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Friday, September 22, 2006
Says Taylor: I’ve got the money, and the time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Savannah — One day after Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue breezed through to address economic development specialists gathering here, his Democratic challenger did the same.
Perdue spoke of his victories in education, then rushed out. Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor — the final speaker of the convention — spoke of Perdue’s cuts to education, and of his own plan to offer health insurance to every child in Georgia. Then the crowd rushed out, eager to hit the links.
But unlike the governor, Taylor tarried with reporters to speak on a number of topics:
On polls showing him well behind Perdue:
“Very similar to those polls that had me down to Secretary [Cathy] Cox by over 20 points. The only poll that matters is the one that’s going to be taken on Nov. 7.
“A lot of those polls have been taken before we’ve had an opportunity to have our television ad campaign up and running. Very soon we’ll have had enough of those commercials to run that we’ll be impacting those numbers.
“We know that the people of Georgia will look at both candidates. They are going to know their candidates for governor.
“Right now about 97 percent know Governor Perdue. He is the incumbent. Only about 80 percent know their lieutenant governor.�
And will you have the money to get your message out?
“As the challenger, we will not raise $15, $20 million as will the incumbent. We don’t need to raise that amount of money. This is a short race.
“There’s only so much television, radio, direct mail that you can do in a short race. We will finance this race very effectively, not raising nearly enough money as the incumbent governor, but enough to win the campaign.�
And reports that your primary campaign ended up $20,000 in debt?
“That’s $20,000 out of a $6.5 million campaign. We’ll be making our disclosure on Sept. 30. And we’re very proud of the fund-raising we’ve done for the general election campaign.�
So the debt is nothing to worry about?
“No, no, no, no. Not a problem at all. There’s no one in need of having their invoices paid. We certainly have the resources to run our campaign.�
While Gov. Sonny Perdue supports adult stem cell research, he’s silent when it comes to the pursuit of cures through embryonic stem cells. Taylor on Friday interpreted that as opposition.
“I think clearly that has a lot to do with the decision of Pfizer and Novartis not to chose Georgia for their new, very important biomedical science plants that could have come to Georgia, bringing hundreds of jobs paying in excess of $50,000 [a year]. I think our governor’s policy absolutely being opposed to stem cell research hurt our state there.�
And on the governor’s statement that Georgia’s graduation rate has increased?
“Those numbers don’t correlate with independent studies of Georgia’s graduation rate. The Manhattan Institute’s nationally recognized review of high school graduation rates shows Georgia’s high school graduation rate at 54 percent, last in the nation.�
