After working crazy hours to help the newspaper chain she co-owns stay afloat in a wrecked economy, Carol Porter was thinking about spending some time on her funky, modern-art paintings.

She was busy enough helping her husband and business partner, DuBose Porter, with his campaign for governor. The two already have worked together professionally for years at the Dublin Courier Herald, she as general manager and he as editor.

But after one campaign speech for her husband, Porter decided she wanted to be a more official political partner. Now she’s running for lieutenant governor, creating the possibility of a husband-wife leadership team for Georgia.

“It started when I sat in for DuBose at a governor’s forum,” Carol Porter said. “And what I found out is, I know the issues facing Georgia better than some of the candidates running for governor that day. And I am passionate about this.”

Dalton Mayor David Pennington, who considers himself politically closest to the Libertarian Party, became a Porter supporter after her speech.

“She blew me away,” he said. “She’s exactly what this state and country needs, with a breath of fresh air and a small-business perspective.”

Unlike her husband, who has spent 28 years in the state House, Porter has never before run for public office.

“But no one was running against Casey Cagle,” Porter said. “The status quo has got to go, especially the ones like Casey that have taken more power than they’re supposed to have.”

Porter accuses Cagle of coercing Senate votes by stripping Republicans of their committee power if they don’t toe the line.

In Georgia, the lieutenant governor has more power than in most other states, including the ability to choose the chairpersons of all Senate committees.

Carol Porter has campaigned against perceived abuse of power in the state Legislature before. She created a Web site opposing former House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s “hawk” system, which allowed the speaker and his lieutenants to “swoop in” and stack committees so they could control the outcome of votes.

“Too few men have too much power, and that’s the No. 1 problem in Georgia,” Porter said.

On the other hand, if both she and her husband win their races, a large amount of power will be concentrated in the hands of one family.

But Carol Porter said she doesn’t see this as a problem. She pointed out that in many states, the governor and lieutenant governor run on a single ticket and have a combined platform anyway.

“And I’m my own person,” she said. “Trust me, if I disagree, I don’t have a problem letting him know.”

Porter has an opponent in the Democratic primary, Tricia Carpenter McCracken of Augusta, who does not participate in interviews or forums.

“She has no positions on anything. ... Therefore I am kind of running against Casey (Cagle), because there’s nothing else to run against,” Porter said. “I do take (McCracken) seriously because of her position alphabetically ahead of me on the ballot.”

It likely will be an uphill battle against Cagle. By the first filing deadline in April, Cagle had raised 10 times more money than Porter. She said she’s doubled her fundraising since then, but acknowledged, “incumbents will always have more money.”

Porter is a Wrightsville native who began her career as a copy editor at the Courier Herald shortly before meeting DuBose Porter, a local attorney who had recently been elected to the state Legislature. After their marriage, the couple had four sons, now all grown. The Porters eventually bought part ownership of the newspaper, and Carol Porter now serves on the Dublin-Laurens County Chamber of Commerce.

One of her fellow chamber members, Pam Green, said Porter is full of ideas about how to create jobs and generate tourism. She’s also approachable and very willing to listen to others, Green said.

“She’s always operating at max capacity,” Green said, “yet at the same time, everybody walks away not feeling pressured or stressed.”

Issues

Porter identifies unemployment, “increasing financial mobility” for workers, and education as her highest priorities. She sees these as deeply intertwined.

“In 1965, you could drop out of high school and support your family on a textile job or farm job, and that is gone,” she said. “Somehow we didn’t get the memo to our people: You have to have an education now.”

Part of the problem, she said, is that Georgia continues to focus on attracting employers who seek a low-wage pool.

“That’s no way to grow an economy,” she said. “We want industries with the high-paying jobs,” but that requires planning ahead to create an educated work force.

Porter, who touts her small-business experience and “political outsider” credentials, says state Republicans run on a pro-business platform while their actions don’t support business.

“We don’t have a reliable water source. We don’t have a good transportation plan. We are bottom in education, yet we are No. 1 in the percent of our population in corrections system,” she said. “Does that sound pro-business to you? It’s not.”

Porter criticized decisions made by Gov. Sonny Perdue, such as funding equine facilities at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry and building the Go Fish Georgia Center there.

”For that money we could have leveraged down $87 million to start the passenger rail line to Lovejoy,” Porter said. “Think about the jobs that would have created.”

Instead, she noted, Florida and North Carolina are receiving more than $1 billion in federal funding for passenger rail.

Among Porter’s strategies for improving education would be reducing class sizes, adding graduation coaches in early grades, increasing technology as well as business and lifestyle skill training for middle-schoolers, and developing better partnerships among high schools and the state’s technical schools and community colleges.

Porter said teacher furloughs and other cuts to education could have been avoided if Republicans had not killed a measure to collect sales tax from the 25 percent of businesses that don’t return it to the state as required, a measure her husband also supported.

When it comes to transportation, Porter said dealing with Atlanta congestion would be her first priority. She said part of the reason it’s so hard to attract businesses to Laurens County is the long drive down bumpy roads after a two-hour stall in Atlanta traffic.

“What’s good for Atlanta is good for rural Georgia,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation.”

She said she supports a dedicated funding source for transportation using the fourth penny of motor fuel sales tax, a proposal that failed to get traction this year in a Legislature that likes to directly control as much state spending as possible.

Porter said she would focus the state’s current water supply strategy on convincing the U.S. Congress to authorize Lake Lanier for Atlanta’s drinking water use, then raising the level of the lake by two feet.

To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.