By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | The political season is about upon us. March 9 is the last date to qualify to run in primary and non-partisan races, with the actual political primaries coming on May 22. Should a runoff be needed from a primary, that date will be July 24.
The biggest recent political bombshell centers on whether Delta Air Lines and other airlines should get a tax break for fuel bought in Georgia. What at first seemed to be a normal political question got quickly escalated when Delta announced it would not give a discount any more to members of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Many other companies announced backing out of close ties with the NRA, so this did not seem to be a problem for Delta.
But Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle saw it differently, and confounded the question by threatening to yank Delta’s Georgia tax break unless they restored the NRA members discount.
Recalling the 2016 national elections, we thought early on before candidates were even chosen that Hillary Clinton would not become president. Even though she got the nomination, and faced an unlikely challenger in Donald Trump, and even though we at GwinnettForum endorsed her candidacy for president, we still did not think she would become president. Just call it intuition.
We bring this up for this reason: we have thought all along that Casey Cagle would not become the next governor of Georgia. Again, it’s intuition telling us this, even thought Cagle has raised perhaps the biggest pot of money in trying to become governor. As an aside, remember that Gov. Roy Barnes raised much more money than Sonny Perdue, but that did not mean that Mr. Barnes would be re-elected. Sometimes it’s not money that elects.
Perhaps this adamant response by Mr. Cagle about Delta Air Lines will be one of the reasons he won’t be elected governor.
Meanwhile, perhaps his most significant challenger in the race for governor, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, and other gubernatorial candidates, must be smiling widely as they stay away from the Delta question. At present, Mr. Kemp seems to be the most likely beneficiary to the loud Cagle noise about Delta.
Of course, there are other candidates for the Republican and Democratic nomination for governor. But Cagle and Kemp are the front runners for now, because of their previous office.
The Cagle incident also gives rise to some thinking that it could affect the possible selection of a second headquarters for Amazon. The least we can say is that the loud Cagle outburst doesn’t seem to help the Atlanta bid to land Amazon in the state.
Remember that one of GwinnettForum’s Continuing Objectives is that the Georgia Legislature should meet only once every two years. We’ve maintained this position since we all get nervous about what will happen every time the Legislature opens its doors. This Cagle-Delta-Amazon question is a great example of why the Georgia Legislature needs to meet only once (for 40 days) every two years, like it’s done in Texas and several other states.
Watch out: more fireworks will be coming, since March 9 is just around the corner to officially begin the 2018 election season.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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