ATLANTA – Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has been preparing his run for Georgia governor for more than a decade, and he entered the race with his lineup ready: He had a noncontroversial campaign agenda of lower taxes and more jobs. He scared off well-known rivals. And he raked in big money.
But as the ranks of Republicans challenging his perch grew, a strategy based on trying to walk the line between conventional establishment forces and hard-line conservatives grew more complicated.
Suddenly, he couldn’t afford to be outflanked on the right, even if it meant the positions he staked could come back to haunt him in November.
He revived a call for “religious liberty” legislation. He started a legal feud with the liberal city of Decatur – a favorite boogeyman of state Republicans – over illegal immigration. And he picked a fight with Georgia’s largest private employer amid a gun rights battle.
At the same time, he’s been pilloried by his Republican rivals who paint him as a mushy moderate. They’re trying to use his long record in public office against him while trying to stake out more conservative positions on gun rights, abortion and tax cuts.