I found great reason for humor in the fact that State Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kidd attacked Karen Handel on ethics in these pages last week.
Is this the same Jane Kidd whose favored candidate for governor, Roy Barnes, led the most corrupt Governor’s office in recent memory? A governor who took campaign contributions from landowners and then tried to use state funds to buy their real estate to put a Northern Arc roadway on?
Has Ms. Kidd forgotten that Roy Barnes served as a character witness for his pal, the disgraced former Senate majority leader Charles Walker just before he embarked on a 10-year prison sentence for 127 counts of various kinds of corruption? Does she remember the more than a million dollars in lobbyist and lobbyist PAC money Barnes gobbled up on his way to getting thrown out of the governor’s chair by the people of Georgia.
Roy Barnes’ lengthy history of corruption includes taking $16,000 from his former law partner, who advised Medicaid contractor Copeland Glenn. Roy then gave them $100 million in state contracts. Roy also received $35,000 from Brown & Williamson Tobacco, then gave them a $1.6 million tax break. The list of his graft and corruption is long and storied.
Does Ms. Kidd remember that? Apparently not.
Karen is the only one in this race with a proven track record of ethics reform — at Fulton County, as secretary of state and as a candidate for governor. She is the only Republican candidate who called for Speaker Richardson to step down, and she is the only candidate of either party who has released an ethics reform plan.
Roy Barnes sold his office to the highest bidder and ran a corrupt administration. He tore our communities apart with gerrymandered redistricting conducted in secret. He squeezed lobbyists for every penny they had to create a $20 million-plus campaign that couldn’t keep him from getting fired by the voters.
I’m sure Ms. Kidd remembers that. She and Roy Barnes hope nobody else does.
Dan McLagan
Atlanta
(McLagan is communications director for Karen Handel’s gubernatorial campaign.)
