The superintendent’s rollout: Barge for govenor, er, governor | Political Insider | www.ajc.com

It wasn’t the best way for Superintendent John Barge to kick off his campaign. Shortly before he rolled out his campaign at Smyrna’s City Hall, we noticed that his team had misspelled a pretty crucial word on his website: Governor. We’ll let you see for yourself.

But that quickly-corrected goof aside, Barge kicked off his run against Gov. Nathan Deal with a few dozen supporters and some novel ideas. He didn’t offer many specifics – hardly any, actually – but he talked of an evolving platform based on three E’s: Education, Ethics and Economic development.

The public funding of education has been so undervalued under Deal that students in one school district are only in class for 144 days, far off the old standard of 180. He said “questionable” ethics under the Deal regime have undermined the state’s integrity. And he said an improved public education system can erode Georgia’s stubborn jobless rates.

When pushed, though, Barge couldn’t offer many details. When asked what changes were needed to stiffen Georgia’s ethics policy and make government more transparent, for instance, he said: “Have a good leader who was willing to do it.” And when the topic veered from those three E’s, he had even less to say.

“I’m not an expert on that,” he said to a question on healthcare policy. “We’re going to put a panel of experts to look at that issue and see where we go and how we go from there.”

via The superintendent’s rollout: Barge for govenor, er, governor | Political Insider | www.ajc.com.