The AJC has more details about the bank part-owned by Rep. Paul Broun going under.

Not long before it lost its multi-year fight for survival, McIntosh Commercial Bank had lost so much money on such loans that, by one measure, it was financially the weakest of Georgia’s roughly 300 banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates the closure will cost its deposit insurance fund more than $123 million.

McIntosh had a problem-loan-to-cash-reserve ration of 884 percent, the highest of any bank in the state, and unwinding it will cost taxpayers $123 million. Broun blames the closure on an overzealous Obama Administration. Federal investigators are conducting an audit to determine whether the bank should have been shut down, the AJC reported.

Democratic candidate Russell Edwards is turning the business failure into a campaign issue:

Yet another Roy Barnes campaign ad is hitting the airwaves.

In this ad, Barnes addresses pine trees.

“I didn’t listen enough before chopping you down,” he tells the lumber he used to build his Marietta mansion. “And for that, I apologize.”

OK, I made that up. The ad actually talks about pine trees as an alternative energy source.

My name is David Poythress, and I’m asking for your vote for governor.

Why should you support me? For one, take a gander at my new website. It has lots of camo and a video of a guy with a thick Southern accent. Unlike other those other rich lawyer bank-investin’ candidates, I understand you and your love for tall rubber boots.

So, yeah, Poythress’ new website, bagbarnes.com, is pretty hilarious. It’s a one-stop shop for all things anti-Roy Barnes. The aforementioned “hypocrisy hunter’s” money line is, “Democrats, we got to bag Barnes before the Republicans get a chance to in the fall.”

And that’s the Poythress campaign in a nutshell: Vote for me because Roy can’t win.

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Former Gov. Roy Barnes has a new video up on his website apologizing to teachers for messing them around.

Teachers are a key constituency that believes Barnes double-crossed them on tenure, and now he’s trying to win them back. The 1:30 video quotes Barnes apologizing to teachers, and teachers alternating between accepting his apology and saying he shouldn’t have to apologize at all.

“I agree that I should have slowed down, and I should have reached consensus better and listened better,” Barnes says. “And for that, I think that’s the greatest failure of my administration.”

To drive the point home, Barnes is hosting a conference call for teachers on June 23. Will it be pillow talk or a screaming match?

Democrat David Poythress took a swipe at Roy Barnes today regarding Barnes’ alleged plan to invest state pension funds in venture capital.

“As Governor, I will not, under any circumstances, gamble the hard-earned retirements of state employees and school teachers in venture capital funding or any other risky investments. If there were ever an instance in which Roy Barnes revealed his true colors, this is it. He can apologize in his TV ads all he wants, but this shows that he hasn't learned from his mistakes and is still out of touch with working folks, state employees and public school teachers.”

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UPDATED ...

Despite the Georgia Chamber of Commerce closing it to the press and even its own membership, a bit of news – or, rather, interesting hearsay – did surface from the double-super-secret Illuminati meeting, um, I mean debate, in Greensboro last week.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes, according to a person who was in the room, spoke in favor of investing state employees’ – including teachers’ – retirement funds in venture capital, a move some might consider risky.

Campaign manager Chris Carpenter said he wasn' there, but Barnes is "not in favor of touching teacher retirement," so he doubts Barnes included teachers along with other state employees in his statement. Barnes told the same thing to Channel 46 recently, Carpenter said, but they didn't include it in their story, and no tape of the debate exists.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes took a break from swimming in gold coins today to release 25 years worth of income tax returns; oddly, at the same time Democratic opponent Thurbert Baker was holding a press conference to announce his jobs plan.

Barnes reported $5.1 million in income to the IRS in 2009 and $27.5 million since 1984. He paid $7.7 million in taxes and gave $2.7 million to charity. The returns are online here.

“Today, I am disclosing all of my financial information for the past 25 years,” Barnes said in a statement. “This 1,500 page report is online and available to friends, opponents, voters, and the press. I expect my fellow candidates to do the same and release at least ten years of tax returns. Georgians deserve nothing less.”

And campaign staffers everywhere are recoiling in horror as their plans for the weekend evaporate.

Roy Barnes is truly, deeply sorry, but he wants you to know it will never, ever happen again.

In Barnes’ new TV ad that began airing in Columbus, Albany, Savannah, Augusta and Macon on Friday, the ex-governor apologizes for not listening enough. He’s not sorry about creating 235,000 jobs as governor, though, he said. That part, he’s pretty proud of.

Who didn’t he listen to? Well, teachers and “flaggers,” mostly. He says in the ad that he raised teacher pay and cut class sizes, and just now remind us on Twitter that it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. After the 2002 election, no one appreciates teachers more than Roy Barnes. Except maybe Sonny Perdue, but he has a funny way of showing it.

Democratic Party of Georgia Chairwoman Jane Kidd told WGAU’s Tim Bryant on Friday, “(A)nytime before qualifying, you have to hope that your candidates are looking at everything that’s going on in their races, and for the good of the party, let’s keep the competition down to as few candidates as possible. Just because of the shortages in campaign funds and money … it’s always more economical to have fewer candidates in a primary.”

Kidd was, presumably, talking about candidates like David Poythress and DuBose Porter, who are trailing badly in the polls. But Poythress said today that it’s the runaway favorite, Roy Barnes, who ought to drop out.

What’s become clear over the last nine months is that more and more Democrats realize that we need to nominate a candidate who can win in November. Roy Barnes may be the frontrunner, but he cannot beat the Republican nominee.

Georgia’s 100,000 teachers are a powerful block of voters who care deeply about education funding and policy, vote in droves and are never afraid to complain when they feel unappreciated or under attack.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes learned that lesson the hard way in 2002. Now, he’s launched a Web site aimed directly at teachers.

Retired teacher Vickie Carson of Atlanta says in a fundraising e-mail sent out today: