They all want to balance the budget, overhaul the tax code and never raise the federal borrowing limit. At a candidates’ forum last week on education and social welfare, the phrase “not the role of the federal government” echoed off the walls repeatedly.
The four candidates seeking the Republican nomination July 31 to face Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow in the fall proclaim similar conservative philosophies, but present a wide range of styles and backgrounds to voters in a district that spans from Augusta to rural Coffee County in South Georgia.
“If this were a standardized test we’d answer the questions relatively the same,” said Wright McLeod, a real estate attorney and former Navy officer from Augusta. “So I don’t view it as an issue campaign right now. There is a tremendous difference in our backgrounds.”
Issue-oriented or not, the contest is attracting national attention. The GOP contenders are vying to take on Barrow, the last white Democrat in the Deep South and a tireless campaigner and fundraiser. The new district lines forced him into more Republican-friendly territory and to move from Savannah to Augusta, but the four-term incumbent survived a similar move in 2006.
Barrow had $1.35 million in his campaign bank account at the end of June.
“Our fundraising puts us in a strong position to tell the residents of this district about my record of bipartisan cooperation to strengthen our economy and bring good-paying jobs to Georgia,” Barrow said in a statement.
Outside groups are set to spend big to sway the outcome – most notably the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has reserved $900,000 of television airtime to attack Barrow.
Considering its high profile as the most competitive federal general election in Georgia this year, University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said he is surprised at the lack of big GOP names.
“I don’t find this to be a particularly impressive field,” he said. “If you were thinking this is a great year for the best chance to take out John Barrow, wouldn’t you expect the first team or somebody from the first team to step forward and get into the contest?”
McLeod emphasizes his military roots and lack of political experience. Rick Allen, the CEO of a construction company in Augusta, is another newcomer to politics and proud of it, talking up his business experience.
Maria Sheffield, a lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for state insurance commissioner in 2010, tells of losing both her parents as a child and working her way through college. She moved from Cobb County to Laurens County, where her family is from, to run.
Lee Anderson first was elected to the school board in his 20s, was a Columbia County commissioner and now is a state representative. His folksy style emphasizes the one job he has kept all along: farmer.
A runoff appears likely. All four recently started airing television ads – though Sheffield’s was a limited buy geared for online viewers — and all but McLeod back their campaigns in part with their own money. The wealthy Allen is likely to add to the $100,000 he had loaned the campaign through June. Anderson has forked over $178,000, and Sheffield loaned herself more than $100,000 early this year.
Sheffield, the least-funded of the bunch, has been crashing with family friends as she travels the district in her white pickup truck. Banking on a tea party-targeted appeal, Sheffield could benefit from party-flipping in Richmond County – in which Allen and McLeod share an Augusta base – where a dynamic Democratic primary for sheriff is drawing in many Republican voters. McLeod said he is concerned that as many as half the usual GOP primary voters in Richmond County could vote on the Democratic slate instead.
Sheffield argued “that will translate for me because those tea party people and those grassroots people, they will probably walk over a dead person to vote Republican. They’re not even going to think about voting as a Democrat, even in local elections.”
Party-hopping also has animated a spat between Allen and McLeod, the race’s major pugilists to this point. Each has pointed to the other’s past donations and votes for Democrats.
Allen said he now regrets donating money to Charles “Champ” Walker for his 2002 race against GOP then-Rep. Max Burns, a contribution Allen said he made out of kindness to a friend. McLeod stands behind his support of longtime friend Rob Teilhet in his 2010 run for attorney general.
But McLeod said he does regret voting in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008. He claims he voted for former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson because Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were “scaring the bejeesus out of me.”
But there is no record of any votes in McLeod’s precinct for Richardson – who had dropped out of the race weeks earlier.
“I don’t know how to explain that,” McLeod said. “But that’s what I did.”
Allen also has been dogging McLeod with a legal complaint about his Federal Election Commission filings. McLeod admitted not itemizing his payroll expenditures, while rejecting several other charges. He filed a response to the FEC that he will not release, but the case likely will not be resolved for months.
The Savannah Morning News this month delved into possible illegal “straw donations” from donors with limited means or scant political giving history giving the maximum $2,500 to McLeod, raising questions as to whether they were reimbursed by someone else to get around the donation limits. McLeod said he has no knowledge of such a scheme and does not believe one exists.
The negative headlines irk McLeod, but he adds: “Hell, I’ve been shot at before.” His signs tout the fact that he is the only candidate in the race with military experience. The Naval Academy graduate flew a F-14 Tomcat during Operation Desert Storm and retired as a Commander.
Anderson professes a simple love of public service. He rarely takes vacation and lists his cell phone number online. He’s on it so much that his wife calls the cell phone “Lee’s first wife.”
Anderson is the only one of the four to back the T-SPLOST sales tax referendum in the Augusta region, which he argued was important for funding infrastructure improvements and falls in line with his preferred method of taxation.
Anderson is banking on a network built from years in public and business life throughout the district. His three opponents use it to call him a “career politician.” He replies that “I consider myself a servant, not a politician” — and one who has balanced a budget at three different levels of government.
Allen notes he also had to balance the books at R.W. Allen construction, which these days employs about 70 people but is somewhat hampered by the rough economy because financing for construction projects is hard to come by, he said. Allen said he has been through worse: A restructuring when a major client went bankrupt, during which he had to consolidate offices. He said the federal government is in similar need of reorganization.
Asked about the role of the federal government at a forum in Augusta last week, Allen gave a business-centric reply: “Support free enterprise. The policies of the federal government keep me from hiring and creating jobs.”
On that, the four candidates largely agree, making primary voters’ decisions tough. After the forum Susan MacEwen, of Augusta, said she had been leaning toward McLeod – she knew him from working in real estate – but was taken by Sheffield’s personal story and now she was on the fence.
Samantha Ellefson, a pediatric dietitian from Augusta, likes the idea of shrinking the federal government but wants specifics.
“They all seem sensible,” she said. “They kept saying how [programs] had to be local, but they didn’t say how it was going to happen.”
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