On Monday, in a post on Biden’s decision to end his Presidential campaign and throw his support to his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, I mentioned that former Georgia Republican Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, who had endorsed Biden over Trump in a May op-ed, had, “stopped short of endorsing Harris, but double downed on his ‘Anyone But Trump‘ position.”
Today my fellow Chattahoochee High School classmate made it official, as he went on the Politically Georgia podcast to officially endorse Harris’s bid for the White House.
Duncan reinforced and reiterated his decision on X.
While some could almost excuse Duncan’s decision to endorse Joe Biden, who for his Senate career was mostly a middle-of-the-road Delaware Democrat, Duncan’s endorsement of the Vice-President and former California Senator, who was ranked in 2019 the most liberal Member of the U.S. Senate by GovLink, a ranking that suddenly disappeared from the Internet earlier this week after Harris became the likely nominee, seems almost shocking for a former Republican elected official who described himself as a “lifelong conservative” and was once backed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was reported to be on Trump’s final short list for Vice-President.
In 2021, Duncan published his vision of where the Republican Party needed to go in the aftermath of the MAGA movement. In GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party Duncan made the claim, “GOP 2.0 is not a new party – it’s a better direction for our Republican Party.”
However, Duncan seems to believe the best course for the Republican Party is to burn the whole party down, including conservative elected officials who are not part of the more Populist wing of the party that Trump and his supporters represent. In reality, his decision to back Harris makes his crusade look more like a personal vendetta against Donald Trump, who drove him out of elected office, rather than genuine concern for our Party’s future.
In 2021, I met with Duncan in his office at the capitol. While I will not reveal specific issues that we discussed, I left the meeting disheartened as Duncan’s war was not just about his concern of the chaos caused by Trump within the Georgia Republican Party, but against other, some long held pillars and principles of the Republican Party.
As the 2022 election cycle began, it became clear that Trump was going to try to extract his revenge on Republicans, like Brian Kemp, Geoff Duncan, Chris Carr, and Brad Raffensperger, who Trump believed had failed him. Trump even recruited opposition to Insurance Commissioner John King since he had been appointed by Kemp. Of that group of incumbents, Duncan, who was already being looked at as the potential next Governor of Georgia, was the only one not to stand for re-election. The rest faced tough primaries, but all prevailed in the end, especially Kemp who received over 70% of the GOP vote over the Trump-backed David Perdue. It seems clear that if Duncan had stayed in, he would right now be the leading contender to succeed Brian Kemp as Governor with even higher office a possibility.
I have not had a conversation with Duncan in a couple of years. The last time I texted him, my text went unanswered, but by his continued crusade, one thing is clear, his tenure as a Republican elected official is over. While a career at CNN may be all he wants now, that will likely only continue as long as he can be a torn in the Republicans’ side and that will mean he will have to tear down what he worked all those years in the Georgia House and as Lt. Governor to build. If his goal is to profit off that…being the overzealous opposition to Donald Trump, then it’s hard not to put him in the same camp as the grifters who profited off false claims of “stolen elections” and ballot harvesting “mules”.
The worst case for Duncan isn’t Armageddon, but Donald Trump having only four more years. Even the most ardent Trump critic in the GOP has to admit that, even if you don’t like the guy personally, he did some things to advance the conservative movement, even if one needed to cringe every time he opened his mouth. I will assume Duncan will have a speaking part at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago so he can make the case that open borders, weak foreign policy, free health care for illegal immigrants, voting rights for incarcerated felons, and every other left-winged bit of lunacy Harris has claimed to back is preferable to Trump, because personality is more important than policy.
In 1998, the late author Tom Wolfe published his novel A Man in Full, a satire chronicling the downfall of the fictional Charlie Coker, an Atlanta businessman, estate mogul, and former Georgia Tech football star (Duncan played baseball at Tech). While the phrase “a man in full” seems to indicate someone who is larger than life, Wolfe turns the phrase in that while Coker may have viewed himself as “larger than life” to build himself into a success, it is that very overly confidence self-assurance that prevents him from seeing and stopping his own downfall.
Whether it is because of hubris or vengeance or other reasons I won’t speculate on, Duncan has become that term which is so loosely thrown around in GOP circles to the point that it has become almost meaningless, but is the only term that fits. As he continues to describe himself as a “Republican,” his actions show he is one in name only…hence, a RINO.
More than that, as it seemed only a few short years ago the sky was the limit for this once GOP star, he may even be better characterized simply as a man in full.
