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Saturday, May 10, 2008
GOP … on road to 2010 Georgia governor’s race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Oxendine, the insurance commissioner who would be governor of Georgia, orders latte at the downtown Atlanta Starbucks.
No syrup, he says. But chocolate chips.
And skim milk.
He pauses briefly and then asks for cream and whipping cream.
Conflicted?
On latte, maybe. But not on a desire to be governor or the willingness to leave a safe job he’s held for 14 years to join the stampede to succeed Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2010. While others ponder the opening created by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s announcement that he’ll seek re-election to the Senate — not the governor’s office — in 2010, Oxendine’s in, declared, and ready to go.
Isakson would have been a shoo-in. Had he declared, the crowd would have assembled to replace him in the U.S. Senate. Now, in the gubernatorial race, U.S. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville and Jack Kingston of Savannah are possibilities, as is Secretary of State Karen Handel of Atlanta and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. So, too, is state House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island.
On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin, a 25-year-veteran, has a career decision to make. His life in the House gets no better; his party’s chances are nil of taking control of the House and elevating him to speaker. Over the next decade, the prospects don’t much improve, either. The combination of the Voting Rights Act and GOP control of redistricting will keep Democrats in the minority in the House and Senate.
Democrats’ best access to power is statewide. And while some of its best and brightest are too liberal to be elected statewide, others could position themselves in the mainstream. State Sen. Michael S. Meyer von Bremen of Albany, a thoughtful and decent moderate Democrat, is abandoning his Senate seat to run for the Georgia Court of Appeals. His Senate colleagues, Tim Golden of Valdosta and Doug Stoner of Smyrna, could have statewide potential, along with U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon. Atty. Gen. Thurbert Baker and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond have already won statewide.
After that the bench thins.
Among Republicans, the best news is not at the top of the Gold Dome power players. It is likely to be 2010 before Georgians can gain real relief for the frustrations wrought by the three-way personality conflicts and the incessant games that Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson play. Nothing and nobody on the ballot this November represents a solution.
The solution, incidentally, is not to recreate the last years of the Roy Barnes administration when a dominant governor could assemble compliant House and Senate leaders behind closed doors and decide what both chambers would rubber stamp. Tension is needed. Competition, if it can’t be cultivated in one party, requires Georgians to look to the other.
But the competition should be purposeful, grounded in principle and built on policy disagreements. Is it better, for example, to offer tax relief across the board or to wage-earners via an income tax?
Republicans are still trying to decide as a governing party whether tax relief and spending discipline are good things; whether choice in education and health care are worth pursuing and whether leaders or lobbyists set agendas. Competition, as practiced here, is not purposeful and productive. It’s personal. Ego- and ambition-driven. Pointless.
Isakson’s appeal is that he’s knowledgeable and serious about public policy, has first-rate political skills and is, furthermore, a calming presence.
He would be seen as coming from outside the problem — something Oxendine offers as an argument for his candidacy. (Oxendine says, incidentally, that he’s often asked why he didn’t run for lieutenant governor two years ago if he wanted to be governor. His explanation is that he thought it would be immoral to run for one office determined to pursue another. Fortunately for the ambitious, that immorality — if that’s what it is — is not a jailable offense.)
The next governor needs a Newt Gingrich vision and the political skills to turn competition productive for the Georgians who aren’t represented by lobbyists. We need a place to go and a plan for getting there.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Friday, Sunday and Tuesday.
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