Politico - Georgia Governor Candidates Spar over Education

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By James Hohmann

Jason Carter bickered with Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal in a contentious hourlong debate Tuesday night about whether the state is investing enough in schools and whether the local economy is really improving.

The Republican governor, 72, attacked his Democratic challenger, 39, as too young and inexperienced. He said he's never passed any meaningful legislation through the state Senate and called him a hypocrite for voting in favor of budgets he now criticizes on the campaign trail.

Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, accused the incumbent of interfering with an ethics investigation against his administration, ignoring the middle class and shortchanging schoolchildren.

There were several testy exchanges before a raucous crowd at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry. The gubernatorial debate, broadcast live by WMAZ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Macon, immediately followed a Senate debate.

A robopoll released earlier in the day by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling put Deal up 5 points over Carter, 50 percent to 45 percent. Libertarian Andrew Hunt, who was also on stage, could keep either major party contender from breaking 50 percent, which would force a runoff.

The two leading candidates painted very different pictures of the economy. Deal said 300,000 new private-sector jobs have been created since he took office four years ago. Georgia is now the best state in the nation in which to do business, Deal said, the tax burden is lower and the state kept its AAA bond rating when many others lost theirs.

"If you think these last four years have been great, and I believe they have been, just wait. We're going to do even more," Deal said to chants of "four more years."

Carter said the gains have helped the rich and widened the wealth gap.

"This economy has left the middle class behind," he said. "Georgia's getting poorer, and it's getting poorer faster than virtually every other state.

"Out here in the real world, we're dead last in unemployment, we're dead last in how fast we're recovering from the recession, and folks out here in middle Georgia aren't feeling it," Carter added. "My question is how long do they have to wait in your economy to get the benefits that you're talking about?"

Deal shot back: "Senator Carter, I know that you're young and inexperienced, but obviously you're trying to hold me accountable for the Great Recession. You are quoting numbers of 10 years ago. I wasn't responsible for the Great Recession. Why don't you talk about what's happened since I've been governor?"

Then he went on the attack. "You have been in the state Senate for the entire amount of time that I've been governor of this state," said Deal. "You've never passed a bill. You've never been put in a position of leadership in your own conference. … Why would anybody decide that you have the leadership skills to lead this state?"

Carter responded that he has "a real vision" to improve schools and reduce class sizes, saying there are too many kids in his child's kindergarten class.

"You can't go into schools and think we're doing the right thing," he said.

When Deal noted that Carter voted for three of his four budgets, Carter said they passed unanimously.

"I could not sit by any more and continue to vote for budgets that continue to underfund education by billions of dollars year after year after year," he said.

Deal mocked what he called Carter's election-eve "epiphany tour." He said that the most recent budget Carter voted against had a greater net increase in education spending than the previous three and that more money is being spent on education as a percentage of the total budget than at any other time in the past 50 years.

"We're doing extraordinarily well in terms of funding K-12 education," said Deal.

The governor was asked about problems in the State Ethics Commission, which he has vowed to overhaul if reelected.

"The ethics complaints that were filed against me were heard by the five commissioners, and they were dismissed as having no merit," said Deal, who outlined what he thinks the commission should look like.

Carter said that taxpayers are paying for a "coverup" orchestrated by Deal.

"They were only dismissed after the governor's office interfered in the investigation," he said.

The crowd got so loud during this stretch that the moderator struggled to hear the candidates.

Deal noted that a complaint was also filed against Carter and later dismissed, just like the one against him over his 2010 campaign.

"If we had [interfered with the investigation], we would have been indicted by somebody," the governor said. "We have never been indicted."

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