At one point, Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel was seen as the moderate/reasonable alternative in the competitive multi-candidate Republican primary to succeed Sonny Perdue as the governor of Georgia.
Then she received the Twitter anointment of a certain former half-term governor from Alaska, and everything changed. But not necessarily because of Palin (although that is how it will likely get played), but because of the fallout of said endorsement.
One of her chief rivals, archconservative Congressman Nathan Deal (himself the recipient of a pretty mean endorsement in his own right--that of former House Speaker and Georgian Newt Gingrich), was somewhat infuriated.
It’s disappointing that Sarah Palin has chosen to back the most liberal Republican in this race.
In past races, Karen Handel endorsed taxpayer-funded domestic partner benefits and gay adoption — and she’s been caught lying about it.
Deal should not have worried, of course. Having exposed a potential soft underbelly of the Handel campaign, and in a high-profile setting (everyone was writing about the Palin endorsement, so Deal's smackdown got big play), Handel was going to backpedal. Furiously.
But even jaundiced eyes to politics had to be somewhat startled to see the speed and the ferocity with which Handel sprinted from her past.
Consider the interview she gave less than 48 hours after getting the nod from Palin. In it, she backpedalled furiously on the gay rights' thing, ever mindful that she would have to face Georgia primary voters before she could endeavor to be the state's next Governor:
This week, Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate and former congressman Nathan Deal slammed his opponent, former secretary of state Karen Handel, for her past support of “taxpayer-funded domestic partner benefits and gay adoption” and membership in the Log Cabin Republicans. Concerned about shoring up support for next week’s primary, Handel has been denying and backtracking on those positions.
But in 2003, the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans said it supported Handel’s candidacy for county commission chair because she “demonstrated in her last run that she was supportive of domestic partner benefits” and “supported same-sex adoptions on the basis of the best interest of the child.” Handel is now calling the quote inaccurate, even though “she never asked Southern Voice for a correction or retraction.”
In an interview yesterday, Handel made her new-found feelings clear. Speaking with Doug Richards of Georgia’s 11 Alive, she uncomfortably tried to define her new opposition to gay rights and became exasperated when Richards pushed her to explain herself.
The exasperation is worth clicking the link--especially her testy response when asked why she now believes that gays cannot be suitable parents ("because I don't").
Former President Harry Truman, back in the day, made the famous observation that the Republican Party either corrupts their liberals or expels them. Moderates have now joined liberals in that regard.
Handel's metamorphosis on gay rights, therefore, was wholly and entirely predictable.
And, sadly, it was also effective. Once in a pack of GOP contenders, Handel holds a seven point lead over former frontrunner John Oxendine, according to a Mason Dixon poll released today.
Most media reports of this poll are laying it at the doorstep of Palin, predictably. But when Handel sails into the runoff tomorrow, probably in the lead, it will be her repudiation of one of the few moderate positions in her issue profile that likely shoved her across the line. That, in itself, is quite telling.