The calendar tells us there are still several months remaining in 2013, but Karen Handel is acting as if 2014 were already here and we were in the middle of a full-bore Senate race.
Handel, one of the Republican contenders for the Senate seat Saxby Chambliss is vacating, went on the offensive last week against three of the male candidates opposing her in the GOP primary.
She launched a Web site under the mocking title of “Only in Washington” and said she would use the online venue to publicize 42 examples of the “ridiculous things” that Jack Kingston, Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun have been part of during their careers in the U.S. House.
“We are where we are in this country not just because of the Democrats, but also because of Republicans not having the will and the resolve and the courage to make hard decisions that needed to be made,” Handel contended.
Some of the things she is criticizing are the boondoggles that typically occur when you have a federal government that spends more than $3.5 trillion a year: the congressional barbership that runs a deficit of $340,000 or the expenditure of $744,000 to build a soccer field for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
These items are chump change that Kingston, Gingrey and Broun could not have eliminated anyway, and even if they had, it would have made no real difference in solving the federal government’s fiscal woes.
Handel is on firmer ground when she criticizes the congressional trio for not doing more to rein in the national debt, which was at the $4 trillion level when Kingston first entered Congress 20 years ago and is now approaching $17 trillion.
“Only in Washington could that happen and absolutely nothing be done about it,” Handel said.
Some voters may not remember this now, but back in 2001 when Bill Clinton was turning over the White House to George W. Bush, the federal government was running a modest budget surplus and was able to pay down at least a small portion of the national debt.
That surplus disappeared quickly and the national debt began climbing again largely because of two major initiatives undertaken by Bush and a willing congressional majority: tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit.
Both of those programs have added trillions of dollars to the federal debt. If Handel wants to criticize her opponents for being part of a Congress that would enact such deficit-ballooning measures, she is definitely on the right track.
It is noteworthy that Handel is already going negative on her opponents in a primary campaign that has a long way to go: it’s nearly nine months before election day.
She is rolling out the same approach she used in 2010 when Handel lambasted the “good ol’ boys” network that runs state politics and annoyed Republican members of the egislature by insinuating they were part of that allegedly corrupt group.
One of the defining moments of the 2010 race occurred when Handel ramped up the personal attacks, taunting Deal to put on “his big-boy pants” and get to work. That cutting remark backfired on her, making Handel appear a little too mean-spirited to many undecided voters. After leading in the first round of Republican primary voting, she lost the runoff to Deal by less than 2,600 votes.
(Linda Schrenko used the same kinds of negative attacks on the “good ol’ boys” when she ran for governor in 2002. It didn’t work for her, either.)
Why would Handel employ such a risky campaign strategy again? When you look at the most recent disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, her approach becomes a little more understandable.
As of June 30, Handel had raised just over $150,000 for her campaign bank account. By contrast, Gingrey had $2.56 million in available cash, Kingston had $2.35 million, and even Broun, never an overly successful solicitor of contributions, had accumulated $401,000.
When you face that kind of fundraising disadvantage, you have to use the slash-and-burn techniques that will attract free media coverage in a race where the opposition can swamp you with attack ads.
Handel evidently believes that what failed her in 2010 could work in 2014. Maybe this time, she’ll be right.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet news service at gareport.com that reports on government and politics in Georgia. He can be reached at tcrawford@gareport.com.
