Democrat Jason Carter opened a new front Thursday in his campaign for governor, saying that Gov. Nathan Deal has “politicized” Georgia’s National Guard and imperiled the state’s ability to stave off base closures in the next round of Pentagon cuts.
The state senator from Atlanta criticized Deal's 2011 appointment of Republican state Sen. Jim Butterworth as the head of the Guard as a blatantly political move. The promotion of Butterworth, a former captain in the Air National Guard, met some skepticism in military quarters.
“We have a governor who put politics first instead of placing people in positions where they should be. Economically, it’s a serious issue for us, and in terms of respect for the National Guard, it’s a serious issue,” Carter said, adding: “We need to be sure we’re sending the best possible people forward.”
The governor's campaign said Butterworth's work speaks for itself, and he pointed to a 2013 award that gave the Guard top honors in a Pentagon contest.
“This is another example of how Jason Carter prefers rhetoric over records,” Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said. “Our National Guard was named best in the nation by the Pentagon. Judge Governor Deal’s appointments by their performance.”
Carter's attack stuck to a broader theme of accusing Deal of turning state agencies into a political arm of his office. He earlier pledged to "professionalize" Georgia's economic development office and lead a nationwide search for its next leader.
Carter was flanked by two Democrats with military credentials: former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, and David Poythress, a former adjutant general of Georgia’s Guard who was also a two-time Democratic candidate for governor.
Poythress called Deal’s military appointments a “laughingstock” and said they prove he doesn’t take the military seriously.
“These people, the governor’s appointees, are not federally recognized generals. When they go to the Pentagon, they have to wear a coat and tie,” Poythress said, adding: “They don’t belong there, and everyone knows they don’t belong there.”
That type of image problem could hurt Georgia, Poythress said, if the state has to deal with another round of Pentagon base closures, which often generate a highly charged political debate and intense lobbying from politicians and military officials.
The event, held outside the Marietta Museum of History’s Air Wing, was aimed at appealing to veterans and their families in the final push before the November election. Carter is not a military veteran, but he and his surrogates noted that his father, Jack, and both his grandfathers served.
Deal's aides scoffed at the attack and pointed to the governor's military record. Deal rose to the ranks of captain in the U.S. Army in the 1950s before leaving the military to start his law practice.
“We have a governor who has served his nation in uniform in a time of war,” Robinson said. “He’s not going to take a lecture from someone with absolutely zero military experience. Jason Carter should be ashamed of himself.”
Carter and his surrogates said his family’s military experience, as well as his time serving in the Peace Corps in South Africa, would help guide his decisions should he be elected.
“It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have military experience,” Cleland said. “I consider the fact that he grew up at his father’s knee and his grandfather’s knee enough to know that he grew up in a family that relishes military experience.”
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