The Republican frontrunner in Georgia’s gubernatorial race is learning the hard way that it’s not good idea to spill your heart to a former rival.
On Monday, secretly recorded audio was released of Lt. Gov Casey Cagle dismissively describing his state’s wild five-man primary as a contest between “who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck and who could be the craziest.”
This is the second snippet of covertly recorded audio from a conversation between Cagle and his onetime primary rival Clay Tippins.
In the first segment, which was leaked to the media in June by Tippins himself, Cagle admitted to supporting an education bill that he described as bad in “a thousand different ways” in order to damage another primary candidate.
The latest 50-second clip was put out by Cagle’s opponent in the runoff, far-right Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
The tapes threaten to upend a very tight race between Kemp and Cagle ahead of the July 24 runoff election. A recent Cygnal poll of likely Republican runoff voters had Cagle ahead by only one point, 44 percent to Kemp’s 43 percent.
Kemp, who released primary ads in which he pointed a gun at a teenager courting his daughter and pledged to hunt down “criminal illegals” in his “big truck,” is running to Cagle’s right. The tapes are perfect fodder for his message that Cagle is not a true conservative in the Trumpian mold.
“Like Hillary Clinton, Cagle thinks the electorate is a basket of deplorables who lack the intelligence and attention span to comprehend all of the high-level policy proposals that he’s saving for the General Election,” Kemp wrote in one of several Monday tweets about the new recording.
The Cagle campaign did not immediately return TPM’s request for comment, and did not release a public statement. But the lieutenant governor is pushing his conservative bona fides on social media, tweeting out a link to a trio of upcoming rallies with incoming NRA President Ollie North. The linked press release informs voters that Cagle is the only gubernatorial candidate endorsed by the NRA, and warns that “radical liberals are coming for your guns.”
The runoff victor will face off against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams in the fall.
No, I think it’s a great idea for all Republicans to share the secrets of their blackened little hearts to recording devices, Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, and so on…
"Cagle thinks the electorate is a basket of deplorables who lack the intelligence and attention span to comprehend all of the high-level policy proposals that he’s saving for the General Election,”
He’s right, and people getting angry with him for admitting it and then voting for the other guy, who happens to be the worse of the two pandering white nationalists douchenozzles, will prove it.
And like Hillary Clinton, Cagle is right but Kemp is banking on Cagle also being right that the deplorables “lack the intelligence and attention span to comprehend all of the high-level policy proposals” and will reflexively vote for the man who plays to their ignorance with simple, jingoistic answers to complex questions.
@sniffit Jinx, I owe you a Coke.
“goobernatorial” is more like it.
A couple of lightweights trying to out-cojones each other to hide the fact they’re both lightweights.
What? He only says his opponents are ”radical liberals?” That’s not going to win him a Republican primary! What about all the socialists and Muslims and rapey immigrants? I’m not optimistic about his chances.