Georgia Senate hopefuls hammer on outsourcing, Obama

Georgia’s Senate hopefuls laid into each other’s records in a Sunday night debate, with former charity executive Michelle Nunn (D) ripping businessman David Perdue (R) over outsourcing and Perdue repeatedly tying her to President Obama.

{mosads}Nunn, who has built momentum in the race with attacks against Perdue’s career, pounded him for comments he made in a 2005 legal deposition that he’d spent “most of my career” focused on outsourcing.

Perdue fired back, saying Nunn was making “a desperate attempt to distract people away from the truth with misfacts and misstatements” and claiming that the document “never says I outsourced jobs.”

In the deposition, Perdue discussed how he was planning to move some of Pillowtex’s production jobs overseas, though he left the company and it closed down, laying off thousands, before that could happen.

He repeatedly sought to tie her to the president, his main strategy throughout the race in the conservative-leaning state.

“As you support ObamaCare, Common Core, higher taxes, amnesty, and the economic policies that have failed, that have actually generated more people out of work right now than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president, isn’t a vote for you just a vote for Barack Obama?” he told Nunn.

Nunn fired back, saying that if Perdue wanted to run against Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, “he should have moved to Nevada.”

She said she disagreed with Obama on building the Keystone XL oil pipeline and that he hadn’t done enough to get the national debt under control before touting her agreement on a minimum wage increase and immigration reform.

“I’ve probably spent maybe 45 minutes of my life with President Obama. I spent seven years running President George H.W. Bush’s Points of Light organization,” she said. “I’ve spent 47 years with my father as an adviser and someone who deeply understands bipartisanship and statesmanship and that working together across party lines is at the very heart of getting something done.”

Nunn once again refused to say whether or not she plans to vote for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to remain as leader, though she pointed out that Reid had other candidates in mind to run for the seat, referring to Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), and she refused to bow out for his preferred candidate.

Perdue also made a play for libertarian Amanda Swafford’s support, which Republicans think is coming out of his vote and could force a January runoff if no candidate gets over 50 percent. 

“You know Amanda, I just respect you so much. Standing up for individual liberty, we need more of that in America,” he said after the candidates were asked to say something nice about one another.

Polls show a tight race.

—This post was updated at 9:40 p.m.