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MARIETTA - The gloves have started to come off in the campaign to replace Republican Casey Cagle as lieutenant governor in 2010.

State Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) took a dig at the only other announced Republican candidate, state Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), when he spoke Saturday morning at the Cobb Republican Party monthly breakfast meeting at Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q restaurant in Marietta.

"I'm a fiscal and social conservative," Shafer said.

"I'm rated A-plus by the National Rifle Association, been endorsed by Georgia Right to Life. I've gotten 100 percent from the National Federation of Independent Business and the Georgia Christian Coalition. I've never been arrested or charged with any crime other than a minor traffic offense. I've never been rebuked by the Cobb County Republican Party. I've never given money to Alisha Thomas Morgan."

The remark - which was met by widespread laughter from party members - was in reference to Johnson's reported $4,600 donation to the 2008 re-election campaign of state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, a Democrat from Austell.

As a result, members of the Cobb GOP passed a resolution at a meeting in July that endorsed Morgan's Republican opponent, Chris Cooper of Powder Springs, and rebuked Johnson for his support of Morgan, who like him, supports school vouchers.

In September, Lt. Gov. Cagle formed an exploratory campaign committee to allow him to begin accepting campaign contributions in his bid for governor.

Johnson, former president pro tempore of the Georgia Senate, announced to supporters in July that he is seeking to become lieutenant governor.

He did not recant his campaign contribution to Morgan after learning of Shafer's remark.

Instead, Johnson said he would attempt to rise above such remarks by his opponent during the campaign.

"I am saddened by such early, petty comments. I am afraid that this is what Republicans will have to hear from my opponent for the next 18 months," Johnson said in an e-mail.

"I intend to focus on the future of our party and our state. I believe that expanding school choice is critical to making Georgia a better place to raise our children and helps us compete in a global marketplace. I believe that we should allow parents the freedom to choose how and where our children are educated instead of the government."

"This will require bi-partisan support to accomplish," Johnson went on to say. "Helping children in failing public schools should be a unifying goal and not a partisan issue."

Shafer, 43, filed paperwork about two weeks ago creating a campaign committee. He said Marietta lawyer and former state Sen. Chuck Clay is the committee's chairman.

"I've got a tremendous amount of support in Cobb County," Shafer said.

"It's going to require hard work," he said. "He's (Johnson) a serious contender."

Shafer - the owner of a public relations firm called The Strategies Company - was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 2002. He represents portions of Fulton and Gwinnett counties and said he would resign his seat at the end of his term in order to run for lieutenant governor.

He is also chairman of the Senate Regulated Industries and Public Utilities Committee.

When asked at Saturday's meeting about changing state law to allow Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages, which his committee has oversight over, Shafer did not give a definite answer.

"I imagine that it will be reintroduced again in this session of the General Assembly and we'll look at it then," he said, noting that it did pass out of his committee without him voting as chairman, but then stalled out of committee because of a lack of votes.

He was more vocal on the subject of Georgia's current drought, which he spoke at length about.

Shafer has been a outspoken proponent of reconfiguring the Georgia-Tennessee border to correct what fellow proponents say is a 19th century surveying flaw that placed Georgia a mile below the Tennessee River, and hence denied it access to the river water.

"In north Georgia, our only real option is the Tennessee River," Shafer said. He said he believes the matter will eventually be litigated and that Georgia will win.

On the $2 billion state budget deficit that the General Assembly will tackle after it convenes on Jan. 12, Shafer said it's not something he loses sleep over.

"I'm one of the very few who looks forward to it because these economic downturns are the only times we actually look at how the state's money is spent," Shafer said.

He said that conservatives around the country need not look at the 2008 election as a repudiation of their values, but as a wake up call for returning to them.

"There are those who believe the Republicans are always going to be in charge in Georgia," Shafer said. "But we're not going to be in charge if we fail to deliver on the principles that we have obtained."

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