Secret recording, unpaid loan stir race for governor
ATLANTA — Accusations of ethical lapses and incompetence are raising the temperature of Georgia’s heated race for the Republican nomination for governor.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle faces Secretary of State Brian Kemp in a GOP primary runoff July 24. Allegations questioning Cagle’s ethics and Kemp’s competence have made for a turbulent campaign.
Cagle, the GOP front-runner, was caught in a secret recording released last week candidly acknowledging he’d backed a “bad public policy” for political gain. Then The New York Times reported Thursday that Cagle in 2008 bought an Atlanta condo from a lobbyist for $97,000, a price 24 percent below its appraised value.
Kemp said the recording represented “everything that’s wrong with politics.” But Kemp’s tenure as Georgia’s top elections official and his reputation as a businessman are under fire, too.
Cagle ran a TV ad branding Kemp “incompetent” and “untrustworthy” over a 2015 incident in which Kemp’s office inadvertently released the Social Security numbers and other information of millions of Georgia voters on disks sent to media and political party officials.
And Kemp is facing scrutiny for his role in Hart AgStrong, a company that owes $1.6 million to farmers who provided it with seed for making canola and sunflower oil. A financier suing the company says he’s owed $500,000. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Kemp requested the loan.
“Hits are made harder, it gets nastier and things become more vicious in the runoff,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
The covert recording was made after the primary by Cagle’s former rival Clay Tippins. During a private conversation, Cagle said he supported a measure to nearly double the limit Georgia places on a tax credit for private school scholarships to deprive another rival of support from an advocacy group.