Rick Jackson has a simple pitch for Georgia: he's so rich that nobody can buy him.

He's a self-funding candidate, and that's the centerpiece of his message — no special interests, no strings, no donors to answer to. The problem is what he's doing with all that money.

USA TODAY reported on July 28 that Jackson's team is putting another $87 million into television ads — the largest general election buy of the race. That comes on top of an estimated $100 million-plus he has already spent.

With fewer than 100 days until the November 3 election, one man is spending nearly $200 million of his own fortune to talk to Georgia voters.

Even Republicans called it buying an election

This isn't a Democratic talking point. Jackson's own primary opponent said it first.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones — who had Trump's endorsement before Jackson entered the race in February — ran an ad with this line:

"Rick Jackson is everywhere spending over $100 million trying to buy our vote. But Georgia is not for sale."

Jackson beat him anyway. He entered late, poured in his own money, forced a runoff, and took the nomination in June.

Now Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor and his Democratic opponent, is making the same argument. At a recent town hall, she drew the distinction carefully:

"I'm not mad about his money. But I am mad about the way that he is manipulating the narrative with his money."

And she added a warning about everyone taking his checks: "If you can be bought, you can be sold."

Where the money came from matters

Here's the part that complicates Jackson's "I can't be bought" story.

Jackson made his fortune in health care. Jackson Healthcare brings in annual revenue over $3 billion, according to Forbes. And a meaningful share of that money came from the state of Georgia itself.

Bottoms campaign spokesperson TaNisha Cameron put it bluntly:

"Rick Jackson made a billion dollars off of taxpayer-funded contracts with the state for health care services, even while rural hospitals closed and Georgians lost health care coverage, and now he's trying to buy this election."

So the money being spent to win control of Georgia's government was earned, in part, on contracts with Georgia's government — while the state's rural hospitals were closing.

And Jackson's health care positions run directly against the Georgians who'd need those hospitals. He called "many parts" of Trump's budget bill "great" — the bill projected to cost 624,000 Georgians their insurance, including 93,400 Medicaid recipients by 2034. He opposed the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion, in a state where more than 1.3 million people are on ACA marketplace plans.

He got rich delivering health care services to the state. He is campaigning to take health care away from the people in it.

He already used his money to buy one thing

The "I'm above the money game" argument has a specific hole in it, and Jackson dug it himself.

Trump initially backed Burt Jones. Jackson donated $1 million to MAGA Inc. — and by July he was standing on stage with Trump in Marietta as the endorsed candidate. Trump has said out loud that Jackson gave him money.

A man whose entire brand is "nobody can buy my loyalty" bought the most valuable endorsement in Republican politics.

What $87 million of ads is actually saying

It's worth looking at what the money is buying airtime for.

Jackson's ads have ranged from his upbringing in the foster care system to a message telling immigrants they'd end up "deported or departed" if he becomes governor. More recently he's turned the money on Bottoms — one June ad called "Never Again" plays her quotes over sirens and images of burning cars and buildings.

That's the use of a nine-figure fortune: fear about immigrants, and footage of fires behind a Black former mayor's voice.

At the Marietta rally, Jackson also said Georgia's affordability problems were "a business problem, not a political one," and vowed that if state legislators wouldn't match the federal $1,000 Trump Account contribution for children, he'd personally write the checks. More than 120,000 children are born in Georgia every year. He's proposing to solve a public policy question by paying for it himself — the same instinct that's driving the campaign.

The bottom line

Rick Jackson's argument is that his money makes him independent. Look at what the money has actually done: it bought him a late entry into a race he was losing, it bought him the president's endorsement after he wrote a $1 million check, and it is now buying $87 million worth of ads in a state where he made a billion dollars on taxpayer-funded contracts.

His own Republican primary opponent said Georgia is not for sale. Jackson is spending nearly $200 million to test that. We deserve better.

Source

This post is based on reporting by USA TODAY: Jackson accused of 'trying to buy' election after $87 million promise by Irene Wright (Photo: Reuters).