"Ray Boyd is running for governor. The best qualified person has made himself available for the governor's office."

Those are the opening lines of the newest Republican candidate's Web site. They set the stage for what follows: all-out war on incumbents.

Boyd, 67, president of Ray Boyd Properties, a commercial real estate business in Atlanta, shook up the GOP establishment and maybe even rattled some Dems with his surprise entry into the governor's race last week - with $2 million from his own pocket. He says he will accept no contributions from anyone else.

More surprising is his platform:

"All 435 members of the House of Representatives and 33 Senators must face the voters on November 2, 2010. We bring them all home. We the people can enforce term limits ourselves until we get term limits to legislatively or judicially apply. ...

"Vote against the incumbent no matter who the individual is. The quality of the opposition candidate we vote for is not as important as the message we send to our government. ... The new faces cannot do a worse job than the old faces. That is not humanly possible.

"The harsh reality is that professional politicians, Democrats and Republicans, have been putting the best interests of their party above their country, and individual Democrats and individual Republicans have been putting themselves above party and country."

Boyd likewise wants to send Georgia legislators packing.

"An ethics meltdown happened in Georgia," he says. "The General assembly and its leaders said it 'will' be cleaned up. They quietly let the issue slide to the end of the legislative session. The result - business as usual. Georgia has the weakest ethics legislation of any of our neighbors for a reason. They legislate what they want - a license to be wined, dined, and lavished with gifts instead of working for the public good.

"As governor, I will transform Georgia into a model for the nation. In order to make that task easier for me, the voters of this state have to clean out the General Assembly. All 236 of them must face the voters on November 2, 2010. Send them all packing."

In a letter to Gov. Sonny Perdue and legislative leaders, Boyd says the state should borrow funds "to avoid budgetary suicide" and harm to "colleges, universities, schools and many other desirable programs that serve all Georgians."

Boyd, one of seven boys in his family, graduated from high school in Folkston and, like his five older brothers, volunteered for military service. He spent 10 years in the Air Force, advancing to captain and earning a degree in management from the University of Colorado and a graduate degree in management from Florida State. He started his real estate business in 1975.

Ray Boyd has plenty of money, loads of ego and angry rhetoric that resonates with many voters who are flat-out fed up with politics as usual and over-reaching government.

He will make this governor's race a lot more interesting.

dmckee9613@aol.com