The second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives is braving the legendary East Coast snowstorm that shut down Congress this week to accompany Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, to the 10th District.

Broun and special guest Minority Whip Eric Cantor have scheduled a $250-a-head fundraiser Friday in tony Greensboro hosted by, among others, two members of the Reynolds family (of Reynolds Plantation fame) and state Sen. Johnny Grant, R-Milledgeville. For the less well-to-do, $35 will get you a ticket to see Broun and Cantor at The Spotlight Theatre. Dress is business casual, and light hors d'ouvres will be served.

Unfortunately, the events are closed to the press, and we journalists don’t contribute to political campaigns, so paying my own way is out. But if you go, let us know if anything interesting is said.

Money woes

Local progressive activists have started a Facebook group encouraging Andy Rusk to run for Congress against Paul Broun.

Rusk, the grandson of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, drew significant support from the liberal downtown hipster/townie crowd during a beer-soaked half-serious run for mayor in 2006. He wouldn’t win, but he sure would make life interesting.

The group’s founder, Ryan Lewis, reports that the group has more than 200 members and that he did not consult Rusk before forming it.

“Andy is exactly the kind of reluctant hero we need to end the shame that PBJ has brought on the 10th,” Lewis wrote to group members today. PBJ would be Paul Broun Jr., not peanut butter and jelly.

Athens Democrats trying to oust Rep. Paul Broun are taking the fight straight to the heart of Real America.

Pull the Plug, a political action committee formed by two local Organizing for America activists, Russell Edwards and Michael Smith, is sponsoring a health care forum at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Columbia County Library in the Augusta suburb of Evans, on the 10th Congressional District’s southern fringe. Columbia County and the northern edge of Richmond County, which include more than a quarter of the district’s voters, went a combined 63 percent for Broun in 2008.

Panelists will include Oconee County physician Neal Priest, University of Georgia health policy professor Fazal Khan, insurance biller Theresa Duncan and Lowell Greenbaum, chairman of the Richmond County Democrats and a retired pharmacy professor.

I just got back from the 10th District GOP Convention at the Georgia Center, where, on the most beautiful day of the year, hundreds of Republicans chose to stay indoors, listen to speechifying and argue about parliamentary procedure.

Call it Fear and Loathing in Athens. The convention had all the paranoia of a Hunter S. Thompson book, minus the drugs and drinking. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are coming for your guns, your money and your freedom.

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, had few friends at the 2007 convention, but he returned this year as a conquering hero. His message – socialism yadda yadda Marxist yadda yadda yadda – has now become the message of the mainstream.

A blogger at Tondee’s Tavern suggested Saturday that state Rep. Alan Powell, D-Hartwell, ought to run against U.S. Rep. Paul Broun in 2010.

That would be a great race, but it’s not gonna happen.

Democrats have been recruiting Powell, one the last old-school rural Democrats left, to seek higher office for years. He’s never shown any interest and I doubt he ever will.

Powell’s name came up in 2004, 2006 and again in 2007. He may be the one guy who could beat Broun.

He said as recently as a couple of months back, though, that he’s not interested in leaving the state House. He’s the one guy in a GOP district Republicans will never be able to dislodge, and you know that gets in their craw. Powell would rather throw spitballs from the back of the class in Atlanta and sow dissent there than move up.

Overall, I was 14-2 in my predictions from yesterday. Not too bad. If only I applied such foresight to my NCAA tournament picks.

Here’s what I took away from the primary results:

• Never underestimate Paul Broun. We all laughed at his polls, but they turned out to be right. At least I picked him this time, but I never dreamed he would do as well as he did. He laid a world-class whupping on Barry Fleming. I should have known when I heard that Broun planned a big victory bash, while Fleming spent a quiet evening at home.

• It’s good to be the incumbent. Broun, John Barrow, John Lewis, Jim Marshall, even David Scott, one of the most ethically-challenged members of Congress, all easily survived primary challenges.

Good morning, all.

Paul Broun didn’t just win last night, but he trounced an opponent who had more money, full party backing and called the largest metro area in the district home. Sound familiar?

We broke down Broun’s 70-30 win this morning. You’ll find Broun took 85 percent of GOP voters in Clarke County, 78 percent in Oconee and boasted 3- and 4-to-1 margins across the rural portions of the district. The closest Barry Fleming came to a county victory was in Richmond County, where he won 48 percent. Columbia County, where twice as many voters cast ballots as any other county in the district, went for Broun 58 percent to 42 percent. Amazing stuff.

In November, Broun will face Democrat Bobby Saxon, a businessman and Army veteran from Nicholson. No question, Saxon will lose by a similar margin. Perhaps even more (if that’s possible) as Saxson continues the proud tradition of Democratic sacrificial lambs in the 10th.

Like any number of other newspapers, the Banner-Herald routinely uses some of the space on its Election Day editorial pages to urge folks to get out and vote. Beyond that, we'll sometimes use the editorial page to remind people of upcoming deadlines for registering to vote to be eligible to cast a ballot in the next election.

We didn't do any of that for today's primary election, and we may well think twice aobut doing it ever again. Here's why: If we're sending people to the polls who only know it's an election day, or that it's time to register to vote, because they happen to read something in the newspaper, are we really performing any kind of public service?

My impression is that we may, in fact, be doing a public disservice, in likely sending people to the polls who are, by no stretch of the imagination, prepared to cast an informed ballot.

and, sometimes, they're just plain wrong on the facts. In many -- if not most -- cases, it's not because the writers are engaging in deliberate obfuscation, but because they're simply not in command of facts that, in truth, only the most deeply wonky among us -- editorial page editors with long experience in covering governmental entities most emphatically included -- have at our fingertips.

Not only is Barry Fleming a liar and a closet Democrat, he’s not even a Christian.

At least, that’s what Paul Broun said today during a Georgia Public Broadcasting interview.

“It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t understand redemption and salvation and a changed life in accepting Jesus as lord and savior,” Broun said on WACG 90.7 FM in Augusta. “It’s not about religion but about a relationship with Jesus.”

“Paul is wrong on that,” Fleming replied in an interview scheduled to air Friday. “My Christian faith is the center of my life and I’ve tried not only to witness to other people in my life but I’ve tried to live a life as an example for others, and I’ll continue to do that.”