Deal's deal #2

The plot thickens in the matter of Nathan Deal's financial difficulties and his habit of skating on thin ice, both financially and ethically. Is this what Georgians want in a governor, especially in these parlous financial times?

A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling Research for a group of newspapers in Georgia shows Deal's lead over Roy Barnes has narrowed to 45 to 41, with +/- 4% margin of error. And the poll was conducted before the latest revelations in the family bankruptcy story emerged today.

To recap: in 2005, Deal and his wife invested $2 million in a new business venture by their daughter and son-in-law. In addition they co-signed loans for the business totally another $2+ million. The business failed. The daughter/son-in-law filed and were granted bankruptcy protection from creditors, leaving the Deals with their own loss of $2M plus now being responsible for the $2.3M in the business loans.

Until yesterday, Deal had some early success in containing the political fallout by painting himself as a family-values kind of guy who helps out his kids and meets his responsibilities. Further, he tried to turn it to advantage with the image of him as struggling financially just like all Georgians right now -- the good father, provider, and stand-by-your-responsibilities good citizen who doesn't expect a government bail out. Any hard-working Georgian could relate to that, no?

Yes, but what about the matter of prudent business sense and wise judgment? Things you would think are important in a governor. Guaranteeing loans that exceed your own total assets does not sound like prudent business sense and wise judgment. Unless you know, of course, that your political influence makes it easy for you to cut special deals and make up any financial loss with ease.

News analysts have said that his assets, including his two homes, are worth less than the loans that will come due in January. Questions are now being raised as well about Deal's actions that led to an ethics investigation into his role in ensuring the continuation of a state program that awarded him a non competitive monopoly for his salvage-car storage business. Now we know that the family financial troubles were ongoing at that time. He could not have afforded to lose the $300,000 per year this business brought in from that state contract. Deal maintains that he is not insolvent and that he will meet his responsibilities without going into bankruptcy himself.

How? He has not said.

But yesterday, a new wrinkle. It seems that son-in-law Clinton Wilder had previously filed for bankruptcy for a different business in November 2001. Not only did this make him ineligible for a repeat bankruptcy proceeding within eight years (the current one was filed in July 2009), but he falsified his application by answering "no" on the application question about any previous fillings within the past 8 years. See the thin ice? You know, it had been almost eight years -- but not quite. And the law is pretty specific.

Of course, this was Wilder, not Deal; and it has not yet been revealed if/when Deal knew about the previous bankruptcy. But shouldn't he have known when he cosigned those loans in 2005? Or did Wilder lie about his previous bankruptcy on those applications too? And lie to his father-in-law who was investing his own money and reputation along with him? Was the first bankruptcy before Wilder married into the family? We don't yet know, but that information should emerge very soon.

Any way you slice it, it looks bad for Deal and his chances to win the election. In his AJC column this week, Jay Bookman raises the pertinent question that should be taken seriously by all Republican voters. In all the smoke screen over how responsible Deal is in saying he will pay off the loans, how responsible was he not to have revealed this debt prior to the primary election, which he won only by a hair? It's quite likely that he would not have won, and Republicans would have a candidate that they liked almost as much, but without this baggage going into the general election.

Is this what you want in a governor? Someone who skates on thin ice both financially and ethically, who even uses smear tactics against a wonderful support group for gay youth in order to garner votes from the anti-gay crowd, which he would have gotten anyway?

Now I am fired up about the Georgia governor's election, and I think Roy Barnes has a pretty good chance of winning it.

Ralph