Republican Clark Dean officially launched his campaign for Georgia governor Tuesday, casting himself as an outsider with business experience who can carry on Gov. Brian Kemp’s legacy.
The Harvard-trained commercial real estate executive spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday about his bid. Here are his answers to eight rapid-fire questions, edited lightly for clarity.
There are already plenty of prominent contenders in the race. Why are you running?
“The stakes have never been higher. Gov. Kemp has done a great job positioning the state for success, and we really need to keep that going. What I’m hearing is the best chance we have of doing that is for an outsider businessperson to come in and help make sure we’re as successful as possible.”
Why an ‘outsider’ over someone with political experience?
“What I’ve found in management consulting is that when you enter a company as an outsider, you have the ability to ask the hard questions, to question everything. There’s a real opportunity for someone with that right approach to business transformation to come in and examine whether the way we’re operating our state fulfills the promise to the people of Georgia.”
How much does President Donald Trump matter in this race?
“Of course I support the president. We’re seeing a real resurgence of conservative American values across the country. It’s important to get back to our very roots.”
What is your platform going to hinge on?
“It revolves around affordability, accessibility and prosperity. Things are way too expensive, and a lot of people feel like they’re treading water. And although we’ve made good progress on the tax front, Georgians are still paying too many taxes.”
Do you support eliminating the state income tax?
“We’ve got to explore all of these things. We should look at what taxes could be eliminated and which ones could be reduced in order to reduce the overall tax burden for Georgians.”
Do you back Georgia’s anti-abortion laws?
“It’s a good accomplishment for the Kemp administration. But women’s health is not just reproductive health, which brings up a big problem we have — and that is maternal mortality. We need to have more accessible health care.”
What would you hope to accomplish in your first legislative session as governor?
“It’s about economic growth. A lot of our success has come from our ability to keep our state No. 1 in business. And I think we can be No. 1 in more things than just that, if we focus on economic opportunity. People really want an outsider who really cares about families and wants to make sure this state is a better place.”
How much of your own cash are you willing to spend on the race?
“I’m a big believer in raising investments from the broadest network possible, and I’m talking to a lot of folks to invest in the campaign. Because I think that when people are invested in a campaign, they’re a part of it. My approach is to really build a large foundation of support across a broad population to get this done.”
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