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Barnes, Oxendine: Grease spots on the gubernatorial trail?
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Former Gov.Roy Barnes surprised a lot of people when he entered the Governor’s race, and many Democrats are shaking their collective heads. Here is the man who lost the Governor’s Mansion and gave an ultimate hand-off of power to the now-Republican legislature.
Such hubris!
Barnes new run will do a lot of things. It will drain funds to other, more viable candidates. It will take a smallish number of true believers into his camp. It will do things like split the black vote, split the white vote, split the women’s vote, split the guy vote. Won’t that just be fun? Democrats beating up on each other again. If there’s one thing the Republicans do well, it is standing firm on the party message and keeping their dirty laundry out of the papers.
John Oxendine, a Republican candidate for Governor Georgia, has always given me the creeps because he wants to be more than what he is. The queasy, sick Oxendine- induced feeling was even worse when he announced he would run to be Georgia's governor.
While we thought we would have to hold our collective liberal breaths, published reports tell us he has taken some $14 million dollars in campaign contributions from industries he regulates in his current position.
A conservative friend of mine has conceived all manner of reasons why it's okay or normal for him to accept these funds.
Aren't these efforts kind of like asking what flavor bubblegum is?
Lest we forget, this is the guy who rode around in a tricked out Crown Victoria with red lights and all. Before Oxendine, the state’s Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal was never on the TV at a fire, especially not giving news conferences at both big and small fires.
This strategy would be brilliant if it wasn’t so obvious—as obvious as the “Tommy Irvin, Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture” that we look absent-mindedly at this sticker that lives on every gasoline pump in Georgia.
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