This is the first in an occasional series analyzing Georgia’s five competitive congressional primary races ahead of the May 20 vote, as the state’s delegation to Washington is set to go through a historic shift.
Republicans seeking the 1st Congressional District seat:
Buddy Carter, state senator and pharmacist, Pooler
Darwin Carter, consultant and farmer, Alma
Jeff Chapman, state representative, Brunswick
Bob Johnson, surgeon, Savannah
Earl Martin, family doctor, Blackshear
John McCallum, manager of investment firm, St. Simons Island
Republicans seeking the 1st Congressional District seat:
Buddy Carter, state senator and pharmacist, Pooler
Darwin Carter, consultant and farmer, Alma
Jeff Chapman, state representative, Brunswick
Bob Johnson, surgeon, Savannah
Earl Martin, family doctor, Blackshear
John McCallum, manager of investment firm, St. Simons Island
Republicans seeking the 1st Congressional District seat:
Buddy Carter, state senator and pharmacist, Pooler
Darwin Carter, consultant and farmer, Alma
Jeff Chapman, state representative, Brunswick
Bob Johnson, surgeon, Savannah
Earl Martin, family doctor, Blackshear
John McCallum, manager of investment firm, St. Simons Island
As he dug into a plate of barbecue, state Sen. Buddy Carter ruminated on the influence of the tea party on his coastal race for Congress.
“This isn’t Cherokee County,” he concluded.
The 1st Congressional District, spanning from the Savannah area to the Florida border along the coast and out west almost to Valdosta, is a mostly Republican swath of territory. One of the six men competing in the May 20 GOP primary is almost certain to be the next congressman.
But the influence of Northern transplants, wealthy coastal residents and a massive military presence make for a GOP electorate that does not quite mirror the hard-right activists who often decide North Georgia races.
So the campaign to replace U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston — the Savannah Republican is running for the U.S. Senate — is not strictly a race to the right, as much as it is a fight to define what it takes to be an effective conservative in Washington.
Carter, who has been in public office here for two decades, is the clear front-runner. He owns three pharmacies in the area, and he has ascended from the Planning Board to the City Council to mayor of Pooler to the state House to the state Senate. He had the most campaign funds in the bank at the start of the year, was the first to air a television ad and was well ahead in a recent poll.
That makes for a big target.
The campaign of Bob Johnson, a Savannah surgeon, likes to call Carter "liberal." State Rep. Jeff Chapman of Brunswick points out Carter's votes to hold the T-SPLOST transportation sales tax referendum and to allow Georgia Power to bill ratepayers for the Plant Vogtle nuclear plants while they are under construction. John McCallum, a businessman on St. Simons Island, calls Carter a "career politician."
The last one particularly rankles Carter.
“I’m a career pharmacist,” he said.
Experience as an issue
Carter says his business experience combined with public service triumphs, such as presiding over Pooler’s huge growth, gives him the winning formula.
“What kills me is all these people who have never held public office,” he said, “they can just sit back and throw bombs like: ‘I wouldn’t have done this. I wouldn’t have done that.’ What have you done? You haven’t done anything.”
The other candidates have outsider credentials but aren’t just out to torch the establishment, either.
Take Johnson, the most aggressive foil to Carter so far. He was an Army Ranger who became a head and neck surgeon and a global disaster preparedness expert. In an interview on a visit to Washington, Johnson played up connections to current officeholders, including Kingston, a neighbor and cycling buddy.
He also wants to protect Georgia’s coastal “treasures.”
“I think we can develop industry wisely while protecting the environment,” Johnson said. “And federal laws do come into play there.”
In other areas, Johnson’s pugilism comes to the fore.
While most of the other candidates dodged when asked whether they would support John Boehner for U.S. House speaker again, Johnson recoiled as if he had bit into a lemon.
“No I wouldn’t,” he replied.
At a forum last week on Skidaway Island, Chapman compared elected office to Army Ranger training, saying voters shouldn’t send someone to Washington who hasn’t “been in the fire of public office.”
Johnson shot back.
“I don’t think it’s the red badge of courage to have been elected to local office,” he said.
A day later in Brunswick, Chapman said: "It is a red badge of courage. I am not the least bit embarrassed. I'm quite frankly honored to have been elected to office so many times."
Chapman started on the Glynn County Commission, went to the state Senate and was an also-ran in the 2010 governor’s race before capturing a state House seat in 2012. He has been a thorn in the side of the powers that be at every step, from Gov. Sonny Perdue on eminent domain issues to Georgia Power on Vogtle’s cost overruns.
He recounts with glee that the local Chamber of Commerce “hates me” and says things like “every time I get re-elected I’m amazed.” He has little campaign cash and is counting on regional familiarity in the southern part of the district.
Across the causeway in St. Simons Island, the 44-year-old McCallum strikes a generational contrast compared with his older foes. His national debt-themed TV ad features a telegenic family, including his wife, former Miss America Heather Whitestone McCallum, and four boys from age 1 to 14.
“If you send me there, you’ve got a young guy who’s going to fight the fight to get this country back,” McCallum told voters at the forum.
But McCallum has more of a throwback pitch than anyone in the field. He digresses into history lessons about the Founding Fathers and touts mid-1990s nostalgia endorsements from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. McCallum worked for Gingrich during the mid-1990s Contract With America days, which he says positions him to be effective immediately.
“I do know enough about the Hill to be dangerous and get the job done,” he said in an interview.
The 1998 Republican nominee for secretary of state, McCallum runs an investment firm on St. Simons and has been involved in starting charter schools.
Also running is Earl Martin, a soft-spoken doctor from Blackshear who does not care that his campaign bank account is virtually empty. At the forum he told the crowd not to give him money because it could be better used by a mentoring program for at-risk youth in Savannah. He said this means he will not be beholden to contributors.
From the rural part of the district is Darwin Carter of Alma, who served in the Department of Agriculture during the Reagan administration and has lost bids for state agriculture commissioner and the state House. Mounting more of a tea party-based bid, Carter vowed to end foreign aid and funding to the United Nations, while asking for Iraq to reimburse the U.S. for the war.
Tea party influences
Carter said establishment Republicans need to get along better with the tea party.
“The rhetoric has to be toned down,” he said, “and I think the cooperation has to be embellished and broadened.”
Ken Baxley of the Effingham County Tea Party said he backs Carter, while Jeanne Seaver of the Savannah Tea Party is behind Chapman.
Seaver challenged the notion that the tea party doesn’t have a big sway here, pointing to successful efforts to defeat the T-SPLOST and other local campaigns.
“We are a lot stronger than people give us credit for,” she said.
The candidates and outside observers say tea partyers are part of the conversation but by no means dominant.
“They have an organization here, but I haven’t seen much visibility in this race,” said C. Bruce Mallard, a political science professor at Savannah’s Armstrong Atlantic State University.
Buddy Carter says he considers himself a member of the tea party and agrees with its values, though he questioned the strategy of one of the movement’s heroes.
“You look at the Ted Cruzes and you agree with them in principle, but you wonder if the way they go about it is the right way or not,” Carter said, referring to the U.S. senator from Texas whose quest to defund the Affordable Care Act helped lead to the government shutdown last year.
Still, Carter, like all the Republican candidates, wants to scrap the health care law. During this year's legislative session he helped push through a bill attacking the law, including eventually ending the University of Georgia's "navigator" program.
He also drew unwanted attention for a failed effort to pass a bill dealing with reimbursement rates for pharmacists. An investigative report by Fox 5 raised questions about whether the bill was a conflict of interest that would benefit Carter personally.
Carter said in an interview that it was “a consumer bill.” Still steamed about the report and the insinuation that his bill was ethically questionable, Carter said, “I have a responsibility when I understand something and know something about an issue to be involved in it.”
McCallum and Johnson used the report to take shots at Carter. By now, the front-runner is used to it.
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