Georgia gubernatorial race: Nathan Deal under attack during Sunday's debate

Sunday night at the Loudermilk-Young Debate Series, hosted by the Atlanta Press Club, Georgia candidates for Goveor, Jason Carter (D), Nathan Deal (R) and Andrew Hunt (L), discussed topics such as education, unemployment, marriage rights, and gun laws, just a little over two weeks before the Nov. 4^th Election Day.

Hunt, a Georgia businessman, and Carter, a Georgia senator since 2010, teamed up against the sitting goveor, attacking him for high unemployment rates, underfunding education, high taxes, and ethics issues. This forced Deal into a defense mode, but he also seemed to be the center of attention during the debate, which allotted him more speaking time.

Deal defended himself with fervor, underscoring that ethics complaints leveled against him were dismissed, and he made a good point that ethics committees shouldn’t take two years to investigate a politician.  

But on questions about rising unemployment in Georgia, which is now the highest in the nation, the Republican seemed to stumble. Deal said that ”unemployment rates are only good for political advertising, as a general rule. But the goveor himself bragged about decreasing unemployment numbers in his State of The Union speeches, and of course, every time the rate has fallen. Now he says that economists and businesses pay attention to job creation not unemployment numbers, and Georgia has added more jobs than most states since he took office.  

”We have to focus on job creation, we allowed manufacturers to grow, said Deal. ”We are making strides. 

But the quote about economists not paying attention to unemployment numbers is clearly inaccurate, and has been passed around on Twitter with less than flattering commentary as soon as he spoke it.

In addition, Deal should probably avoid saying ”I reject your facts, a phrase that’s also making its way around the social media.  He said it in response to Hunt, who stated that Georgia has highest unemployment, poverty rates and corruption, in a question directed to the goveor.  The ”reject your facts phrase, along with the weak arguments on unemployment, could hurt him in this close race.

Carter stayed on his message of education as the foundation of a strong economy.  He pointed out that education in Georgia is underfunded by $750 million. Throughout his campaign, the Democrat has proposed establishing a separate budget for education, to ensure transparency and accountability.

”We have the worst underfunding of education in the history of our state, said Carter.

The senator made a good, and apparently pretty accurate, point when he said that ”no one in this state, not even Goveor Deal, believes that we properly fund our education. Deal did say that education in Georgia ”has never been fully funded. Carter added that ”crumbling education is the reason for ”job gaps we have now.

The senator once again pointed out that Georgia has ”every ingredient to be a powerhouse. He talked about job creation, strengthening the middle class, and investment in agriculture as ways to improve the economy. Carter also pointed to a need for strong leadership with a ”clear vision for the future, and underscored his work on 21 bills in the state legislature.

Hunt, the Libertarian candidate, repeated several times throughout the debate that he is a ”constitutionalist. He said he’d like to bring back the govement ”to the people, by the people and protect American rights and liberties.  

”We have too many law-makers and not enough law-erasers, said Hunt. ”Every law that is passed is taking our freedoms away from us.

Hunt talked about his Job Powerhouse program, a system based on ”free enterprise for maximum productivity. He promised that his plan would bring Georgia unemployment under 5 percent.  

”We need more jobs that bring people out of poverty, he said.

On marriage equality, the Libertarian said that govement should stay out of it, similar to Carter, but different from Deal, who said he’d protect the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

There was some agreement on the stage during the debate. On education, all candidates agreed that to improve the system, more school choices are necessary, instead of more govement involvement.  All three also agreed that churches should make their own decisions whether to allow guns on their premises, all are against legislation that would limit freedom of speech, and all are for medical marijuana.  

And lastly, all the candidates said that Sunday voting is okay, although that’s a change for Deal, who previously said he’d support a law that would forbid it.  Now, Deal said that he’d like to see Sunday voting uniformly across Georgia, instead of just in select counties, but that he’d leave it up to the Georgia Assembly to decide. Good idea for Deal, since it really just never sounds good when a political candidate says he/she would like to restrict voting in any way.

The race for goveor is very close between Gov. Deal and Sen. Carter. They’ve been polling in a statistical tie for a while now, and the last debate really didn’t make much of a difference. It would be easy to assume that Deal lost this debate, but being attacked from every direction might actually energize his base.