Perdue’s promise: ‘I’m not going to be a just-say-no senator’

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Georgia’s voters just reshaped the state’s congressional delegation while re-electing many of the top officials at the state level. To see what happens next in Georgia’s politics, check these options from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Economic reforms and spending cuts, two of U.S. Senator-elect David Perdue’s top policy priorities, line up well with the agenda of the incoming Republican Congress.

The third, term limits, most certainly does not.

Perdue is somewhat of a blank slate politically as he heads to the Capitol this week for orientation, ahead of his January swearing-in. In his first-ever bid for office, the former Fortune 500 CEO ran against the Republican establishment and did not play nice with influential groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as he won election as "the outsider."

As he enters the inside of the highly exclusive club of 100, Perdue gave a few clues as to how he will comport himself in a Friday phone interview. He spoke of wanting to be a deal-maker, sounding similar to Georgia’s current pair of GOP senators, Johnny Isakson and the outgoing Saxby Chambliss.

But Perdue did not depart much from conservative orthodoxy in his campaign and promised to stick to his guns in Washington.

“They want a consensus builder,” Perdue said of the voters who elected him by an 8 percentage point margin over Democrat Michelle Nunn.

“They don’t want me to compromise my values and principles, but I think they want progress,” he said. “If an 80 percent solution will get us moving forward, then I’m going to be in there fighting. I’m not going to be a just-say-no senator.”

Emory University political science professor Merle Black said he expects Perdue to be a “pretty-much-down-the-line conservative Republican” who could have a rocky transition from CEO to legislator.

“It may take him a while to find who his natural allies are in the Senate,” Black said. “I don’t think he wants to be a Ted Cruz, but I’m not sure. I think basically he’ll go along with the party.”

Cruz, the freshman Texan whose take-no-prisoners style has been a thorn in the side of GOP leaders, came to Georgia to campaign for Perdue, but he ducked a question on whether he sees the Georgian as a kindred spirit.

Jason Pye, a libertarian-leaning Republican activist in Georgia for years, said he does not see Perdue as someone who will shake up the Senate like Cruz or U.S. Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee. Pye said Perdue’s campaign spent far more time bashing President Barack Obama than advancing new policies.

Perdue “is exactly what (soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell is,” said Pye, who now works at the Washington-based tea party organizing group FreedomWorks. “He’s not running on ideas. He’s playing small ball. It’s dumb. It doesn’t advance anything. It doesn’t help us out. It’s good for short-term victories.”

Troutman Sanders lobbyist Rob Leebern, a former Chambliss chief of staff, said Perdue will fit the mold of past Georgia senators.

“He’s going to recognize that there have been a long line of statesmen that have served before him,” Leebern said. “And that rather than being a guy that’s going to cast a lot of stones, I think he’s going to recognize that Georgians expect him to be a statesman and represent their values.”

Perdue ridiculed Nunn’s constant vows of bipartisanship on the campaign trail, considering that Perdue placed blame for Washington gridlock at the feet of Nunn-backer Harry Reid, the Democrats’ Senate leader. But on specific issues, Perdue does see room for compromise, starting with the repatriation tax on corporate overseas profits.

While revamping the tax system is high on Republicans’ to-do list, it is more often spoken about as a sweeping effort across the whole code. But Perdue said corporate taxes can be tackled in the short term, before an overhaul of the individual code.

“In the immediate crisis that we’re in, the corporate rate and repatriation can be dealt with in an isolated way in a one-off environment,” he said.

Perdue acknowledges that a two-term limit is a tougher sell, particularly considering that the man who will run the show — McConnell — was just elected to his fifth term. A Senate joint resolution for a two-term limit had just 12 co-sponsors in this Congress, all Republicans.

“That’s a tough one,” Perdue said.

“I’m going to make my case. I’ve already made the case to a couple of senators up there and gotten different results, frankly,” he said. “I think this is one that they just have to hear what’s coming out of the state. The biggest applause I would get at any location was around term limits.”

Perdue is now in the middle of thanking campaign supporters and figuring out how to wind down his campaign and assemble a Senate office. He will have to arrange transfers of case work from Chambliss’ office and decide whom to hire for more than 40 positions in Washington and Georgia.

He has said he wants Chambliss' slots on the Agriculture and Armed Services committees, but the latter is a highly coveted post. And McConnell, who will dole out committee slots, surely remembers Perdue's primary season promise to vote against him for leader, though Perdue softened his stance during the general election.

Isakson’s advice to Perdue is that it takes “patience, discipline and endurance” to be a good senator — particularly when compared with the business world.

“He’s a man who knows what he knows and knows what he doesn’t know,” Isakson said of his new counterpart. “He gets all the facts together. He’s not going to shoot from the hip.”