Donald Trump has yet to finish with Iowa. Three more states stand between him and our "SEC primary" on March 1. The petulant GOP frontrunner has made only two appearances here in the last six months.
And yet, Trumpism is already roiling Georgia politics, renewing a debate over who is a conservative and what that label means.
The Trump presidential campaign is already shaping the race to replace U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland in Washington.
Success of the Trump brand has also encouraged U.S. Sen. David Perdue to double-down on his blue-jean jacketed, “outsider” persona – at the expense of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and his re-election bid.
And The Donald is already causing Republicans to rethink the field in the next race for governor. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle currently has the inside track. But Cagle was elected in 2006, and will be a dozen years into the job by 2018.
If Trump not only survives but thrives in Georgia’s presidential primary, that resume could suddenly become a liability.
But for the moment, let’s talk David Perdue, who like Trump ran as a wealthy – and successful — man of business. Of any Republican in Georgia, it is the junior U.S. senator who could benefit most from a Trump wave.
State Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, is one of Trump’s rare supporters in the state Capitol. This week, on GPB’s “The Lawmakers,” Jones drew the parallel.
“So many people are tired of the political establishment. It’s much like the phenomenon we saw with our U.S. senator, David Perdue,” Jones said. “We need someone with business experience that has a history of getting things done in the private sector. And it’s working.”
People forget that, at Trump’s first campaign event here last October, Perdue recorded a video greeting for the billionaire. It just wasn’t played at the rally.
"Donald Trump has struck a nerve in America," Perdue said. "He's inspiring all of us to make America great again."
This summer, Perdue and Isakson gave a green light to President Barack Obama’s nomination of Dax Lopez, a Republican Jewish Latino, to a Northern U.S. District Court judgeship. David Perdue’s cousin, Gov. Sonny Perdue, had already put Lopez on the DeKalb County state court bench.
Two weeks ago, Isakson signaled his readiness to move Lopez' nomination to a full Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Perdue, a member of that committee, vetoed that idea – and left Isakson hanging out to dry.
Despite previously giving his approval, Perdue said he was “uncomfortable” with Lopez’ involvement with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, and the organization’s position on immigration issues. But the Georgia senator also paid homage to Trump’s candidacy – built around a giant wall along the Mexican border – when he said that a positive committee vote for Lopez was “unattainable.”
Perdue's Trump-reinforced tension with Isakson isn't just about Lopez. Two weeks ago, at a South Carolina gathering of tea party activists, the junior senator spoke – as he often does – of a dysfunctional Washington.
“It’s perverse how broken it is. We’re up against a political class,” Perdue said. “Sixty United States senators have been in elected office up there for more than 20 years. Thirty-six have been in elected office up there one way or another for 30 years. There’s our problem.”
Isakson has served 17 years in Congress, and is looking for six more. Perdue has endorsed his colleague, but the contradiction is there for all to see.
Then we have the Third District congressional race, a safe Republican seat from which Lynn Westmoreland has decided to walk away. The March 1 presidential primary in Georgia, likely to come down to a clash between Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, is already shaping the May primary contest to replace Westmoreland.
State Sen. Mike Crane, R-Newnan, was the first to jump into the race. He is a strong Cruz supporter. Drew Ferguson, mayor of West Point and a dentist, announced his candidacy on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a third candidate announced. Like Donald Trump and David Perdue, Jim Pace is a wealthy businessman who has never run for public office before.
Pace has close ties to Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy, and has established a mission called Cows for Christ – which provides milk-producing cattle to AIDS-ravaged Africa. So Pace probably knows his Bible better than Trump.
Nonetheless, Pace’s Wednesday announcement echoed the New York billionaire. “I want to take my private sector experience to Congress, so we can take back our country,” Pace said.
At the Capitol, I ran into Crane, the state senator. We talked of his new rival. “Are you trying to elect a business executive, or are you trying to elect someone to uphold the Constitution?” Crane asked.
The thing is, I wasn’t sure whether the lawmaker was talking about his own race, or the Republican presidential contest bearing down on Georgia.
One additional thought: Obviously, first-time candidates don’t always succeed. But they often try again. If Pace doesn’t scratch in this congressional race, Republicans may have their first Trump-like candidate in the 2018 race for governor.
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