Defeats of past drive Isakson in Senate bid

BYLINE: JIM THARPE

DATE: December 14, 2003

Seven years ago, some pundits were readying Johnny Isakson's political obituary. They should've waited.

Isakson's disappointing loss to Guy Millner in the 1996 GOP primary for the U.S. Senate race only set the stage for one of Georgia's most impressive political comebacks.

Three years later, Isakson won Newt Gingrich's old U.S. House seat. Today, the three-term congressman finds himself leading the pack in the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) -- so far.

A 30-year veteran of state politics, Isakson has raised six times as much money as his nearest Republican opponent. He has a solid political base in the Republican-rich north Atlanta suburbs. And he has even scored points with the most conservative wing of the GOP, which he had alienated during the 1996 campaign with his moderate statements on abortion.

"Johnny has proven wrong any naysayers who have questioned his conservative record," said state Rep. Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island), who was chairman of the Georgia Christian Coalition from 1995-97.

Keen supported Millner in 1996 because he backed a constitutional ban on abortion and Isakson did not. This time around, Keen has endorsed Isakson. "I'm supporting [Isakson] because I think he has the best chance to win," Keen said.

Despite his advantages, Isakson plans to run harder than in any of his previous campaigns. After all, he has lost the only two statewide races he ever entered.

"This is my 16th campaign," Isakson, 58, said during an interview last week in his Washington office. "And if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: Every minute you sit contemplating that you are where you need to be is a minute the other side is going to take advantage of you. So we're working hungry, and we're working hard."

Pioneer of Georgia GOP

Isakson is a pioneer of Georgia Republican politics, but has never reached its highest peaks. He has a record that is solidly conservative, but has been hounded by critics who say he is not conservative enough. He weathered several high-profile defeats as his party slowly gathered strength.

There's nothing like a few decades' worth of battle scars, he said, to prepare a politician for a high-profile campaign like the one on which he has embarked.

"If you can't learn from your mistakes and losses, I don't know that you're that qualified to serve," he said. "That's what life is about, learning from adversity, learning from difficulty. And I certainly have."

The Georgia race has become a focus of the national Republican Party, which believes it can pick up three Senate seats in the once solidly Democratic South. Republicans in the Senate now hold 51 seats to the Democrats' 48 (there is one independent).

Three contenders have lined up for the party's nomination in the July 22 Republican primary. Topping the list is six-term U.S. Rep. Mac Collins of Butts County, who is backed by political strategist Tom Perdue, a longtime Isakson adversary who helped engineer Saxby Chambliss' upset victory in the 2002 U.S. Senate race. Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain has also joined the fray, along with Atlanta businessman Al Bartell.

Ethics watchdog George Anderson says he will seek the Libertarian Party's nomination. So far the only Democrat to mount a campaign is little-known state Sen. Mary Squires of Norcross, whose last campaign report indicated she had raised barely $5,000. Isakson has raised nearly $4 million, compared with Collins' $678,000 and Cain's $316,000.

"Isakson is clearly the front-runner at this point," said Emory University political scientist Merle Black. "He has a huge advantage at this early stage of the game."

Isakson, who attained one of the House's leadership positions when he was named deputy whip last year, was presiding over a debate in January when an aide handed him a news release. It was Miller's surprise announcement that he would retire.

"He didn't give me any forewarning," said Isakson, a longtime friend of Miller -- who defeated Isakson in his 1990 gubernatorial bid. "I was in the chair so . . . nobody could call me, nobody could talk to me. I presided for three hours . . . contemplating what I would do."

Within a week, Isakson called a news conference in the state Capitol where his political career began to announce he would run for Miller's seat. Backers waved campaign signs from his 1996 U.S. Senate bid.

Isakson now gives five to 10 speeches a week and has appeared at more than 130 events since he kicked off his campaign. He credits his parents for his belief in hard work, whether in his business life or on the campaign trail.

Roots in south Fulton

Isakson was born three days after Christmas 1944, as World War II was nearing an end, the second child of Ed and Julia Isakson of south Fulton County. His father drove a Greyhound bus while his mother cared for their growing family and helped his dad renovate a series of old houses.

"My mother and father moved 10 times by the time I was 6," Isakson said. "My father and my mother would buy an old house nobody else would buy because of the condition. My mother would sew curtains, and they'd paint it and fix it up and they'd sell it."

Isakson attended metro Atlanta public schools and, early in his teens, began earning a paycheck. In the summer of 1959, he worked for a surveying crew cutting brush along what would become the northern section of I-285.

At the University of Georgia, Isakson first flirted with politics. The business major volunteered for Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign.

Isakson became seriously interested in politics in 1972, when Republican President Richard Nixon faced a challenge from Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.). By this time, Isakson had married, was working for Northside Realty in Cobb County -- he would eventually run the company -- and was raising two children.

"I was working hard trying to figure out how I was going to educate those two kids [he now has three], and I looked at McGovern and Nixon and the philosophies of the parties and I said, 'I'm a Republican.' "

In 1974, he ran for the state Legislature and lost. He dusted himself off and two years later won a House seat at a time when Georgia was a lonely place for Republicans. By 1983, he was GOP leader in the House; Republicans held only 19 of the 180 seats.

In 1986, Isakson became the first Republican ever to run against Democrat Tom Murphy for the House speaker's job. Murphy stayed in the job three decades and made a career out of crushing his political enemies.

For his own comfort, "that did not make any sense at all," Isakson said. "But it made a lot of sense in that it sent a message that Republicans are here to challenge the status quo."

Isakson again challenged Democratic domination when he ran as the Republican nominee for governor in 1990 against Miller. Miller won, but later appointed Isakson to chair the state Board of Education.

By 1996, Isakson was ready for a run at the most powerful legislative chamber in the world, the U.S. Senate. But he was outflanked by Guy Millner, a businessman who won the GOP nomination in a runoff after a bruising campaign.

In a televised ad, Isakson said he would never back a constitutional ban on abortion and "make criminals out of women and their doctors." Millner blasted Isakson as an abortion rights supporter, which alienated many social conservatives. Millner won the nomination, but lost to Democrat Max Cleland.

Record under debate

The abortion issue has continued to dog Isakson, who maintains that his record speaks for itself.

"Every time it comes up, we will deal with the record," he said. "I'm not going to address innuendo."

Isakson said in an interview that he personally opposes abortion, but he supports a woman's right to the procedure in cases of rape, incest or when her life is at stake. He has voted to ban so-called "partial-birth abortion" and to require parental consent when minors seek an abortion.

The National Right to Life organization gives Isakson an 81 percent rating. It gives Collins a 100 percent rating.

Sadie Fields, chair of the Georgia Christian Coalition, said that since 1996 Isakson had reached out to the anti-abortion wing of the Republican Party. Fields' organization does not endorse candidates, but prints a voter guide that contrasts candidates' records.

"On the issues that have come up this year in Congress that are pro-life, he [Isakson] has voted with us," Fields said.

Isakson points with pride to a signed "thank you" from President Bush for his support of the No Child Left Behind program, the president's major education reform. He also likes to point out he has a 100 percent rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association and a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union.

If his opponents try to challenge his conservative credentials, Isakson said, he is ready.

"I don't run against people, I run for something. I'm not afraid of a challenge or a fight. I have no fear."

Isakson Timeline

 Dec. 28, 1944: Born in Atlanta

 1966: Graduates from the University of Georgia with a B.A. in business

 1967: Opens first Cobb County office for Northside Realty

 1976: Elected to Georgia House

 1979: Becomes president/CEO of Northside Realty

 1983: Becomes Republican leader in the state House

 1990: Republican nominee for governor; loses to Democrat Zell Miller

 1992: Elected to Georgia Senate

 1996: Loses Republican primary for U.S. Senate to Guy Millner

 1996: Appointed first Republican chairman of the state Board of Education

 1999: Wins special election to the U.S. House

 2002: Chosen by Republican House leadership to serve as deputy whip

 2003: Announces bid for U.S. Senate in 2004