Kingston runs for Senate as the ‘pleasant dissenter’

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THE GOP SENATE RACE

This week The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is running profiles of the leading Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate. Here is a schedule of when each story will appear:

Tuesday: U.S. Rep. Paul Broun

Wednesday: U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey

Thursday: Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel

Friday: U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston

Saturday: David Perdue

The emblem of Jack Kingston’s U.S. Senate campaign, at least in his television ads, is his ancient station wagon.

It is meant to represent Kingston’s personal thrift and “regular guy” bona fides, but the Buick could also be a metaphor for Kingston’s two-decade U.S. House career. It has been reliable for a long time, but Republican primary voters across the state could be seeking a newer model.

Kingston has been in public life for 30 years and was first elected to his Savannah-based House seat in 1992. He built a reputation as a conservative and occasional irritant to Republican leadership, but one who works frequently with Democrats and lacks the harder edge of some more recently elected tea party adherents.

It’s a mix, Kingston says, built for the consensus-driven Senate, where votes from both parties are needed to accomplish much of anything.

“Just because you get along with people, it does not mean you’re not a fighter,” Kingston said during an interview in a U.S. House cafeteria. “And there seems to be a certain view that you have to be an obnoxious dissenter. You can be a pleasant dissenter and an effective dissenter.”

His opponents and many conservative and tea party groups say Kingston has not dissented enough, supporting farm subsidies and debt-ceiling increases and Appropriations Committee spending plans that were insufficiently austere. The noncongressmen in the race present themselves as untainted by Washington.

A TV ad produced by a Super PAC supporting businessman David Perdue calls Kingston "the King of Earmarks" and says he has been in Washington too long.

An Athens native and son of a University of Georgia professor, Kingston moved after college to Savannah, where he sold insurance. He won a seat in the state House in 1984 and served four terms in Atlanta before jumping to Washington.

Along the way he raised four children and developed a reputation as a cheapskate. Longtime friend Eric Johnson, who took over Kingston’s state House seat and unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010, would dispatch a friend to chuck out old frayed shirts while Kingston was campaigning so Kingston would have to buy new ones.

When Kingston first got to Washington, he slept in his office and showered in the House gym. Nowadays he has a home in Alexandria, Va., from which he commutes by bike to Capitol Hill.

He made his mark on the Appropriations Committee, where he steered millions of dollars in “earmarks” to home-state priorities. But he also was one of the early agitators to kill congressionally directed earmark spending.

Though it constituted a tiny fraction of the budget, earmarks became symbolic of Washington waste with projects such as Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere.” House Republicans banned earmarks after taking over in 2011.

In 2005, House leaders eliminated Kingston’s Appropriations subcommittee after he railed against soaring costs for the new Capitol Visitors Center. When he sought a spot in House Republican leadership in 2008, Kingston was backed by the conservative blog RedState. In 2010 he was the choice of tea party and outside conservative groups for Appropriations chairman.

He was unsuccessful both times, but the bids were evidence that the “establishment” tag does not easily fit him.

At the same time, in this race he’s been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the big business establishment — and has raised far more money than other Republicans from outside sources.

One of his best pals in the House is U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a liberal Democrat from Connecticut known for her funky sense of style. She has been his counterpart from the other party in key Appropriations posts overseeing agriculture and now health care spending — the most divisive corner of the budget process.

“He is never mean-spirited, and you can come to committee meetings and hearings and have a discussion in a businesslike way and respectful way,” DeLauro said. “That’s not always the case” with other Republicans.

In the Senate race, Kingston’s House record has been stacked up against fellow Senate-seeking Republican U.S. Reps. Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey, who score higher with the influential conservative pressure groups who often tweak House GOP leadership.

In the past year, Kingston has followed suit as, for example, his score with Heritage Action for America leapt from 71 percent to 86 percent.

In one case, he helped negotiate a yearly spending bill and then was the only “no” vote out of 51 Appropriations Committee members because he said spending levels were too high. Kingston disputes the assertion that he modulated his voting patterns to the winds of a competitive primary and pointed to lifetime high marks from such organizations as the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association.

Two decades of votes have provided plenty of fodder for opposition research and attack ads. Kingston believes they also provide evidence of a veteran warrior who’s fought the fight while still finding consensus.

“It’s always easy from the gallery, and it’s always easy when your career is based on voting no for everything,” Kingston said. “Governing is a little tougher than that.”