John Oxendine, Eric Johnson open up air war in GOP race for governor
Two of the top-ranking Republicans in the contest for governor – Eric Johnson and John Oxendine — cut loose a first round of TV ads on Monday.
Both are designed to give voters a first look at the candidates. Neither campaign would tell us where or how often the ad is playing.
But spies tell us that Johnson has dropped $237,265 on metro Atlanta network this week, for 626 points. Oxendine’s Atlanta broadcast buy for the week now stands at $338,075, for 892 points.
First, the Oxendine ad:
The script, with Oxendine narrating:
“Too often, politicians worry more about their re-election than your future. But as insurance commissioner, I solved problems to help you. That’s what I’ll do as governor.
“My contract with Georgia is a reform plan to downsize government, scrap the income tax, and fix our transportation and water problems. This will attract businesses and help Georgians go back to work. As governor, I won’t care who gets the credit – just so creating jobs is Job One.”
Like Oxendine’s ad, the one below from Johnson is semi-introductory, laced with issues.
But while Oxendine leans on his credentials as insurance commissioner, Johnson — perhaps sensitive to the vulnerability of anyone perceived as an incumbent — makes no mention of his service as a former state senator.
He was the ranking Republican in the Senate, in fact. Nor does he mention his Savannah roots. Also, note that Johnson chooses to first lean on illegal immigration before he moves on to the economy:
The script, with Johnson narrating:
“I’m Eric Johnson, and I want to be your next governor. Like you, I’ve had enough of Washington’s out-of-control spending, higher taxes, and refusal to stop illegal immigration. They are costing too many jobs and too much money.
“As your governor, I’ll get government off our backs, and out of our pockets. That’s how a conservative puts Georgia back to work. And I’m just the guy to do it.”
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
36 comments Add your comment
John Konop
June 21st, 2010
4:08 pm
Like it or not Karen Handel has the only chance against Barnes. He will have a giant war chest focusing on ethics, education and jobs. The polls mean nothing in a general until the ads from Barnes hit.
OX and Deal will be dead in the water when the ads hit on ethics.
Johnson will get killed on vouchers after all the cuts in education.
The above 3 will have a hard time explaining their position on how couples getting IVI to help create life are committing murder.
No one in a general will careless about the gay-bashing issues targeted at Karen in the primary. In fact it may help her with independents.
The real issue is will the GOP kill the only candidate with a chance to win?
red dog
June 21st, 2010
4:20 pm
Georgia Educators do not have amnesia, nor have educators forgotten Barnes removing tenure. Vouchers will not hurt Johnson as this is not the reason our state finds itself in the position it currently is.
Linger Longer
June 21st, 2010
4:29 pm
To me Johnson’s ethics problems are worse than the Ox’s. The Ox is owned by many people, while Johnson is owned by just 1, Jamie Reynolds. All 3 of the male candidates have a BIG ETHICS problem, Handel may be far from perfect but she is better than the alternatives.
Cutty
June 21st, 2010
4:29 pm
Nope, the Reynolds Family and the water Johnson carries for them will end his chance.
Oxendine- Puhleeze, anyone that votes for him is insane.
Wow
June 21st, 2010
4:36 pm
I didn’t know The Ox sounded like a girl…
Retired Solider
June 21st, 2010
4:52 pm
Someone please inform me. I don’t recall ethics charges being filed against Johnson. If they have been please tell me about it. It sounds to me like sour grapes from folks that wish they could get in Reynolds checkbook.
Linger Longer
June 21st, 2010
5:16 pm
Retired Solider 4:52 pm
The question is not who gets at the Reynolds family checkbook but whta they get for their money. Johnson has a proven record of being a good investment for Jamie Reynolds.
Older And Wiser
June 21st, 2010
5:17 pm
Instead of “shock and awe” the much hyped “air war” between John Oxendine and Eric Johnson looks like a dud. Karen Handel is the only candidate who can beat Barnes. No amount of television ads can persuade anyone that the Ox, or Eric Johnson, is the solution to the ethical cloud hanging over the Georgia Dome these days.
Jamie Reynolds.
June 21st, 2010
5:19 pm
Eric is my boy.
Big Bucks Reynolds Family.
June 21st, 2010
5:23 pm
Eric does anything we want.
Retired Solider
June 21st, 2010
5:28 pm
Well I guess there is no ethics case against Johnson. It would be nice then if posters didn’t continue to mislead people. Let the best person win. P.S. it won’t be KH.
heather alvarez
June 21st, 2010
5:35 pm
Retired soldier – in May Jim reported Eric failed to disclose $280,000 in state contracts from his architectual firm. Disclosing some contracts but not all smells rotten… there’s got to be more to it. Why would you claim parts but not all unless you were hiding something. Johnson, Ox, and Deal are all hiding things that Barnes will never sit on. Handel is the only one that can beat Barnes. My vote – Karen Handel! If you don’t want Roy Barnes to win your vote should be for Handel too.
Let's Be Real
June 21st, 2010
5:45 pm
Did you know the evil federal Government pays 13 billion of Georgia’s 30 billion dollar operating budget?
P'TREE
June 21st, 2010
5:57 pm
Karen Handel for Governor 2010!
John Konop
June 21st, 2010
6:14 pm
redog
You guys can play lets pretend or listen to the echo chamber but trust me like the school voucher issue will piss-off women! And not only will they vote against the candidate, they will tell all their friends.
I found this out about the math 123 issue in Cherokee. We got waiver on this because when I put out the issue upset mothers drove the bus. In fact they have now gotten math 123 kicked out of North Fulton and all the candidates are running against it.
Nothing worse than having soccer moms with a mission against you
T Knight
June 21st, 2010
7:03 pm
Karen Handel is the clear choice for governor. We need someone who is business minded and not a politician. Mrs Handel does have the professional credentials and as a professional. She will make the tough choices to see Georgia through this horrible Obama economy.
D-Boe
June 21st, 2010
7:26 pm
No way someone without a Bachelors degree should even be qualified to be on the ballot for Governor, period. Not to name names or anything.
RBN
June 21st, 2010
7:58 pm
Perhaps Eric can explain what he would have cut from this year’s budget without the $2 billion in federal stimulus money. More cuts to education? Raise more “fees”? Put criminals on streets? Why we may not even have yhe money for his $5,000 voucher scheme. Why are all these Repubs trying for lowest common denominator? If that is how the view the voters of Georgia, go Roy.
Keeping Georgia Great
June 21st, 2010
7:59 pm
Karen Handel, from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, is pro choice (the only candidate not endorsed by Georgia Right to Life because she favors abortion). She is a financial supporter of gay and lesbian people (Check out the AJC politifact truth o meter piece on this. Her attempt to cover up her membership in the Log Cabin republicans (gays and lesbians) was rated a “pants on fire lie” by the AJC) To top it off, she is a high school dropout who was too lazy to finish her education when presented with multiple convenient opportunities. She attacks other candidates on false charges because she has nothing to offer to Georgia, and she knows it.
RBN
June 21st, 2010
8:01 pm
Okay, scrap income tax and fund state services through? Raise sales taxes? Tell us the whole story.
retiredds
June 21st, 2010
8:41 pm
Ox and Johnson, the best that GA has to offer? Wow.
????
June 22nd, 2010
6:29 am
Keeping Georgia Great 7:59 pm
Who is less bad than Handel?
Ox= Crook
Deal=Crook Slime
Johnson=Crook, owned by Reynolds Family
Retired Solider
June 22nd, 2010
9:08 am
There we go again, no a single anti-Johnson person can point to a single fact where Johnson has been charged with anything illegal, unethical or immoral. Slash and burn politics is so old school guys. Promote your candidate, there is no need to try and destroy others.
????
June 22nd, 2010
9:51 am
Retired Solider 9:08 am
hope this isn’t over your head, it is really complicated
http://whotheyrepresent.com/johnson
Retired Solider
June 22nd, 2010
10:11 am
????-
The only thing over my head is why you think you have the answer to every question.
Retired Solider
June 22nd, 2010
10:16 am
ok ???? what law did Johnston break? Why hasn’t he been investigated? What action has any legal body taken? The answer is none. If you so dang knowledgeable why haven’t you done your civic duty and met w/ the AG/GBI or someone in order to get this horrible man off the streets?
Why? Cause all you can do is point to a web site that is anti-republican/anti-Johnson. You need to get a life.
????
June 22nd, 2010
11:40 am
Retired Solider 10:16 am
when are we going to get together for the little meting you wanted?
Diehard
June 22nd, 2010
1:21 pm
Ox’s sheen is just the start of his sleaze . . .
Retired Solider
June 22nd, 2010
1:29 pm
????-
Change of subject since you can’t provide constructive proof of wrong doing? You fill the role of liberal Dem so well.
UGA Belle
June 22nd, 2010
2:14 pm
When you look at an alleged ethical violation you must look at intent. Johnson failing to report $280,000 is hardly a crime. In the year the administrative error took place, there was not a law stating that officials must report their contracts. Eric actually helped pass that law. If he had not wanted the public to know of his contracts, or if he were trying to hide something, I’m fairly sure he would have just avoided reporting the entire job. I find it quite amusing that this is just the primary, and you feel the need to attack other candidates rather than promoting your own. Very tasteless.
I agree with this article written in the Savannah Morning News.
AN OPEN accounting of any state contracts with a lawmaker’s business is noteworthy. That clarity is paramount in avoiding potential conflicts of interest.
It is unfortunate that Republican gubernatorial candidate Eric Johnson failed to report a $280,000 contract 11 years ago when he was serving in the state Senate and was part-owner of the architectural firm Hussey, Gay, Bell and DeYoung.
He messed up, plain and simple. However, it’s not the kind of gaffe that most Georgians should lose sleep over.
According to the Associated Press, the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission paid Mr. Johnson’s firm for design work in 1999 on renovations to a library at Dalton State College. That item, however, was not reported to the State Ethics Commission as required.
Mr. Johnson had asked his company’s bookkeeping department for a list of state contracts. But that project (one of dozens of public and private jobs taken on by this large firm that year) was inadvertently left off the list. Mr. Johnson then delivered that incomplete list to the ethics commission.
In that same year, he reported five other contracts. In subsequent years he did report payments on the Dalton State project.
Such a pattern suggests an elected official who’s scrupulous. While that doesn’t erase what happened, it appears to have been an honest mistake, not a conscious effort to hide state income from ethics watchdogs or from taxpayers.
In fact, from 1999 to 2004, during his first stint at the architectural firm, he reported $575,000 in payments from state agencies.
Mr. Johnson said that figure is lower than it would have been if he had not been in the legislature. That’s because he was prohibited from marketing the firm’s services to state entities.
Maybe. But it still was his responsibility to ensure full financial reporting. That didn’t happen more than a decade ago.
So why did it surface just now in the heat of a crowded GOP primary fight? Indeed, it’s interesting that Mr. Johnson’s miscue didn’t make some noise in 2001, when then-Sen. Johnson was hammering then-Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, over corporate tax breaks and the governor’s personal finances.
Voters, of course, must look at the context of Mr. Johnson’s 11-year-old error to decide its significance. There’s no doubt he fouled up one time. But in our view, this new revelation smacks of hardball politics during an election year, not evidence of a former elected official with something to hide.”
Retired Solider
June 22nd, 2010
2:34 pm
UGA Belle-
Thank you for that detailed explanation of Johnson’s mistake. Maybe the ax men blogggers on here will give it a rest.
????
June 22nd, 2010
3:54 pm
Retired Solider 1:29 pm
when are we going to get together for the little meeting you wanted?
????
June 22nd, 2010
4:25 pm
Jekyll Island is one of Georgia’s greatest treasures, originally intended to be a place where Georgia’s families can go for vacation without breaking the bank.
None of that matters to gubernatorial candidate Eric Johnson, however. As a member of the State Senate, Johnson spearheaded the effort to turn Georgia’s coastal treasure over to developers, putting the island’s fragile ecosystem at risk and giving the finger to people in the area who opposed selling Jekyll to the highest bidder.
In this case, the highest bidder was Linger Longer Properties, one of Johnson’s biggest campaign donors.
But Johnson’s record of favors for friends isn’t just for big donors. As a State Senator, Johnson led the investigation into allegations that House Speaker Glenn Richardson had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist. Johnson’s investigation exonerated the Speaker, but the allegations against him resurfaced, forcing his resignation in a cloud of disgrace.
James Reynolds, III of Linger Longer Properties serves as Finance Chair for Johnson’s gubernatorial campaign.1
Johnson has received $2,000 so far in his campaign for Governor from Reynolds,2 and another $3,000 from Reynolds’ company.3
Johnson serves on the board of the Jekyll Island authority, which handed out a lucrative business deal to Reynolds’ development company.
Johnson serves as a member of the Jekyll Island Authority,4 which awarded a controversial, 25-year no-competition development contract to Reynolds’ company, Linger Longer Properties.5
4T9
June 22nd, 2010
11:13 pm
Keeping Georgia Great is obviously Ray McBerry using an assumed name. Those McBerrites can’t stop hatin’ on the women can they?
Cousin Amoes
June 28th, 2010
5:51 pm
Agree, Political affiliations with powerhouses and water issues will sink Johnson’s ship!
Silly Sid
June 28th, 2010
5:55 pm
Will Political Affiliations Result in Pay Backs?
1) James Reynolds, III of Linger Longer Properties serves as Finance Chair for Johnson’s gubernatorial campaign
2) Steve Greene, Chair of the Georgia Ports Authority serves as Campaign Chair for Johnson’s gubenatorial campaign.