Opinion - Dear future governor: Please don’t embarrass us
Southern states already are viewed as less sophisticated. The last thing we need is another head of state who plays to stereotype.
With its trail-loving Gov. Mark Sanford, political operatives lining up to claim they slept with gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley and a Democratic Senate primary that resembles a lottery drawing, South Carolina currently holds the title of loopiest state in the union, a place seemingly populated by backwoods yahoos, nutty elected officials and cranks of all stripes. As one exasperated legislator recently put it, the Palmetto State has become “the whoopee cushion of the nation.”
But don’t get too smug, Georgia.
It was less than three years ago that our own governor stood on the Capitol steps and prayed for rain, an event that attracted smirking national news coverage and a goodly number of wackadoodle onlookers. Gov. Sonny Perdue wasn’t exactly maligning our fair state without company, either. In 2004, our state school superintendent attempted to nix the word “evolution” from biology textbooks. And, nearly every year, our state lawmakers try to pass any number of regressive, backward and just plain boneheaded bills.
In other words, Georgia hasn’t exactly been a pillar of modern thought and rational discourse. And several trends have us concerned for the future. For one, despite that fact that no one knows quite what the Tea Party folks stand for, many GOP politicians and candidates have gone to great lengths to kowtow to the anti-elitist (whatever that means), xenophobic, faux-populist movement. Also, the candidates for governor from both parties, including Democrat Roy Barnes, have put their fingers in the political wind and expressed support for the kind of anti-immigrant policies that have made Arizona a national pariah.
So we’ve got a request for whoever our next governor turns out to be: Please don’t embarrass us.
Folks from Southern states already are viewed as less sophisticated because of their accents and a cultural history of bigotry. The last thing we need is another head of state who plays to stereotype by saying or doing nutty things that bring the wrong kind of attention to the Peach State.
Just as important, we need a governor whose conduct in office is unblemished by suspicions that he or she has used the office for self-enrichment. Perdue raised eyebrows upon first taking office when he refused to place his assets, derived mostly from a grain-supply business he still owns, into a blind trust to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Since then, Perdue has been involved in several situations that can only be described as highly fragrant: a tract of his land shot up in value after the state declined to buy the nearby Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area, which was then snatched up by private developers; he had direct input in the proposed route of a state highway expansion near his hometown, again near property he owns; and, perhaps most alarmingly, his $2 million purchase of 20 acres of Florida swamp land near Disney World from a political supporter. As described in a 2006 AJC investigation, the transaction had all the earmarks of a classic tax dodge.
Speaking of which, let’s not forget the sleight-of-hand amendment of a 2005 bill — snuck through by his personal attorney, Rep. Larry O’Neal — that gave the guv a $100,000 tax break for land he’d sold the year before.
In short, we’re hoping our next governor will strive to maintain both the dignity and personal ethics that accompany the office. Please, no snake-handling — and no hands in the cookie jar.