ATLANTA – Pity poor Vernon Jones, the erstwhile Democrat/perpetual candidate who carved out his lane in the wave of Trump deliria and hoped to ride that to a long-shot primary bid against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
Jones had dutifully gone all Stop the Steal, (a) partnering with conspiracy monger Alex Jones at a rally outside the Georgia Capitol, and (b) denouncing his Democratic roots in a speech at President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 pre-insurrection get-together.
It was all an ingratiating effort by Jones to get the Big Guy’s endorsement, which is priceless currency in the MAGA world. But it was all for naught. Vernon Jones was simply a warmup act for the real show. David Perdue is now the headliner. And he’s just as shameless.
When we last saw Perdue, he was an incumbent U.S. senator getting beat by the Democratic boy wonder, Jon Ossoff, a never-elected 30-something who was riding another wave: collective weariness of Trump.
Perdue, the former job-outsourcing exec with a reptilian grin, was an awful candidate. He always seemed to campaign – and govern – like he couldn’t stand the company of other human beings. Or at least those who weren’t board-of-director types.