Guy "Moneybags" Millner, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, wants everyone in Georgia to believe that his Democratic opponent, state Rep. "Redneck Roy" Barnes, is a wild-eyed liberal.

And, he is spending money like it is going out of style including $4.6 million out of his own wallet, so far to convince the voters that it is so.

His main source of the negative information on which he bases his television "attack ads" is the journals of the state House and Senate where Barnes built up an extensive record of votes on a wide variety of issues. The only problem is that Barnes' "Archilles' Heel" may turn out to be his secret source of strength.

For instance, "Moneybags" recently ran a television commercial in which he criticized Barnes for voting to release prisoners from jail early.

What he did not say in the commercial was that the vote in question occurred nearly a decade ago when Barnes was serving as Senate Floor Leader for Gov. Joe Frank Harris perhaps the state's most conservative governor of the second half of the Twentieth Century and that he was presenting the case for the governor.

What he did not describe in the commercial was the circumstances in which that vote was taken: The Federal courts were then threatening to take control of the woefully overcrowded Georgia prison system as they had so recently done in neighboring Alabama unless the state acted immediately to reduce the prison population.

And, what he did not bother to mention was that the legislation to grant early parole to some prisoners in order to free up additional bed space was strongly supported by the then-Attorney General (and now GOP elder statesman) Mike Bowers and that the final bill won the support of almost all the Republican members of the state legislature including then state Sen. (and now U. S. Sen.) Paul Coverdell.

(When confronted with that last fact, staffers for "Moneybags" said that, well, they were not running against Sen. Coverdell a statement which makes one wonder what kind of misrepresentations of his record they would be willing to make if they were.)

Undoubtedly, researchers for "Moneybags" will be scouring the state legislative journals for other examples of votes Barnes cast a decade or more ago. And, for a new generation of voters who will probably not be familiar with the particulars of the issues involved, many of those votes will seem sort of weird. Certainly, many of those votes will run counter to the conventional wisdom of today. (Of course, conventional wisdom is constantly evolving and, as Pocohantas sings of the flowing river in the Walt Disney animated movie, "You can't step into the same river twice.")

But, before "Moneybags" gets too cocky over his treasure-trove of issue-specific mmaterial which can be gleaned and re-gleaned for items that may be given a negative spin and put Barnes in a bad light, he needs to remember one thing.

Barnes is also on the record in support of almost every major positive initiative aimed at improving the lives of Georgians during his tenure in the state legislature.

And, in those instances where he was in opposition to a controversial idea which later succeeded (like the Georgia Lottery, which "Moneybags" also opposed even as he was making money off his investments in some Las Vegas gambling establishments), Barnes has admitted he erred and is now on record on the right side of the issue.

Regardless of where Barnes stood or where he stands now, most reasonable people looking at the record realize that Barnes has long been a significant player in state government affairs.

"Moneybags" might be well-advised to consider what happened in the recent California gubernatorial primary: Gray David, a veteran politician, ran on his record and handily defeated two candidates who greatly outspent him.

Obviously, Georgia is not California (thank goodness!). But, polls in both states show that the voters do not like rank amateurs with little or no understanding of how government operates on a day-to-day basis.

In this gubernatorial race, the voters are smart enough to realize which candidate will need a map of the state Capitol to find his way to the restroom.