For Nunn, focus and determination led to Senate race

Peggy Jerles always knew Michelle Nunn would grow up to be a focused, determined woman when as a young girl Nunn nailed an a cappella version of “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”

“She sang it very well,” said Jerles, whose daughter, Kelly, was Nunn’s childhood friend. “She sang it very correctly, slowly, hitting all the words and notes. That’s how she sang her song.”

Now, Jerles, who still lives in Perry, sees that same concentration in Nunn as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

“She still is careful about what she says,” Jerles said, “and I think she’s precise and I think she knows what she’s talking about.”

Kelly Jerles, who would grow up to be Miss Georgia 1987, and Nunn were girlhood pals. After Nunn’s father, Sam, was elected to the U.S. Senate and the family moved to Washington, Michelle Nunn would spend her summers in Perry, where she and the younger Jerles would swim and play and, yes, practice their singing, with a jump-rope tied to a light fixture to hang down as a microphone.

“That was maybe indicative, when she was a little girl, of what type woman she would be,” Jerles said.

Nunn’s care and precision have given critics ammunition that she’s stiff. Her risk-averse nature means she has at times declined to take strong positions, including awkwardly declining to say whether she would have voted for the health care law known as Obamacare.

Career of service

Nunn is taking her first stab at elected office after a 25-year career in the nonprofit world, though for the daughter of a senator and the granddaughter of a mayor, politics is the family business. She’s contributed more than $17,000 to state and federal candidates, including to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008, respectively. And, despite GOP attempts last week to gig her for not answering the question, Nunn’s campaign said the candidate definitely voted for Obama.

While politics clearly runs in the family, Nunn’s personal focus was already on service all through high school at the prestigious National Cathedral School in Washington and college at the University of Virginia and Harvard University. She volunteered at nursing homes and mentored younger children, all while feeding a competitive streak through basketball, tennis and track.

“I actually loved service even as a young person,” Nunn said after a recent campaign appearance at an urban farm in College Park.

After UVA, she set aside a Peace Corps application to return to Atlanta to start HandsOn Atlanta, a nonprofit promoting volunteerism that eventually grew into the HandsOn Network, a national organization of volunteer organizations. In 2007, HandsOn merged with Points of Light, founded by former President George H.W. Bush, with Nunn becoming CEO.

The merger, however, has fueled Nunn’s opponents, who point out that her salary more than doubled to $250,000 while jobs were cut. Nunn counters that she was paid less than Points of Light’s previous CEO and that she requested a smaller salary. The job cuts came after it was revealed a contractor defrauded customers and Points of Light had to pay $5.2 million to set things right.

‘Hard choice’

Nunn, 47, has a family of her own now. She and her husband, Ron, a stay-at-home dad, have two children: a son, Vinson, 11, and a daughter, Elizabeth, 9. Nunn has taken a leave of absence from Points of Light to try to follow in her father’s Senate footsteps. Those who know her say she’s poured her intellectual curiosity into the campaign.

Nunn doesn’t disagree.

“I ultimately felt like I could extend the work that I was doing in terms of trying to make a difference and engaging people in democracy and citizenship in running for Senate in a meaningful way,” she said. “It was a hard choice to leave and a hard choice on a lot of different levels to do this, but ultimately, I felt like it was the right thing to do and 14 months later I’m still standing.”

Eric Tanenblatt, a Republican activist and senior managing director at McKenna Long, served on the HandsOn Atlanta board at Nunn’s request after meeting him while both were in Leadership Atlanta. The pair became friends. But Tanenblatt is quick to stress he’s supporting Republican David Perdue in the Senate race.

“She’s very earnest, very smart,” Tanenblatt said. “She’s someone who is pleasant to be around, just because you could have a really thoughtful, engaging conversation with her about the issues. She is someone who wants to hear different perspectives.”

Even about bees.

“This is one of the great parts of the campaign,” Nunn said on a recent Friday when she arrived at the Savannah Bee Co. for a lesson in the ways of honey, accompanied by staff and television cameras. “You get to visit cool places and talk to cool people.”

Nunn’s curiosity outlasted the cameras. She and owner Ted Dennard whisked through the warehouse to the hives out back. Nunn briefly donned a beekeeper helmet, despite her communications director’s fear that she would look silly in photographs.

“The bees look angry,” a store employee observed as they swarmed about the small crowd. Nathan Click, Nunn’s communications director, got nervous with visions of a candidate swollen by bee stings at her next event. Click directed another aide to “pull her.”

But Nunn stayed, huddled around a hive. “People are afraid of bees, but it’s really the yellow jackets that do the stinging,” Dennard declared.

Nunn agreed. She wanted a picture next to the bees for her daughter, Elizabeth, who’s afraid of them.

“That was truly wonderful,” Nunn said as she returned to the building.

Curious candidate

That desire to experience something new, to learn, is a key part of what makes her an attractive candidate, and a good friend, said state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta.

Like Tanenblatt, Nunn recruited Abrams for the HandsOn Atlanta board, and they, too, became friends.

“She has one of the driest and wryest senses of humor I know,” Abrams said, noting that her friend also has an earnest fondness for chocolate. “Beyond respecting her, beyond trusting her, beyond being willing to invest in her, I genuinely like her. She’s a fun, nice, brilliant person who does not take herself too seriously.”