Golden Sleaze Awards - The Pander Posse Award

The experience of running a statewide primary campaign in Georgia is clearly a ball-breaker, forcing otherwise rational, fair-minded politicians to throw their principles to the wind in a desperate bid for conservative votes. (No, we’re not talking about Insurance Commissioner “Honest John” Oxendine. After all, you can’t sell your soul if you never had one.)

It’s been sad over the past year to watch Scott, a previous Arnie honoree and – until last week – a GOP gubernatorial candidate, take part in the race to the bottom that currently engulfs the Republican Party. This session, he sought to suck up to the NRA with a bill to abolish the sales tax on guns; tried to please the Georgia Chamber of Commerce with a bill to exempt corporations from paying state income taxes; and attempted to felate Tea Partiers with a resolution to force state Attorney General Thurbert Baker to join a lawsuit challenging the federal health care reform bill.

On the other side of the House aisle, Teilhet, an AG candidate, irked civil libertarians with police-state proposals to require anyone arrested on felony charges – not convicted, mind you, but simply accused – to surrender a DNA sample; prohibit “dangerous sexual predators” from handing out Halloween candy (a bill that would apply to only 80 Georgians not currently in prison); and force registered sex offenders to hand over their online passwords to their Internet service provider.

C’mon, guys. You’re better than this.