Posted on 11/20/2005 6:04:18 PM PST by NapkinUser
Ralph Reed walked into Sen. Casey Cagle's office at the state Capitol last January for an awkward talk.
"Our paths may cross over the lieutenant governor's race," Cagle remembers being told by Reed, former national Christian Coalition leader and a fellow Republican. "I need you to know that God has called me to do this."
Reed remembers the conversation slightly differently. He remembers telling Cagle that he had prayed about what to do and felt led to run.
Regardless, the not-so-subtle message of the visit: Reed didn't want any competition.
"That's fine," Cagle remembers telling Reed. "But not only has God called me to do this, Ralph, God has confirmed me to do this."
The not-so-subtle reply from Cagle: You've got competition.
Until now a relatively minor player in Georgia politics, Cagle finds himself thanks to the star power of his opponent entering a realm of public attention he has never before experienced.
Why is Cagle, who is little known outside his hometown of Gainesville, going up against a political powerhouse from his own party who's on a first-name basis with U.S. presidents?
Cagle smiles and his pale blue eyes sharpen. The 39-year-old businessman says, "I'm an ambitious kind of guy."
While that may be true, Cagle's play for the statewide post also has to do with his personal history, a mix of failures and successes.
He was a fatherless kid hounded by poverty who followed his dream of playing college football, only to be felled by bad luck. He dropped out of two colleges, but transformed himself into a wealthy banker and real estate investor. He wields political influence as a Senate committee chairman, but he holds no position in the GOP leadership having lost a bid for majority leader.
Cagle has surprised some by marshaling an aggressive campaign team and legislative allies to make a serious bid to become Georgia's first Republican lieutenant governor.
"At the beginning of the race, nobody gave Casey much of a chance," said Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), who has endorsed Cagle. "But everyone now sees it as a horse race."
Clearly, Cagle's profile has been boosted by buzz surrounding his Republican primary opponent. Reed was the boy wonder of the right, having turned religious conservatives into a political force while heading Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition in the 1980s and 1990s. But recently, Reed has been hounded by congressional and media scrutiny of his post-Christian Coalition career as a political strategist. Investigators are looking at several anti-gambling campaigns Reed assisted with under the probe's target, former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Reed has not been accused of wrongdoing.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and others have reported that Reed, a staunch opponent of gambling, worked on behalf of gambling interests in anti-gambling campaigns he assisted in several Southern states and in Washington. Reed says his work was legitimate and effective.
Cagle and Reed are crossing paths at fall festivals, barbecues and local GOP forums drawing far more attention than the governor's race at this early stage in the campaign.
Though the primary isn't until July, Cagle had raised almost $800,000 as of three months ago far less than Reed, who has raised at least $1.4 million, but an unusually large amount for a lieutenant governor's race.
Reed's renown kept many who are higher on the GOP totem pole than Cagle from running for the No. 2 job in state politics. Cagle said he never considered stepping aside.
"Ralph Reed will not scare me out of any race," Cagle said.
'Kind of a latchkey kid'
Lowell Stacy Cagle was born Jan. 12, 1966, in Gainesville. He chose the nickname Casey as a child, and it stuck.
When Cagle was 3, his father left. His mother raised Cagle and his older brother, Chris, who has cerebral palsy.
"I was kind of a latchkey kid," Cagle said.
Cagle said he had attended eight elementary schools by the time he was 6. His mother, a bookkeeper who now does the books for his campaign, held down two jobs.
Cagle's mother remarried when Cagle was 12, and though money remained tight, home life improved. At Johnson High School in Gainesville, Cagle played football. His dream, he said, was to play college ball.
Cagle enrolled at Georgia Southern University and was listed on the roster as a defensive tackle for coach Erk Russell in 1984. Redshirted, he never played a game. But in practice, Cagle said, he repeatedly tore his Achilles tendon and left the program.
Cagle dropped out of Georgia Southern, went home and enrolled at Gainesville College. He worked as a weight-lifting instructor and the manager of a tuxedo rental store. When he was 20, he bought the store with financing from the previous owner and dropped out of college for good.
Cagle became involved in Republican politics. Gordon Sawyer, retired chairman of the Hall County GOP, said Cagle was a "young tiger" when the party was slowly gaining power in a state that had been overwhelmingly Democratic.
As with many Georgia Republicans, Cagle's politics were influenced by President Ronald Reagan and Johnny Isakson, now a U.S. senator from Georgia. "Both of those individuals made it very, very acceptable to be a Republican," Cagle said.
Cagle served as campaign manager for state House candidate James Mills in 1992. Mills won, and two years later, party leaders asked Cagle to run for the state Senate against a Democratic incumbent. At age 28, Cagle won his first elected office, the only one he has held.
A pro-business, anti-tax conservative, Cagle hasn't made a big name as a sponsor of high-profile legislation. During the 2005 legislative session, he was the primary sponsor of bills to protect chicken rendering plants and slaughterhouses from nuisance lawsuits by local communities and individuals (the Sierra Club labeled the bill "a stinker") and to require counties to set up ways for homeowners and businesses to dispose of septic waste.
In 2003, Cagle broke with Gov. Sonny Perdue and GOP leaders over a proposed tax increase. The Legislature hotly debated higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol proposed by Perdue, who had inherited a big budget shortfall. Many Republicans, whose party had taken control of the Senate, had campaigned on anti-tax pledges, and balked.
Ultimately, many supported a small cigarette tax hike that was approved. Cagle voted no, and blasted the bill in a speech from the Senate floor.
"Look in the mirror," he told fellow Republicans, wagging his finger. "Check your soul."
That year, Cagle lost a power struggle to become Senate majority leader. Sen. Bill Stephens (R-Canton), a close Perdue ally, got the Senate's No. 2 job.
Cagle gets high marks from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association, anti-abortion groups and the Georgia Christian Coalition. The coalition has given him a score of 100 each year he has been in office but one, when it gave him a 90.
Liberal organizations, not surprisingly, don't support Cagle. Chuck Bowen, executive director of Georgia Equality, the state's largest gay rights organization, called Cagle "a right-wing extremist" based in part on Cagle's strong support for last year's state ban on gay marriage. In the Republican primary, Cagle is "the lesser of two evils, but unfortunately, he's still evil," Bowen said.
Lucrative real estate deals
While a senator, Cagle has seen his net worth grow to about $3 million through real estate deals and banking, according to campaign spokesman Brad Alexander. The campaign declined to release Cagle's federal tax returns.
In the 1990s, Cagle purchased numerous properties, some from foreclosure sales. During this time, Cagle's mother-in-law, with whom he is close, worked as a clerk in the Hall County tax assessor's office. Cagle said he never bought any property on tips from his mother-in-law. He said he purchased all his foreclosures from Realtors, not from the county.
Land records show Cagle buying and selling multiple properties, sometimes under his name and sometimes in limited partnerships.
In 1999, the year Cagle first served on the Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee, he and several friends started a community bank, Southern Heritage. The bank, focusing on real estate loans, quickly grew to five branches.
Asked if he thought running a bank while serving on the banking committee was a conflict of interest, Cagle said no. "I wouldn't change a thing," he said of his banking experience.
Cagle said he and several business partners were organizing the bank in 1998, before he was on the committee, but did not open it until 1999. He said that whenever a vote came up on the committee through which his banking business would have directly benefited, he abstained. Records from the Senate Finance Committee, which Cagle chairs, and the Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee, of which he is a member, record no abstentions by Cagle for 2003, 2004 or 2005.
In 2004, Southern Heritage merged with the larger Gainesville Bank & Trust. Cagle, then chairman of the Senate's finance committee which considers tax policy bills and a member of the banking committee, was appointed to the bank's board of directors.
Bill Bozarth, executive director of the government watchdog Common Cause Georgia, said Cagle's situation points "to a larger problem." Many legislators sit on committees or deal with legislation related to their own industries, setting up possible conflicts of interest. Bozarth said he has no evidence that Cagle has used his position to further his own business interests.
Cagle said he has never used his position for personal financial gain.
"If an individual is versed in a particular industry, then that is very advantageous to the debating of legislation and the matter of public policy," he said. "The challenge is making sure that the individual doesn't gain financially from the legislation. That becomes the line you must be careful not to cross. ? I set a fairly high standard for myself."
A 'truth' Web site
Cagle, who when elected 11 years ago promised to serve only 12 years in the Georgia Senate, said lieutenant governor is the obvious next step. The lieutenant governor serves as Senate president, though he possesses little power he can't vote or submit legislation.
In campaign speeches, Cagle has been slow to mention the controversy surrounding Reed, but his campaign has set up an anti-Reed "truth" Web site, ReadaboutReed.com. The campaign has distributed cards that show an earnest-looking Cagle next to one word: Character.
Erick Erickson, a Macon attorney who runs a Republican blog called PeachPundit.com, summed up the Cagle strategy: "They seem to be saying, 'Look at all the position papers we have put out. Oh, and by the way, did you know Ralph Reed is a corrupt S.O.B.?' "
Jared Thomas, Reed's campaign manager, condemned the site. "What Casey is trying to do is take down one of the finest Republican leaders in Georgia," Thomas said.
Cagle said, "ReadaboutReed is nothing but the truth."
Valdosta Mayor John J. Fretti said he hadn't made up his mind about the race until he recently attended a gathering that both Cagle and Reed attended. Fretti said a Reed staffer spoke with him.
"I was literally told I would feel the pain if I did not support the Reed campaign," he said. "I was offended. I don't react well to intimidation."
Fretti later endorsed Cagle.
Thomas, of the Reed campaign, said the person was probably not a staff member, but a volunteer. Whoever spoke to Fretti, his story illustrates how intense this race already has become.
"In the [Republican] primary, this is the race to watch," said Doug Grammer, chairman of the Georgia Young Republicans.
At a luncheon last month at the Sunbelt Expo agricultural fair in Moultrie, both Cagle and Reed pumped the flesh with South Georgians eating fried chicken, drinking Coke and waving gnats from their faces.
Reed quietly listened to speakers present awards to regional farmers of the year, while Cagle shoveled his food, then bolted to the back of the room to whisper and shake hands. After the luncheon, Reed walked to the front to meet potential voters.
In a flash, Cagle was there, too. Their backs to each other, the two candidates worked the crowd after barely acknowledging each other.
I read the article, but I don't have the slightest idea what this guy stands for, other than saying that he is anti-tax.
Regardless, the not-so-subtle message of the visit: Reed didn't want any competition.
"That's fine," Cagle remembers telling Reed. "But not only has God called me to do this, Ralph, God has confirmed me to do this."
I guess God likes a good cat fight.
And just what did you expect to learn about a conservative Republican from The Atlanta Journal Constitution?
I hope this contest for the GA Lt Gov nomination doesn't get ugly, or it jeopardizes our ability to win the general and have an heir apparent to Sonny Perdue in 2010. I like Ralph Reed, but he's just using the job as a springboard to something else. I think Sen. Cagle is the best choice as he already has experience in the chamber that he would be presiding over.
"The Atlanta =Jo=ur(i)nal (and) Consti(pa)t=u=tion?" ;-)
I was hoping maybe someone who knows this guy would chip in.
I'm familiar with Ralph Reed, and have very mixed feelings about him. He built up the Christian Coalition, but he also pretty well destroyed it when he engineered the nomination of Bob Dole.
I'm voting for Casey Cagle too.
Quit the GD MF hypocrisy and run on the GD MF issues and leave your preaching at home you GD MF hypocrites."
I can't help it. The biggest knives in my back were placed there by individuals who spouted similar platitudes, but then didn't 'walk the walk'.
I don't have a dog in this fight because I can't vote in Ga. However, after reading the article, the thought occurred to me that you thought exactly what The AJC wanted you to think. Do you not think Cagle is also using the job as a springboard? I think many politicians have high aspirations, or expectations, until they realize most everyone else does also.
Well, I'm north of the border in TN, so I can't vote, either. I can only say that Cagle (unless he turns out to be a RINO, which I've heard no charge of) has more of a better claim to the job solely because he serves in the body for which he would preside over. It seems a rather odd position for Reed to run for. I'm sure Cagle would ultimately like to be Governor, but is going about getting there in a natural succession (as with Perdue, although he never served as Lt Gov, he did serve as Senate President Pro Tempore, or Zell Miller, who previously served as Lt Gov) and would want to accomplish something while serving in the #2 position. With Reed, it seems like he would just want it "on his resume" before his real goal of Governor comes open (in which case, why not simply wait until 2010 so he can go for what he really wants ?). Why, also, did Reed wait so long to finally take the plunge into elective office, too ? I don't want to look like I'm picking on Reed, just asking some questions.
Hey, MH, what's your opinion of the Cagle-Reed contest at this point ?
I'm voting Oxendine.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been running one hit piece after another trying to take out Ralph Reed. At the moment, I would vote for him if he were running on the Satanic Ticket and his opponent were Michael the Archangel.
Smartass. :-P
I don't mind all the injection of God/religion into politics (since I'm not one of the fooled masses who actually believes "Separation" is in the Constitution), though even with some candidates, it becomes gratuitously a wee-bit over the top. I wouldn't mind a candidate saying, "Well, God didn't ask me to run... I decided all on my own !" Somehow, I think the Lord has more important things on His mind than whom becomes the next Lieutenant-Governor of Georgia. But, I could be wrong... ;-)
Let's not go THAT far !
Happens all the time. A 'nuts and bolts' type of candidate loses out to one who is more 'flash.' Women make that choice all the time. Oliver North won the Senate primary over a hard working budget director in the Reagan administration(Miller?). Ralph Reed has earned his right to run for the office. It's like an actor getting a bug up his behind and choosing to run. Think of the times when Republicans had to turn to these types of people as their only opportunity: Think Mike Ditka and Ahnold.
Ditka may have actually been a promising candidate for us, legitimately Conservative, and viable as an Illinois resident.
As for Ah-nold, I never fell for his schtick once. I knew he was a destructive RINO before he ever declared for office.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to run a "flashy" candidate if in most areas they are superior to a candidate whom has been toiling in the field, so to speak. In the case of Reed, it's not necessary to run him. Cagle is quite acceptable and carries none of Reed's baggage.
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