Health care fallout raises Baker, Perdue profiles

By James Salzer
 and Cameron McWhirter

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In the aftermath of Congress’ divisive health care vote, one of the more unlikely political donnybrooks erupted here last week between Attorney General Thurbert Baker and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Baker, a cautious Democrat not known for being aggressively partisan, made national news by refusing to join other states in going to court to block the new federal health care law.

Perdue, a Republican who has angered his own party by vetoing tax cuts, countered by promising to find lawyers to file the lawsuit at no charge.

After last week, the two politicians now embody their parties’ positions on the divisive health care law. To those who know them well, neither quite fits the bill as a party hard-liner.

“If you talk to folks around here, they would say these two aren’t partisan bullies that make arguments only for partisan sake,” said Bert Brantley, Perdue’s spokesman.

Perdue, Brantley said, decided Congress overstepped its authority in the law.

Baker, who is running for governor, said his decision was based purely upon the law, not politics.

“You cannot make a decision based on the political winds of Georgia or the political winds of this country. You have to read the law.”

The two men now suddenly find themselves party standard-bearers on health care as Georgia heads into a heated campaign season.

Baker, struggling with his campaign for governor, suddenly is getting national coverage on liberal blogs and Web sites as President Obama’s defender. Perdue, perceived as a hands-off lame duck and the titular head of a fractious state GOP, has been transformed into a defiant defender of states’ rights. His office has been flooded with calls and e-mails of support.

Rusty Paul, former head of Georgia’s Republican Party, said both men are benefitting from the dustup.

National blogs and Web sites, including the Huffington Post, carried reports last week that some Georgia Republicans were calling for Baker’s impeachment.

“If I was Thurbert Baker’s political consultant, I would be delighted by what has occurred,” said Kerwin Swint, a Kennesaw State University political scientist.

Baker, Georgia’s attorney general since 1997, was one of the first Democrats to announce for governor. But his campaign has been overshadowed by that of former Gov. Roy Barnes, who has led in polls and raised far more money.

Baker has had run-ins with Perdue, including legal battles over redistricting. But for the most part, he has kept a low profile.

William H. Boone, a Clark Atlanta University political scientist, said the fracas has put Baker back on the political map.

“For Baker, it couldn’t come at a better time,” Boone said. “Compared to Barnes, Baker just doesn’t have that kind of cache with most Democratic voters at the moment.”

That includes black voters, who make up about 50 percent of Democratic primary voters in Georgia, Boone said.

Some black voters have had problems with Baker, in part because of his 2007 decision to back prosecutors appealing a judge’s decision to release Genarlow Wilson, a black teen, from a 10-year prison term. Wilson had been sentenced for consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. Wilson was freed, but many blacks viewed Baker’s action as supportive of an unfair legal system.

Baker also once urged Democrats to give up the legal battle to block the voter ID law that Republicans passed.

“God knows Thurbert has ticked off as many Democrats as Republicans over the years,” said Mark Cohen, former executive legal counsel to Gov. Zell Miller when Baker was the governor’s House floor leader.

Baker also did not start out as an Obama supporter. In 2007, he backed Hillary Clinton for president.

Perdue’s call for a lawsuit gave Baker the chance to redeem himself with many Democratic voters, Boone said, just months before the gubernatorial primary.

“It brings him back to the spotlight,” Boone said. “Perdue gave [Baker] the opportunity to show himself as a good Democrat.”

Perdue has not expressed any future political aspirations. But he clearly aims to preserve his legacy. The last thing he wants is for a Democrat to take back the governorship, particularly Roy Barnes, the man Perdue defeated in 2002.

Like Baker, Perdue has a history of going against the wishes of his party.

Perdue was a Democratic lawmaker before switching parties in the late 1990s. In 2003, a few days after being inaugurated as Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, Perdue proposed raising cigarette, alcohol and property taxes to fill holes in the state budget. He was criticized by party stalwarts, and many of his tax proposals stalled.

He twice vetoed tax-cut bills pushed by Republican leaders. And this year, again facing a fiscal crisis, he proposed a hospital tax that again brought condemnation from some GOP quarters.

While Perdue is well-liked among the GOP faithful, he is generally not seen as a straight party-line partisan.

“Sonny has never been the kind of person to posture,” Paul said. “He has very little political theater in his blood.”

The health care fight gives Perdue the chance to be a party leader again, said Swint at Kennesaw State.

“He looks on himself as being a loyal soldier,” Swint said. And he said Perdue believes he is helping the national party, which sees this as a key issue to motivate the Republican base in November.

Former Republican State Sen. Chuck Clay, who served in the General Assembly with both Perdue and Baker, said he believes they are doing what they think is right.

“But there is always an element of politics involved,” he said. “You can’t take the politics out of politics.”