In Georgia, Deal, Perdue Best Choices

Democrats in Georgia are banking on the past this November. That is, they are hoping candidates with ties to a previous governor and senator will translate into votes for a grandson and a daughter, respectively, in those same offices. However, the Peach State, more than a decade ago, turned its back on the past and fully embraced Republicans. Statewide races next month will determine whether the state is feeling nostalgic or likes what it sees of the present.

Governor: Nathan Deal

Ninety-year-old former President Jimmy Carter couldn't help but play the race card recently in an attempt to help his 39-year-old grandson, state Sen. Jason Carter, win the governorship.

Speaking to an audience at a black church in Albany, he told them that Republicans and current Gov. Nathan Deal want to deny them - and "mentally retarded people and elderly people" - their voting rights.

Someone needs to tell the elder Carter it's not 1956, and Republicans are not the Democrats who kept blacks from voting 50 years ago and before. That patently false argument may have played with the audience to which he was speaking, but it won't play across Georgia in 2014.

The younger gubernatorial candidate has to walk a fine line with his grandfather, needing his contacts and the money they bring but understanding his one term as president is not viewed very highly even in the state that once elected him governor.

Stripped of his grandfather, though, Carter is but a trial lawyer and two-term state senator who never passed a bill while in the Georgia legislature and never held a leadership position with the Democrat caucus of the state Senate.

We believe his lack of accomplishments doesn't merit a term in the governor's office, so we back Gov. Deal for a second term.

Under the governor, 300,000 new private-sector jobs have been created, residents' overall tax burden has been lowered and Georgia was declared the country's No. 1 state for business in 2014 by CNBC.

And in Deal's most recent budget, more money is being spent on education as a percentage of the total budget than any time in the state in the last 50 years. Further, that budget - which Carter opposed after voting for the governor's first three - had a greater net increase in education spending than in his previous three.

It has left the challenger's desires to run on "the dismantling of our education system" a little weak.

We believe Deal offers a second term that will positively affect all Georgians.

U.S. Senator: David Perdue

Although businessman David Perdue has maintained a small lead in polls for a number of weeks over Democratic opponent Michelle Nunn, daughter of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., national Democrats recently saw a possible opening and shifted money from the Kentucky senatorial race to this one.

The Kentucky race, in which Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is challenging Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Georgia race were the only two in which Democrats months ago were thought to have a chance to pick off a Republican. As often in politics, things happen, and Democrats now have a shot in Kansas, too, but Republicans now have drawn closer to Democrats in New Hampshire, where they were once thought to be sure losers.

We believe Perdue, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Dollar General Corp., offers Peach State residents moderate conservative leadership and a sound business understanding that the United States can't continue spending more than it has.

Nunn, chief executive officer of the Atlanta-based Points of Light Foundation, is being portrayed as just another clone of President Obama, as are most Democratic candidates for Senate at a time when the president is unpopular. While we believe she would be a reliable Democrat, we also would like to think she would offer thoughtful and more moderate leadership in the tradition of her father.

But since it is an open seat, the winner replacing retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, we favor Perdue.

Perdue is attempting to make the slow national economic recovery a central theme of his campaign, saying at a debate with Nunn recently that the state has fewer people working today than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president, but he also stands foursquare with most Georgians on securing the country's southern border, ensuring more local control of education and establishing a sensible domestic energy policy.

We believe he'd be a good fit for Georgians in the U.S. Senate.

Upcoming Events