David Perdue Attempts to Turn the Big Lie into Political Gold - Horowitz
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Former Georgia US Senator David Perdue, who was defeated by Jon Ossoff in his 2020 re-election bid, recently announced a primary challenge to the incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp. Perdue is not running because he has a different vision for how to govern Georgia; nor is he broadly critical of the overall job the incumbent has done. His candidacy is centered on his objection to the fact that Governor Kemp followed the law and certified the 2020 presidential election results in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 11,000 votes.
In order words, Purdue’s candidacy is a creation of the “Big Lie” and all indications so far are that he will pay slavish service to it and its originator. The former senator sees political opportunity in Donald Trump’s success-- despite all the available evidence-- in persuading the majority of Republicans that the 2020 election was stolen from him and further convincing a sizable slice of Republican primary voters that this theft was aided and abetted by Republican elected officials, such as Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who refused to do Trump’s bidding.
Perdue followed up the announcement of his candidacy by declaring that he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election results if he was the governor at the time, telling Axios, “Not with the information that was available at the time and not with the information that has come out now. They had plenty of time to investigate this. And I wouldn’t have signed it until those things had been investigated, and that’s all we were asking for." Perdue is making this claim even though he knows full well that if he followed Georgia state law, he would have had no option other than to sign the certification.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThis past Friday, the former senator joined a lawsuit charging that fraudulent absentee ballots were counted in the 2020 elections in Fulton County, which includes nearly all of Atlanta and is Georgia’s most populous county. That this is a campaign ploy—and nothing else—is underscored by the fact that Perdue had refused to join a more timely similar suit filed soon after the 2020 elections. Kemp spokesperson Cody Hall hammered this point home: “David Perdue is so concerned about election fraud that he waited a year to file a lawsuit that conveniently coincided with his disastrous campaign launch. Keep in mind that lawsuit after lawsuit regarding the 2020 election was dismissed in part because Perdue declined to be listed as a plaintiff.”
Even more to the point, the claims made in the new lawsuit have already been investigated and roundly debunked. “Based upon the witness statements and examination of approximately 1,000 absentee ballots and ballot images, the Secretary’s investigators have not uncovered any absentee ballots that match the descriptions given ... or otherwise appear to be fraudulent or counterfeit,” said a legal brief submitted by the secretary of state’s office in the original suit, reported AP.
A fierce Brian Kemp critic, solely because he certified the 2020 presidential election results, Donald Trump enthusiastically endorsed David Perdue—the commitment for which you can be pretty sure Perdue secured before he entered the race. In races around the nation, Trump’s support is contingent upon a candidate embracing the “Big Lie” and he has already succeeded in making it a salient issue in Republican primaries.
The largest beneficiary of what is shaping up to be a bitter intraparty fight will likely turn out to be Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor who lost a close race to Brian Kemp in 2018. I would like to see her win the race, however, the damage to our democracy of fidelity to the “Big Lie” becoming a litmus test in one of our two major parties outweighs the outcome of any individual race. This is especially the case as states controlled by Republicans, including Georgia, pass laws that will enable partisan state legislatures to more easily overturn presidential election results in the future.
David Perdue’s candidacy is a naked, cynical attempt to capitalize on the “Big Lie.” While it is perhaps the most egregious example of the malign influence Mr. Trump still exerts in the Republican party, it is not an isolated one. The demonizing of Republican elected officials who simply did their jobs according to the law in the 2020 presidential election and the embracing or at least nodding and winking at the “Big Lie” has become the nationwide norm in today’s Republican party.
This signals an ongoing and growing danger for our democracy--one we must all strongly combat.
Editor's Note: The column has been updated to reflect the number of votes was 11,000 -- and not 20,000 as first contained in the column.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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