In the printed pages of the AJC today, you'll find former President Jimmy Carter's most extensive remarks about his grandson, Jason Carter, and his run for governor. But we wanted to break out the elder Carter's take on the ethics questions swirling around incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal.
The former president said while the drip-drip of ethics news about the troubled aftermath of the ethics commission's probe of Deal's 2010 campaign would help, his grandson will ultimately win or lose on larger questions of economy and education.
“I don’t think so,” he said, when asked if the young Carter’s election hopes hinge on significant ethics developments. He added:
"I think that a lot of very knowledgeable Georgia people are aware of the ethical record of Gov. Deal … I think knowledgeable voters know that. It's an unchangeable factor. Whether or not he's investigated, whether legal action is taken, is not significant."
Jason Carter's campaign has eagerly seized on every development on the ethics front, and the candidate has called for an independent investigation at least three separate times. But he's also kept a broader effort to hammer Deal over education funding; Deal points toward a K-12 increase of more than $300 million he signed into law this year.
The former president, who described his grandson as a "fiscal conservative" who would be a tight steward of Georgia's budget, went on to take a dig at the governor over the state's decision to pay nearly $3 million to settle whistleblower complaints from ethics commission employees who claim they were fired or forced from office over the Deal investigation.
"I don’t think he’ll spend $3 million in payoffs to people who were in the ethics committee, who were discharged because they were putting pressure on the governor."
About the Author
The Latest
Featured
