the state. Looking at the zip code breakdown, much of McKinney’s money is coming from California, while Johnson’s is coming from areas in and around the 4th District of Georgia. Let’s not forget McKinney’s past donations from Arab and Islamist donors. It looks like those donations are still rolling in! In the current list of individual donors for 2006, she has received a total of $3000 in a single day from Mohamed Badr of the Middle East Shipping Company. On 6/8/2005 Mr. Badr made a $2000 and $1000 contribution. He listed his address as Pasadena, Texas, but all of the Middle East Shipping Company’s offices are in Yemen. The site of the USS Cole bombing. So who’s interests is McKinney STILL working on behalf of? There are many other interesting names in that list of donors, that you can review for yourself.

McKinney also made an interesting statement during the debate when she said:

I have been scored by Congress.org and according to Congress.org I have the highest legislative record success record of any of the Democrats in the Georgia delegation and that’s including Congressman John Lewis.

This is a factual yet crafty statement. Congress.org has a Power Ranking for each member of Congress. McKinney’s rank is 408 out of the 435 members of the House of Representatives. Other Democrats from Georgia have a much higher Power Ranking. For example, Sanford Bishop ranks 247 and John Lewis ranks 287. Both much higher than McKinney.

Given McKinney knows her Power Ranking is low, she focused on a single component of the power ranking score. Given the Power Ranking is comprised of a Position Score, Influence Score and Legislation Score. (An explanation of the points breakdown is here.) McKinney has a low position, given when she returned to Congress in 2004 her fellow Democrats did not want to extend her any of her prior clout and who can blame them? She has not demonstrated any real influence, so of course her score in that area was a flat zero. But she received a single point, which is actually a half point rounded up, for her Legislation score. I called the folks at Congress.org (Capitol Advantage LLC) and inquired about this point/half point. I was told she received it for pushing one bill through a committee. That’s about all she has to brag about above other Democrats in Georgia. Notice she had to narrow her statement down to one single point regarding just people within her own party and state. Look at the rankings any other way using any other measure used in the ranking system and she’s much closer to the bottom than the top. So McKinney’s statement sounds neat, but when you look at the grand scheme of things she’s really not doing well in Congress at all.

Barkley McKern of Congress.org was nice enough to find out exactly which bill McKinney pushed through committee for the point/half point. It was HR 2099, the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area Act. Many thanks to Mr. McKern for looking that up for me.

Now I find that to be very interesting. She successfully pushed a bill through committee that ensures the biggest land owner in the USA, THE US GOVERNMENT gets a hold on another piece of land. I hope there is no oil under that land, because now it and its federally protected “plant species” probably will never be touched if any oil is ever found there. McKinney helped turn some land over to the US Government, wooohooo….if you feel that’s something to cheer about .

Hear the audio of the debate using the link below.
Cynthia McKinney v Hank Johnson Debate - WMA Audio
(For the sake of bandwidth there will be no other formats made.)

update 8/1/2006 3:47PM: The quote from McKinney above says the word “record” twice because McKinney said it twice. She was fumbling over the words a little.

update 8/2/2006 9:53AM: Ian at Expose the Left found that McKinney is suing the AJC for libel. Is this some form of preparation for her next debate with Hank Johnson? They are supposed to debate again on Saturday at 12:30PM. I don’t think McKinney is smart to bring attention back to her issues with the Capitol Police or her statements about 9/11.

update 8/2/2006 3:35PM: McKinney is not suing the AJC. She has only accused them of libel via her attorney J.M. Raffauf.

Just the same, this woman is the only person in congress with all these issues and voters in the 4th district would do well to remove her.