Long-shot Republican Senate candidates seek upset

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One calls himself the Minister of Truth and plays bass in a Jimi Hendrix cover band called The Axis Experience. The other is a patent attorney and amateur astronomer who started out as a car mechanic and mechanical engineer.

Derrick Grayson, the musician, and Art Gardner, the attorney, are the two long-shot candidates in the race for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Saxby Chambliss. Underfunded and lacking in name recognition, they are vying for the Republican nomination against a group of formidable opponents: three congressmen, a former Georgia secretary of state and a former Fortune 500 business executive.

Both first-time political candidates, Gardner and Grayson are attempting to pull off a major upset Tuesday by setting themselves far apart from their rivals. The winner will face whoever prevails in the four-way race for the Democratic nomination, a contest that includes Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn.

Gardner, 55, is casting himself as the mainstream Republican candidate who could defeat Nunn. A Marietta resident, he supports legalizing gay marriage and wants to create a pathway to legal status for immigrants without papers, so long as they pay taxes and don’t run afoul of the law.

He has garnered attention for his novel proposal to reduce soaring drug costs in the U.S. At issue is how some medication is sold at substantially lower costs in other countries. To control costs in the U.S., Gardner is proposing invalidating pharmaceutical companies’ drug patents under certain conditions.

“The bottom line is if you want a right-winger for your candidate, vote for somebody else, not me,” he said this week during an Atlanta Press Club debate aired on Georgia Public Broadcasting. “But if you want a mainstream candidate that can appeal to the middle and beat Michelle Nunn, vote Art Gardner on May 20.”

Grayson, 54, a network engineer for MARTA, has brought huge stage presence to the debates, passionately appealing for audience participation, criticizing his opponents and accusing the federal government of trampling on constitutional rights.

“I want to wake people up to the fact that the government is screwing everybody,” he said in an interview this month after attending a candidates’ forum at New Life Church in Decatur.

Grayson, who supported former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas for president in 2012, has promised to strictly adhere to the Constitution. He wants to repeal “all gun control laws for law-abiding citizens.” He supports allowing states to regulate the sale and use of marijuana. He opposes banning gay marriage and says the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a mistake.

Grayson drew national attention this month when he traveled to the West and met with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Bundy has attracted controversy with his standoff with the government concerning his cattle grazing on federal land and for wondering aloud whether blacks might have been better off as slaves picking cotton.

Grayson has rejected the idea that Bundy is a racist. He accused the federal government of creating “generational welfare.” “Government overreach” and “entrenchment with the welfare state,” he added, have “started to destroy and break up the fabric of the black community.”

Grayson has been open about his past troubles. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in Coweta County, public records show. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles pardoned Grayson in 2004, years after he served time in prison for the conviction, state records show.

After he got out of prison, Grayson suffered financial problems. He filed for bankruptcy a few times in the 1990s and once in 2003, and he was the target of liens for unpaid Georgia individual income taxes in 2008 and 2009. Those tax liens have been paid off, public records show.

“Recovering from a prison conviction and virtually unemployable, I faced many hurdles as a result of my choices and it made life a little difficult,” he said in an email, “but I overcame them all in spite of my past.”

Grayson and Gardner have tangled over Grayson’s past. During the televised debate in Atlanta this week, Gardner pointed out Grayson’s past trouble with the law without naming him.

“The other candidates in this race,” Gardner said, “are three congressmen, a convicted felon, a career politician who doesn’t have a college education and a businessman who says he is an outsider but he is really an insider.”

Grayson responded moments later.

“Next time, Art Gardner, say my name,” he said. “It was 25 years ago and I was pardoned, so I am not a convicted felon. I just wanted to clear that up.”