It’s on now, as Georgia becomes center of political universe

The bitter, bruising battle for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 2018 governor’s race came to its merciful conclusion Tuesday as Brian Kemp defeated Casey Cagle to claim victory in the mud-spattered race-to-the-bottom. I for one am glad that it’s over, too, as the entire runoff campaign amounted to an endless series of below-the-belt personal attacks traded back and forth between the two candidates.

Given the fact that there was virtually no difference in the two men’s political positions (both staked out comfortable conservative stances on abortion, gun rights and illegal immigration, and both pledged their fealty to the Tweeter-In-Chief) perhaps a campaign made up entirely of character assaults on each other was inevitable. But this contest seemed to set a new record for low-down dirty politics, largely because of the Kemp campaign’s use of covert recordings that captured Cagle being a little too honest about the campaign and what he was willing to do to get elected.

I’m sure you heard about those infamous “Cagle tapes,” the secretly recorded conversations between Cagle and Clay Tippins, another Republican gubernatorial candidate who finished fourth in the primary and didn’t qualify for the runoff. In those recordings, Cagle admitted that he’d supported legislation he really didn’t believe in to better position himself to receive campaign contributions and (quite accurately) called the primary a race to see “who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck, and who could be the craziest.”

Personally, I didn’t find anything Cagle said in these tapes to be particularly shocking or damning – he was just being truthful about the political realities of running for high office in this day and age. I thought Kemp and Tippins had more to be ashamed of in this situation, but obviously a majority of Republican voters disagreed with me since Kemp won by a wide margin.

Of course, we have to give a lot of credit for Kemp’s win to the very late-in-the-game endorsement he received from President Donald Trump. Trump remains very popular with Republican voters and it was a Republican primary, so his endorsement carried a lot of weight. He is, however, much less popular with Democrats and political independents, so we’ll have to see whether the Trump stamp of approval helps or hurts Kemp in the general election this fall.

And speaking of the general election, I think it’s fair to say that Kemp’s challenger in that contest, Democrat Stacey Abrams, had to feel good about how the GOP primary unfolded. She is clearly still facing an uphill battle as an unapologetic liberal running in a state dominated by conservatives, but all of the dirt that was slung in the Republican primary is not going to be easily washed away.

And although Trump’s presence in the campaign (which I am sure will continue in the general election) should help get Republicans out to the polls to support Kemp, it will also help motivate Democrats and independents who harbor a strong dislike for the polarizing President to get out and vote for Abrams.

Add to that the fact that Abrams would be the first black female governor in U.S. history if she were to win and it adds up to a lot of attention to this year’s governor’s race in Georgia. That means loads of campaign cash pouring in from all corners, celebrity visits to the state for both candidates, and the TV ads – Lord help us, the ads will be ubiquitous these next three months.

In fact they have already started. The GOP primary was still going on when I saw my first attack ad targeting Abrams. The word “liberal” was used at least a dozen times and grainy, out of focus pictures of Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton were, of course, employed to drum up panic at the frightening prospect of the out-of-state liberal-ness that this liberal candidate wants to foist on God-fearing, gun-toting, big truck-driving Georgians.

The Democrats will certainly respond with their own attack ads, and they will surely get more ridiculous and more nasty as we get closer to election day. It should be quite a show.

Get your popcorn ready folks, the circus is coming to Georgia.

Bill Ferguson is a resident of Warner Robins. Readers can write him at fergcolumn@hotmail.com.