Just days before he launched a pointed attack against President Trump at a political convention in Virginia, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's political machine took a devastating blow after failing to unseat pro-Trump Governor C.J. Pearson, who is currently running in a Georgia special election. The House of Representatives set Tuesday as the date for holding the vote.
It is a political necessity for senior politicians to inspire confidence in allies and fear in opponents, not laughter among everyone.
Unfortunately for Georgia Governor Kemp, his super team is in danger of becoming a laughing stock.
The First Georgians' Leadership Committee (PAC) — the “leadership coalition” to which Kemp and his allies made it legal to divert unlimited sums of money to interfere in state elections — launched a series of attacks against Trump conservative C.J. Pearson in the state House race.
When asked for comment, Pearson's campaign responded by saying he is “focused on his 'America First' campaign and representing those in his community, not a Real Housewives of Atlanta-type political drama.”
Usually races like this are relatively quiet but this race was different. CJ, a 21-year-old African American, mixed her visits with Republican women's clubs with appeals to black churchgoers in an attempt to form a larger coalition than had been the case for the Republicans.
His sin in the eyes of Kemp's fans? His longstanding support of President Trump since he was just 13 years old, when he wrote an essay for Time magazine titled “I'm a Young Black Man and I Support Donald Trump,” and his work on the front lines of the election integrity movement.
Enter the Georgians first. They based their attack on a patently inaccurate claim that CJ does not reside in his district — where he has gone to school since the age of 4, where he graduated from the local high school and where he helps care for the grandparents who raised him. .
This was clearly false, but the attack itself was also a failure through a premature and arrogant launch. They left time to refute the residency challenge before the judge who quickly and unequivocally ruled that CJ was of course resident and overruled Kemp's challenge. Kemp's lackluster PAC advisers also couldn't help but admit they were behind the attack, which he confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cody Hall, one of those advisers, can't contain his hatred for Trump Republicans. He worked on Ron DeSantis' disastrous campaign as well as Never Trumper Larry Hogan and of course Kemp. Now that he's been proven wrong, the residents of the Augusta area community are angry, and they know exactly who to be angry with.
The Governor's Commission handled this as Joe Biden handled stairs. Now, days before the election, everyone in Columbia and McDuffie counties knows they don't believe a word this group says.
Available polls in this race show Pearson with a wide lead, but whoever wins, the damage to the credibility of Governor Kemp's political action committee and the credibility of the governor himself has been severely tarnished.
If Kemp's nominee — a moderate septuagenarian who used former elected office to try to put his car's rivals out of business — wins, the reputation of political action committees will remain in tatters. If Pearson prevails, Kemp will lose the credibility and image of power his political action committee needs to be effective.
