What's New: Paula Dockery of Florida and Loretta Sanchez of California have said they're considering runs. Kay Ivey of Alabama officially has announced.

The author of this essay (who is not Karen Handel) expresses her own opinions.  The New Agenda does not endorse candidates, but welcomes readers to submit their own blog articles about candidates.  We’ll try to keep a balance between the parties, but to do so, we need your help!  If you’d like to write about a woman running for governor, U.S. Senate, or U.S. House in 2010, please contact blog@thenewagenda.net . You can see the previous version of the map and a round-up of candidates here.

Karen Handel is a woman who overcame difficult odds to become a successful and influential politician. Born into a dysfunctional family, she dropped out of high school and ran away at age 17. However, she refused to let that deter her from her goals. She completed her basic education, found a job, and “put herself through as much college as she could afford before starting a career that would see her rise rapidly through corporate America.” One of her jobs was at Hallmark.

Under the Bush-Quayle administration, she became Deputy Chief of Staff where she championed “and spearheaded Mrs. Quayle’s breast cancer awareness and research campaign, which ultimately led to the founding of the Susan G. Komen Washington ‘Race for the Cure.’” After the administration, she went into business and rescued a company facing bankruptcy after an embezzlement scheme. She also served as the “the President and CEO of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce”

Karen Handel resumed her political career in 2002 when Governor Sonny Perdue asked her to be his Deputy Chief of Staff. This time, she is here to stay. In 2006, she ran for Georgia’s Secretary of State and won in November, becoming the first Republican Secretary and the second female Secretary in a historically Democratic state.

Some of her achievements as Secretary of State have been to audit all state-registered businesses. She discovered that 20% of these businesses no longer existed. She also instituted “zero-based budgeting, which required division directors to justify all expenditures from scratch each year and prevented them from merely seeking budget increases.” She reduced “the number of agency employees who held state purchasing credit cards, cutting the spending limit from $5,000 to $500 and requiring purchase orders and reviews of each expenditure. As a result, expenditures of taxpayer dollars have decreased 50 percent.” Another of her major moves has been to create the Transparency in Government Initiative, which allows citizens to see and monitor government-spending .
Now, Karen Handel is running for the position of Governor.

As Secretary, one of her main concerns has been saving the taxpayers money, and one of her first goals “will be to conduct an audit of our entire tax code and develop a comprehensive plan for income, small business, property and corporation tax reform.” She is an ardent supporter of the FairTax, which makes her popular among Georgians.

Her main platform is to strengthen voter registration and voter ID, but she supports many other causessuch as education and the economy. In matters of water conservation, she favors “newer technology [that leads to] water reuse and desalination” She opposes nationalized, government-run health care and “points to the influx of Canadian patients seeking quality care in the U.S. to avoid the long waits and care rationing that a single payer system creates.” Instead, she believes that increasing choices and giving tax deductions as well as creating “safety nets for the truly impoverished and those who are mentally or physically not able to care for themselves”will benefit the people most.
Let’s give Karen Handel a big cheer and full support. Let’s also end this with a quote from the gubernatorial candidate herself:

And, for those who think a woman can’t get elected governor of the great state of Georgia, I say, “Bring it on.”