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Cattledog

(5,914 posts)
Wed Jun 21, 2017, 02:48 AM Jun 2017

Republican Handel wins Georgia race, thanks Donald Trump.

She is now kissing his ass.

"A special thanks to the president of the United States of America," she said late Tuesday night as her supporters chanted, "Trump! Trump! Trump!"

It was Handel's most public embrace of the man whose tenuous standing in this well-educated, suburban enclave made a previously safe Republican district close to begin with...

Contrary to the chants at Handel's victory party, she insisted for months that voters' choice had little to do with Trump. She rarely mentioned him, despite holding a closed-door fundraiser with him earlier this spring. She pointed voters instead to her "proven conservative record" as a state and local elected official.

Her protestations aside, Handel often embraced the national tenor of the race, joining a GOP chorus that lambasted Ossoff as a "dangerous liberal" who was "hand-picked" by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California. She also welcomed a parade of national GOP figures to Atlanta to help her raise money, with Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence holding fundraisers following Trump's April visit.

It was enough to help Handel raise more than $5 million, not a paltry sum in a congressional race, but barely a fifth of Ossoff's fundraising haul. The Republican campaign establishment, however, helped make up the difference. A super PAC backed by Ryan spent $7 million alone.

On policy, she mostly echoes party leaders. She said she'd have voted for the House Republican health care bill, though she sometimes misrepresented its provisions in debates with Ossoff. She touts traditional supply side economics, going so far as to say during one debate that she does "not support a living wage" - her way of explaining her opposition to a minimum-wage increase.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/georgia-race-finally-heads-to-voters-dc-watching-closely/536080797


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