By Alan Judd
ajudd@ajc.com
MARIETTA, Ga. — Maybe it’s a bid for redemption. Or an act of atonement. Or, as former Gov. Roy Barnes says, maybe he is again seeking his old office out of a sense that if he didn’t take on Georgia’s most pressing problems, no one else would.
“I was to the point in life where I could enjoy some things,” Barnes, 62, out of office since 2003, said. “But I just couldn’t take it. I declare, it just wore on me more and more about where we were and where we are.”
Barnes’ disquiet over education, transportation and other intractable issues intruded on his morning ritual: coffee and the newspapers in the study of his newly constructed Victorian-style home a mile from his law office near the Marietta Square.