Chris Carr Has Earned My Vote

I don’t write as much about candidates and elections as I used to. I now focus on the policy arena, as that is both my focus and what most of my day-job work consists of. That said, as I am a non-lawyer, I find a lot of policy reasons to choose Chris Carr this Tuesday.

Before we get to that let’s get some background and history out of the way. Chris is a friend. I met him when we were at UGA together. He was and remains a close friend of my college roommate.

Chris and I really got to know each other when he was the Executive Director of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and I was just getting my feet wet in grassroots politics. Throughout his professional career, policy has been at his core, and it has remained such throughout our relationship.

He went from there to work for Johnny Isakson as his Chief of Staff. I…became “Icarus” at our old website. Let’s just say at that point our careers were headed in distinctly opposite directions.

In my pre-Icarus life, I was already an open supporter of Johnny Isakson. He’s the real deal. He has been since I met him as a freshman at UGA, and still is today. Saying Senator Isakson is a “statesman” barely begins to describe it. He’s both an institution and an organization. Those that have worked for him have gone on to be the kind of people we need leading our organizations of government, commerce, and other public services. They’re trained to put citizens first, focus on solutions, treat everyone fairly and equally, and endeavor to make anything you work on or with better than the way you found it. Chris is a product of this organization, and is emblematic of it.

For those of you that don’t remember “Icarus”, that was my pseudonym when I discovered blogging during a very challenging time of my life, personally and professionally. I wrote honestly and directly, but with no idea who was actually reading our blog and thus without a full understanding of the consequences or impact of the words. I had opinions on anything and everything, and I didn’t hold much back. One thing I would not tolerate, however, was disrespect of my Senator, Johnny Isakson.

When the Icarus game was nearing an end, one of my fellow contributors asked if it would be OK to ask our readers who they thought I was. I was mortified when the most frequently guessed name was “Chris Carr”. Chris was and is a serious man. Icarus’ writings were…often less than serious. Worse, Chris and I had a meeting set for later that week. At least I had the chance to apologize in person…

Chris found it all a bit hysterical. He knew people sometimes thought I was him, all the while him having no clue who Icarus was. He just appreciated someone, whoever he was, trying to set the comments section straight on what his boss was doing.

Chris and I resumed our politics and policy conversations on a regular basis. They continued throughout his days as Georgia’s Commissioner of Economic Development. Georgia was still digging out of the great recession, and he took his mission from Governor Deal seriously. Georgia didn’t have to create jobs, we had to create entirely new industries. From film to FinTech, he took the charge seriously, as if the weight of the state’s future was on his shoulders. Because, it was.

When the Attorney General’s position became available, Governor Deal turned to someone who had helped brand Georgia the “number one state to do business”. The Attorney General’s office is now headed by someone who embodies the Isakson Organization’s work ethic with Governor Deal’s record of results. It’s a good combination, and one that I’m happy to vote for on Tuesday by checking the name “Chris Carr”.

For those that think the Attorney General’s office isn’t a place to monitor the state’s business climate, think again. Carr’s opponent, Charlie Bailey, believes the office is a position that should be used to aggressively sue Georgia’s employers to achieve left-of-center policy positions.

He’s said he’ll pull Georgia out of a lawsuit challenging the constitutional overreaches of Obamacare, while at the same time he’ll refuse to defend state laws in court that he personally disagrees with. That’s not someone promising to uphold and defend the constitution. That’s someone that wants to use his political perch to re-write it.

No. Just no.

I want an Attorney General that will uphold all of Georgia’s laws. We already have two chambers in a legislature to make laws. We don’t need a rouge Attorney General deciding which ones matter and which don’t.

But as life has a way of coming full circle, we’ll close with another case of one of the candidates for AG being mistaken for me. This time it was the Cobb Democrats at their annual gala. Apparently, they know their candidate well enough that…

Well….maybe they’ve gotten to know him since then. But I’ve known Chris Carr for roughly three decades.

Chris Carr has dedicated his entire professional life to making Georgia a better place through better policy. It’s a role he’s continued as our Attorney General. I’m glad that he and I are friends, but that is ancillary to me being glad he’s now a Constitutional officer. Chris Carr is one of the reasons Georgia is the state we enjoy today, and I’m proud to cast my vote for him on Tuesday.