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DEL.ICIO.USCagle Wins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The most tumultuous race for lieutenant governor in Georgia history came to a quiet finish Tuesday, as Casey Cagle easily outpaced two other candidates to become the first Republican to win the state’s No. 2 office.
“We’ve made history. I feel a sense of destiny,” said Cagle, a 12-year state senator and banker from Gainesville. He claimed victory before a raucous crowd of supporters at 11:15 p.m., promising to bring more jobs to the state — “because jobs is how people experience the American dream.”
With 93 percent of the vote in, but with some precincts in his hometown of Atlanta yet to report, Democrat Jim Martin, 61, an attorney and long-time state lawmaker, had not conceded at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday.
“This race is between Casey and me,” said Martin to a crowd of several hundred early in the evening.
Forty supporters remained as the catering service cleaned up, the bar closed down and TV cameras disappeared.
Allen Buckley, a 46-year-old Smyrna tax attorney, had hoped his Libertarian candidacy would throw the contest into a run-off.
“It’s kind of depressing. I wasn’t in this to win,” Buckley said.
In Democratic hands since it was created in 1945, the office is the highest constitutional position claimed by Republicans since Sonny Perdue won his first term as governor in 2002.
The state Senate — over which the lieutenant governor presides — has been in Republican hands for four years.
Cagle’s victory brings to an end a nearly two-year struggle to replace Lt. Mark Taylor, who failed Tuesday to spoil Perdue’s bid for a second-term.
When he first entered the race, few considered Cagle — a tuxedo shop owner-turned-banker — a credible opponent to Ralph Reed, the GOP strategist and former head of the national Christian Coalition.
But Reed’s ties to convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff made him vulnerable, and a bitter, multi-million dollar primary between the two threatened to split GOP ranks. Cagle’s TV ads were aggressive, even brutal, accusing Reed of betraying his Christian values.
By contrast, the general election race that — for the most part — pit Cagle against Martin was a gentlemanly struggle that both sides kept civil. “I think at the end of the day we can part as friends,” Cagle said of his opponent.
Cagle outraised Martin in the campaign, $4.5 million to $2.76 million. In sharply worded TV ads, Martin tied Cagle to “special interests” — in particular, predatory lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates on small loans.
But Cagle replied with TV ads of his own, deriding the Democrat of being “alarmingly liberal” — but “a nice guy.”
Cagle, 40, has a net worth of roughly $1.7 million. But throughout the campaign, he reminded voters of his modest upbringing. He was the only candidate in the race — Democrat, Republican or Libertarian — without a college degree.
When he was 3 years old, Cagle’s father abandoned his family, leaving him and his older brother to be raised by their mother. After a couple years of college, Cagle went into business and, eventually, politics.
Cagle campaigned as a business-oriented candidate who met every standard set by the Republican’s evangelical base. The Sierra Club named Cagle to its “dirty baker’s dozen” list for his attempts to weaken stream buffer laws and for sponsoring legislation to make it hard for chicken-processing plants to be declared nusiances.
Cagle inherits a $84,748 job that is largely ceremonial. Ruling GOP senators stripped Taylor of nearly all of his duties four years ago.
One decision immediately facing Cagle is whether he will he’ll challenge Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) in an attempt to restore clout to the office — particulary the authority to appoint chairmen and determine which committees handle specific bills.
Cagle’s victory also puts the Hall County native’s name on a short list of Republicans with ambitions to succeed Perdue in 2010. Four Georgia governors first served as lieutenant governor.
Staff writers Jennifer Brett and Moni Basu contributed to this article.
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