ATHENS — Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Roy Barnes on Saturday cast the coming general election as critical to Georgia's future prosperity.
Speaking at the state Democratic Party Convention in Athens, Barnes said the contest would help decide whether Georgia remains the capital of the New South or whether that title would move to a state like North Carolina.
Barnes hammered home what is fast becoming a familiar campaign theme: that under Republican rule Georgia has been falling behind.
"Why do we let that prosperity and jobs slip through our fingers?" Barnes asked.
"Why should we allow those who have brought us to this precipice, to this abyss, why should we let that team say 'We'll take you even further into the darkness?'"
Barnes said Georgia is at a critical juncture and likened the election to one in 1962 when Alabama elected segregationist George Wallace governor and Georgia chose the moderate Carl Sanders. As Birmingham, Ala. erupted in violence as the battles raged over segregation, Georgia remained peaceful and saw its economy flourish.
"Business does what it always does. It seeks safety and security and stability and it fled Birmingham and Alabama and it came to Georgia," Barnes said.
"That was as a result of a governor's race," he concluded.
Barnes also jabbed his newly-minted GOP nominee, Nathan Deal, as "part of the team that brought Georgia to where we are right now."
"The team that gave tax breaks to the special interests," he said. "His team that laid off our teachers and shortened the school year."
And he said the state must end the ethical lapses of those who make our laws "whether they be in the state capitol or the United States Congress. The latter was apparently aimed at Deal, a former congressman from Gainesville, who has faced questions over ethics.
Deal's campaign scoffed at Barnes' claim that he would put the state's economy back on track, arguing that Barnes' campaign promises would be costly "job killers" for the state.
"The fact of the matter is that the Barnes agenda sounds a whole lot like President Obama's agenda, which makes sense because Roy Barnes gave money to Obama's campaign," Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said.
After an eight-year dry spell, Democrats are feeling energized this year believing Barnes — the state's former governor — has a real chance of winning his old job back against Deal. Barnes was ousted by Republican Sonny Perdue in 2002 and the state has grown steadily more Republican since then.
At their convention Saturday, Democrats pledged to change that, seizing on ethics and the economy as key issues in November.
Carol Porter, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, charged out of the gate labeling her opponent, GOP incumbent Casey Cagle, as "unethical" and "corrupt."
Noting the state House had rid itself of House Speaker Glenn Richardson after an ethics scandal, Porter said, "it's time to go over to the Senate and get rid of the corrupt lieutenant governor that's there now."
A spokesman for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond brought the crowd to its feet when he told an impassioned story about his rise from sharecropper's son riding on the back of his father's vegetable truck to Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
Thurmond is challenging Republican Johnny Isakson, who is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a second term. Acknowledged Thurmond, "the political odds are stacked firmly against me."
"You know and I know that through faith and hard work all things are possible," Thurmond said, accepting his party's nomination.
"I've got the heart and the soul and the spirit of the sharecropper," he said.
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