Barnes, Deal spar in feisty debate

Barnes said he personally tried only one case before a judge he appointed and that his law firm appeared before others on motions and injunctions. He added that he appointed Deal’s son, Jason, as a district attorney and that he once appeared before his son after his son became a judge.

“I appeared before him and he ruled in favor of me. Are you saying your son is corrupt?” Barnes said.

Later in the debate, Barnes shot back at Deal, accusing him of mixing public business with private business when he was a congressman. Barnes referred to how in 2005 Deal and his congressional staff intervened with state officials -- including Attorney General Thurbert Baker -- to advocate for a landfill he and a partner wanted to build in Gainesville.

“I want you to tell the people here one person, one constituent, other than you or your business partner, that you ever went to the attorney general about and asked him to help you change the law to fit that constituent,” Barnes said.

Deal defended the landfill project. And after the debate, he told reporters he had no financial interest in it.

“This landfill situation ought to be one that we are proud of,” Deal said. “I don’t make any apologies for that. This is the first time that you can find where a private individual is willing to go in and spend their own money to take an unlined sanitary landfill and put that in a liner to protect the community.”

Libertarian John Monds largely stayed out of the fray.

“What most people have noticed is I don’t get into personal attacks. I talk about real issues facing Georgians,” Monds said. “What I’m trying to do with you is share a message. And the message is this: We know what works… And that is more freedom, more liberty, the respect for individual rights, letting people keep the hard-earned money they are working for instead of giving it to government.”

The three candidates debated before a cheering – and sometimes booing – crowd in a cavernous auditorium at the fairgrounds. The hour-long debate touched on a variety of subjects, including illegal immigration, taxes, the tri-state water war, Georgia’s projected budget deficit -- and even possums.

Deal used a reference to the prehensile-tailed marsupial to poke fun at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The nonprofit advocacy group named him as one of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last year that Deal personally intervened with state officials in a vehicle inspection program that benefited a company in which he was a part owner. Deal called the group a “left-wing, liberal organization.”

“Being called unethical by a group like CREW is literally like being called ugly by a possum,” Deal said.

Deal’s line was a play on a barb Barnes used against him in a debate Tuesday. Barnes said Deal accusing him of being negative is "kind of like a possum telling a skunk his breath stinks. That's all I see on television, my new name, ‘Roybama.’”

Prompted by a question from a debate panelist Thursday, Barnes acknowledged he had improperly claimed a tax break on property he no longer owned.

“We own about 60 or 70 parcels of land,” Barnes said. “And what happened was we gifted in 2007 and 2008 a house to our daughter and our son-in-law -- one of our rental houses... It was an error.”

Deal said he would not attack Barnes’ family over the mistakes, a clear reference to the scrutiny his daughter and son-in-law attracted after filing for bankruptcy in 2009.

The bankruptcy stems from a failed sporting goods business started by Carrie Deal Wilder and her husband, Clint Wilder, that Deal invested in and that left him with $2.1 million in debt. A federal judge reopened the case this year after it was revealed that Clint Wilder was not eligible for a discharge of his debts, including those from the sporting goods store, because he did not divulge a prior bankruptcy in 2001.

“I am like a lot of folks. I have had losses over these hard economics times,” Deal said. “Mr. Barnes has maintained that he is pure in terms of everything he has done. I’m glad to see he acknowledges he made a mistake.”