LAKE PARK — Jeff Chapman

By Larry Peterson

Savannah Now

Little has changed for Jeff Chapman since last September when he entered the race for this year’s Republican nomination for governor.

“I don’t know anything about him,” Emory University political science professor Merle Black said then. “... I’m not sure that most other people do, either.”  

Chapman, a businessman and state senator from Brunswick, apparently remains popular at home but almost unknown statewide.

The former Glynn County commissioner won his District 3 seat in 2004 with 68 percent of the vote and was unopposed for re-election in 2006 and 2008. But he’s averaged just 2 percent or so in statewide polls, a showing some groups have used to exclude him from candidate forums.

One possible reason for his low statewide profile: He’s not a member of the clubby inner circle of the Senate and has little clout there.

For whatever reason, Chapman, considered a bit of a maverick, has not chaired a major committee or held a Senate leadership post.  

But in and around Brunswick, he’s well-known  for fighting to pare down massive redevelopment on Jekyll Island.

In any case, Chapman bills himself as a defender of free enterprise, but also as a staunch foe of government cronyism with special interests.

“The establishment politics that exist today can no longer exist,” he said at a forum in Marietta.

His other positions are a mixed bag. He’s for property rights, environmental protection, water conservation, gun owner rights, open government and limiting taxes.

But getting his message on those and other issues out to the GOP electorate depends heavily on advertising. And that takes lots of money.

He and others were affected by the ban on state-elected officials accepting campaign cash while the legislature met from Jan. 11 through April 28. As of March 31, when the last reporting period ended, Chapman had collected about $117,000. That’s not only far less than any major contender.

Those difficulties aside, he remains committed to the rationale for his campaign he spelled out on Day One.

 “With all due respect to the other six candidates,” he said,  “I think I can do a better job at representing the interests of Georgia.”

 

Nathan Deal

By Cameron McWhirter

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Recently, Nathan Deal’s campaign SUV stopped outside Cartersville at Bartow Precast, a small company that makes concrete septic tanks, grease traps and storm drain enclosures. He met the company’s president, Michael Tidwell, and learned about his struggles to keep going during the recession — without laying off employees.

“I believe Georgians need a governor that is as solid as this piece of

concrete,” he said, pounding his fist.

Some polls show Deal gathering support.

A Rasmussen poll of likely Georgia voters released May 24 found Deal fared the best of any Republican against Roy Barnes, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who has raised the most money. The poll reported three GOP candidates leading Barnes, but Deal led by the largest margin, 47 to 40 percent.

North Georgia voters have elected Deal nine times, each by a wide margin, in what has become one of the region’s most conservative congressional districts. The American Conservative Union in 2009 gave Deal a 100 percent rating. He voted against President George W. Bush’s bank bailout and President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. Before he resigned this spring, Deal’s last official act was to vote against Obama’s health care overhaul. His issue this campaign is jobs, and he sees the answer as low corporate taxes and less government red tape.

“You don’t have to guess where I stand on issues,” Deal said. “You can go look at my voting record.”

Whatever Deal’s plans for state prosperity, his personal finances have been troubled of late.

Deal, who became a multimillionaire while in Congress, is today part owner of a real estate and rental business as well as an aviation company. He owns half of Gainesville Salvage and Disposal, a car salvage business that for years had an agreement to handle damaged vehicles in North Georgia. Deal also became a principal investor in a store owned by his daughter and her husband.

Deal has seen his property values and rental income plummet during the recession, but the last two investments have caused him the most headaches. In 2009, The AJC reported Deal’s congressional staff met with state officials three times in 2008 and 2009 to discuss changes in salvaged car inspections. The changes would have opened up competition for Deal’s business, which was one of only a handful that had lucrative agreements with the state. A congressional ethics office blasted Deal, saying he “took active steps to preserve a purely state program, one that had generated financial benefit for Rep. Deal and his business partner.” Because Deal left office, congressional investigators took no further action.

Deal bristles when the matter is raised. He said he was only concerned with how the program’s changes would affect car safety, not his own finances. The business no longer participates in the program.

In 2008, Deal invested in a sporting goods business started by a daughter and her husband. The business failed, and now Deal carries $2.1 million in related debts, records show.

But as the July 20 GOP primary looms, Deal’s biggest challenge is standing out amid other candidates with conservative pedigrees, flashier campaigns and louder voices.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a GOP congressman from North Georgia, is a strong Deal supporter.

“Nathan is more calm, more precisioned,” he said. “He’s not trying to woo anybody with any type of craziness.”

What friends call calm, critics call disengaged.

McCracken Poston, who lost a congressional race to Deal in 1996, said Deal’s many years in Congress have been uneventful and unproductive.

Deal, a lifelong Georgian, began his political career in the 1970s as a Democrat, like most Southerners at the time. From 1981 to 1993, he served in the Georgia Senate, rising to become the chamber’s second in command. In 1992, he was elected to Congress.

But momentous changes took place soon after he arrived in Washington. With the 1994 midterm elections, Republicans took control of the House. Newt Gingrich of Marietta became speaker.

In 1995, Deal switched parties. Democrats called him disloyal. They backed Poston in 1996, but Deal won handily. Thereafter, Deal rose to become a senior if not top member of the House. For years he headed a powerful health care subcommittee. In almost two decades in Congress, he never led a full committee. Many donors to his campaigns and leadership political action committee were pharmaceutical and health care companies.

Asked about legislation Deal sponsored, his campaign cited his role in 2005 negotiations that reduced entitlement programs by billions of dollars. Deal pushed for wording that required Medicaid recipients to show valid identification, stopping illegal immigrants from getting care.

At a recent Rotary luncheon in Cartersville, Deal spoke about how he wants to cut the corporate tax by one-third. He wants a tough illegal immigration bill, similar to one recently passed in Arizona that authorizes local police to arrest immigrants without documentation. He wants tighter borders.

Deal said the state’s financial crisis demands the next governor shrink government. But when pressed, he declined to specify what he would cut.

“I’ll have to look over the books when I get in there,” he said.



Karen Handel

By Aaron Gould Sheinin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution



Karen Handel is a planner, the kind of person who wants to know that before she takes the first step, the second and third are already mapped out.

Like when she refused to buy a condo with her then fiance, Steve.

"Frankly, I didn't want to sign the papers before we actually walked down the aisle," said Handel, a former Fulton County Commission chairwoman, former secretary of state and current Republican gubernatorial hopeful.

They did get married, and they did buy that condo — but in that order. That kind of careful plotting is a product, she said, of a troubled childhood that saw her leave home in Upper Marlboro, Md., at 17 rather than stay with an alcoholic mother who pulled a gun on her.

"When you come from instability, you're always thinking a couple of steps ahead," she said.

By now, much of this background has become campaign legend — and caused controversy.

Handel doesn't hide the fact that she struggled to finish high school and never graduated from college. Political opponents have floated rumors that she earned a general equivalency diploma in high school, which she strongly denies. She started taking courses at night and on weekends at Prince Georges Community College and a satellite campus of the University of Maryland until she discovered she could take accounting classes and sit for the accountant's exam without graduating.

"Remember the context of my life," she said. "I'm on my own at 17. My first job was at AARP. I think I made $9,050 a year. The idea I could go to college at night, get enough credits in accounting and sit for the CPA, I was like, ‘Wow, I can have a real life.'"

She never got that far. She landed a job in the government affairs office at Hallmark Cards and never looked back. Soon, she was working for Marilyn Quayle in the office of the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle. She rose to deputy chief of staff, met her future husband and eventually moved into that condo.

Later the Handels moved to Georgia, where she continued to work in corporate America and, in 2000, was named president and chief executive officer of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. She ran for a seat on the Fulton County Commission in 2002 and lost. She quickly rebounded and was named deputy chief of staff to newly elected Gov. Sonny Perdue. In 2003, she took a leave of absence from Perdue's office when Fulton County Commission Chairman Mike Kenn resigned with three years left on his term. Handel jumped into the race. This time she won and immediately discovered the county budget was a wreck, nearly $100 million in the red. She said she worked with Democrats and Republicans to find the cuts they needed.

Instead of seeking a full term on the commission, in 2006 she ran and won election as Georgia's first Republican secretary of state. But she left a lasting impression on Art Geter, a community activist in the Cascade Knolls neighborhood of south Fulton. A Democrat and self-described straight shooter, he said that Handel was a pleasant surprise.

"We had a good relationship," Geter said. "She was reasonable for me to work with on issues I'm dealing with. I'm the kind of guy like this, I don't agree with everything nobody does, including my wife of 49 years. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean we can't be open and respectful."

Another episode from her time as a candidate for the commission continues to dog her campaign for governor. The former head of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian GOP voters, recently released e-mails from 2002 and 2003, all sent from Handel's e-mail address, that indicate Handel supported granting benefits to county employees in same-sex domestic partnerships, something she has since denied often. Her campaign has said that even though the e-mail is signed "Fondly, Karen" she didn't write it. It was her campaign manager in her failed 2002 race.

The only thing that matters, Handel said, is that when she was elected to the County Commission, she voted against a proposal to extend benefits to domestic partners.

Handel's time as secretary of state — she served until late 2009 when she resigned to run for governor — was marked by her successful effort to implement the controversial Voter ID program. She cut the agency's budget by 15 percent without cutting employees and created an anti-fraud unit that she names among her proudest achievements.

She also created and implemented another voting measure that checks the citizenship of people when they register to vote. That program was criticized by the Justice Department as unfairly targeting minorities and is also now in the courts.

Her work on Voter ID and the citizenship checks made her a hero to many on the right, despite the Justice Department's findings that her system is not “accurate and reliable." But in a Republican primary, Handel has used the Justice Department's rejection as a rallying cry.

"Allowing non-Americans to vote is simply un-American," Handel said.



Eric Johnson

By James Salzer

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution



Eric Johnson spent most of his career as a Democrat-skewering, politically incorrect, tax-hating bomb-thrower.

But Georgians saw another side of Johnson in early 2003 when the Senate Republican leader announced he would back new Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plan to raise cigarette taxes.

The state was in a recession, and Perdue had called for a tax hike that was immediately opposed by many Republicans. Johnson’s support helped keep the increase — and Perdue’s first budget — from going down the tubes in the GOP’s first year in power since Reconstruction.

“It would have been easy to say, ‘We’re not going to do it,’ and leave a brand-new governor in the middle of a recession hanging out there all by himself,” said Johnson of Savannah, who resigned from the Senate last year. “That’s not leadership.”

After a decade of being the Statehouse’s most quotable member of the opposition, the outsider became an insider responsible for setting — and defending — the leadership’s agenda.

And now he’s seeking to make that transformation complete by becoming governor.

Early polling has Johnson fourth in the GOP race, but with deep-pocketed Republican backing and three decades of campaign experience, those who know him say don’t count him out.

“He is a very, very good strategist,” said Gary Wisenbaker, a Savannah lawyer and longtime GOP activist. “He thinks, ‘This may not work in the short term, but it may carry us in the long term.’”

That kind of long-term outlook has been important for Johnson, a Louisiana-born architect who got his start on the campaign of Mack Mattingly when he upset Democrat U.S. Senator Herman Talmadge in 1980.

Johnson did grassroots work for the GOP until he decided to run for the state House in 1992. At the time, Democrats had been running the state for 120 years and Republicans held 45 of 236 legislative seats. Johnson won that election and then took a Senate seat two years later. He quickly made a name for himself as a sharp-witted spokesman for Republicans.

Johnson became leader of the Senate Republicans in 1998, the same year Democrat Roy Barnes became governor. He fought Barnes’ attempts to change the state flag, which included the Confederate battle emblem, saying he opposed the way Barnes changed the flag without a public vote.

“To me, the whole flag issue had nothing to do with race and everything to do with Southern pride and what makes the South special,” he said.

In 2000, Johnson complained about the Democrats’ school reform package and huge increases in education spending.

When Republicans became the majority party, Johnson had a different role to play. And some of his statements left him open to charges of flip-flopping.

When Perdue proposed a large increase in education spending six years after Barnes did, Johnson said, “Investing in children is never a bad deal.”

As a member of the minority, Johnson criticized Democratic leaders for raising big money — often from lobbyists — even when they didn’t face opposition.

Now he brags that his state Senate campaigns raised more than $1 million.

Johnson consistently worked to grow the GOP in Georgia. He helped get Perdue elected governor in 2002, and then helped persuade some Democrats to switch parties in the Senate.

As a member of the new leadership, Johnson held sway over legislation and pushed many of his own bills, including legislation to provide state money to parents to pay for private schools.

Like the Democrats he criticized, Johnson also made sure he looked after his hometown, getting money in the state budget for construction and tourist projects in Savannah.

He backed a sales tax exemption in 2007 on equipment used in the repair of aircraft not registered in Georgia. The savings, which went largely to a local company, Gulfstream, was estimated at $11.6 million a year.

A little more than a month after the exemption passed, Gulfstream announced that it was leasing two buildings from the company Johnson worked for, North Point Real Estate.

Johnson said the tax break and leases were not related. He said the tax break came out of negotiations that he was not involved in to keep company business in Savannah. And, he said, North Point won the leases through a competitive bid process.

Throughout his career, Johnson has worked on meaty issues, including Atlanta’s sewer repairs, and headline-grabbing efforts, such as his bid to slow the issuance of Florida Gator license tags.



Ray McBerry

By Larry Peterson

Savannah Now



If Georgia were in the Confederate States of America, Ray McBerry might be the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for governor.

You can sum up his platform in two words: states’ rights.

And he doesn’t mince many of his other words.

 In 1798, he said in Savannah last year, a federal court ordered Georgia officials to appear to defend themselves in a lawsuit.

In response, the “sovereign state of Georgia” didn’t just balk, McBerry exuded.  

It said “any federal agent attempting to enforce those orders within our borders would be arrested and hanged by the neck until dead without the benefit of clergy.”

McBerry didn’t suggest hanging anyone, but said he’d resist federal gun control “immediately upon taking office.”

“I will let Washington know that the first time any federal agent tries to disarm any law-abiding citizen ... that federal agent will find himself sitting in a Georgia jail,” he said.

Accordingly, he was one of several GOP gubernatorial candidates who backed a Republican-sponsored State Senate resolution on states’ rights last year.

It said new federal gun control measures could be considered grounds for seceding from the Union.

Other GOP candidates who initially backed the measure backed off or refused to say any more about it. Not McBerry. He has said he continues to support it, but considers secession a last resort.

 He says the 10th Amendment to the Constitution  gives states the right to resist federal orders that exceed the powers spelled out in that document.

Although he won almost 12 percent of the GOP primary vote in 2006, when he took on incumbent Sonny Perdue, he’s now an underdog. His support in statewide polls hovers around 2 percent.

Moreover, his campaign hit a speed bump when the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported he was accused of having an affair with a teenage girl. He denied the allegations and rejected calls for him to drop out of the race.

Meanwhile, another candidate, former Secretary of State Karen Handel, has refused to participate in any debates in which he’s included. He was excluded from one forum because — while he salutes the Georgia flag and the original Betsy Ross American flag — he won’t salute the current U.S. flag.

But McBerry still receives enthusiastic responses when he addresses GOP audiences. He says people increasingly agree with him that the federal government has overreached its constitutional authority.

“Georgia’s next governor,” he has insisted, “should not work with the federal government but should fight Washington every step of the way.”



John Oxendine

By Carrie Teegardin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution



Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine has the credentials to be one of Georgia’s most influential Republican insiders.

He won his statewide office in 1994 when Georgia was still controlled by Democrats. And he’s been a favorite among voters ever since: No candidate running statewide in 2006 earned more votes than Oxendine.

In spite of his success, he’s not well-liked within the Republican establishment, and that suits him just fine.

“I’m popular with everyday Georgians. Everyday Georgians are the ones that vote,” he said.

Oxendine is clearly the candidate to beat in the Republican primary, in spite of some bumps along the campaign trail. He’s been the front-runner for months and has more cash on hand than his rivals, according to disclosure reports. He says he’s in the lead because of a populist approach to governing that has more in common with the tea party crowd than the Republican elite.

“My entire career has been focused on that person down the street,” he said.

As insurance commissioner, Oxendine licenses insurance companies and agents, reviews companies for solvency, sets rates for some types of insurance and investigates complaints. His office also oversees fire safety statewide and regulates the industry that makes small loans of $3,000 or less.

On the campaign trail, Oxendine points to a long list of accomplishments such as helping consumers mediate disputes with insurers, fining insurers who don’t follow the rules and pioneering a telemedicine program that helps rural Georgians access better health care.

Some experts say his record on consumer protection is mixed.

“John is kind of a funny guy,” said Bob Hunter, the Consumer Federation of America’s director of insurance and a former Texas insurance commissioner. “He goes both directions. There are times when he is pro consumer and times when he seems to give away the store.”

An analysis of state auto insurance rates shows that Georgia’s insurers earn profits at about the national average and have won rate increases on par with the nation as well. Oxendine has levied significant fines, including a $2.3 million penalty against United Healthcare in 2005 for slow payment of claims. He also opposed an effort to legalize payday lending, a move consumer advocates applauded.

His record as a consumer champion isn’t as strong on lower-profile issues. He has not sought changes to the small loan industry he regulates, even though the cost of borrowing a few hundred dollars from the storefront lenders often exceeds 100 percent. He also has allowed insurers selling disability policies with loans to earn some of the highest profits in the nation, according to an analysis.

If he becomes governor, Oxendine said his most pressing task would be addressing Georgia’s unemployment problem.

Elected at 32, Oxendine was a little known former Democrat from Gwinnett County when he upset incumbent Insurance Commissioner Tim Ryles.

Oxendine, who switched parties about a year before his first campaign, said he identifies strongly with Republican ideals: pro-life, pro-guns, small government, no tax increases.

Since his election in 1994, Oxendine has never offered the public an understated personal style. Even some of his supporters say he can be brash, outspoken and full of himself. He’s attracted criticism over the years for taking lots of campaign money from those he regulates.

Oxendine has also been criticized for enjoying all the perks of his job, whether it’s taking quail-hunting trips courtesy of insurance companies, demanding that high-powered executives appear before him or using the lights and sirens he once had on his state vehicle in his role as the safety fire commissioner.

Criticisms related to campaign fund-raising resurfaced last year when the AJC reported that a Rome-based insurer funneled $120,000 to Oxendine’s campaign through 10 Alabama-based political action committees. The State Ethics Commission has an ongoing investigation.

Oxendine returned the money.

“The fact is, everything I have done has been completely above board and in compliance,” he said.

While some critics portray him as an industry guy, others who have dealt with him as a regulator disagree. Some in the industry say he will let you take him out to an expensive dinner one day, and hit you with a big fine the next, if you deserve it.

Jill Jinks, an insurance executive and longtime supporter of the commissioner, said Oxendine would be a hands-on leader.

“John would be a pothole governor,” she said. “He’s going to get things fixed. He is not a policy guy. That’s just not in him. He’s the guy who is going to fix the pothole himself.”



Otis Putnam

By Larry Peterson

Savannah Now



Otis Putnam has been active in the both the Republican and Democratic parties, and run unsuccessfully for various offices. He’s also coached soccer and is an hourly employee at the Brunswick Wal-Mart.

But he’s done nothing that most people likely would think has prepared him to be governor, a job he says “the Lord” led him to seek.

Putnam says he’s qualified because he runs his household on a Wal-Mart salary.  

“I know how to sacrifice, save, make tough decisions just to make everything work out,” Putnam said.

He says Georgia’s economy resembles his family’s.

“I am a regular guy like the voters in Georgia, and I know what they are going through, and I can help them,” he added.

Putnam doesn’t lack confidence and says that he will fix Georgia’s problems with wisdom and truth and that he has faith that God will make Georgia prosperous again.

Like most GOP candidates, Putnam says raising taxes isn’t a solution. He believes the government’s appetite for tax money is never satisfied.

“We need to eliminate duplication of state services and wasteful spending,” he said, “but we must provide basic essential services. The money we need for services is in the budget, but we have to find it.”

He says he’d solve the state’s water crisis by negotiating agreements with Florida and Alabama concerning disputed access to river flows. He says less regulation and more parental involvement are the keys to improving education in the state.

Putnam launched his campaign April 26 and was one of the last of the 14 major party candidates for governor to enter the race. He said he didn’t do so earlier because he lacked “the financial means” to run; the qualifying fee is $4,180.

 “This election is about the people,” he said, “not how much money one can raise in an election cycle. I can defeat them with the truth and the Lord’s grace. ... This race is about the people, not the opponents.”