SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) Republican Karen Handel came out swinging at John Oxendine at the Georgia GOP convention Friday as she aired a slick, stinging campaign video that compared her gubernatorial rival to a lumbering beast.

A number of convention delegates whooped and applauded during the three-minute video's opening shots of a shaggy ox straining and tugging against a taught rope threaded through a ring in the animal's nose.

``It weighs tons. Is loud. Moves not with grace, but with a lumbering gait. It is the ox,'' a narrator says. ``Who could be stronger than an ox?''

Handel, Georgia's secretary of state, hopes die-hard Republicans at the convention in Savannah will decide she's the stronger candidate in the crowed 2010 race for the GOP nomination to succeed term-limited Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Though she's served only a single term as the state's elections chief, Handel sought Friday to persuade delegates she has the tenacity and the campaign organization much of it culled from Perdue's former political team to match a more seasoned statewide campaigner such as Oxendine, Georgia's insurance commissioner since 1995.

``I've taken on some of the toughest challenges that life, a career and politics have to offer,'' Handel told delegates. ``Yet with every new challenge, I've said, `Bring it on!'''

Six Republicans have entered the 2010 race, with the primary still more than a year away. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, widely considered the favorite GOP candidate to replace Perdue, bowed out of the race last month to undergo surgery for a degenerative spine condition. He'll seek re-election as lieutenant governor instead.

Oxendine, who announced his candidacy more than a year ago, took Handel's barbs in stride. He acknowledged them when he took the stage Friday, but refrained from attacking in kind.

``First off, I'm a little puzzled,'' Oxendine told the crowd. ``I'm not sure what I'm supposed to `bring on.' As far as I'm concerned, good conservative values for Georgia that's what we need to bring on.''

Oxendine won raucous applause for his pledge to end the state income tax, saying he would scrap Georgia's tax code and ``find a big Dipsty Dumpster and I'll throw it in there.''

Oxendine and Handel are the only Republican gubernatorial contenders who have previously won statewide office. But none of the remaining four GOP candidates are novices.

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal has represented northern Georgia in Congress since he first won election in 1992. Deal's campaign announced Friday his endorsement by five of the state's GOP congressmen Reps. Phil Gingrey, Tom Price, Lynn Westmoreland, John Linder and Paul Broun.

``If you want a governor who does his own thinking, writes his own speeches and delivers them without a TelePrompTer ... then this Deal's for you,'' Deal said in a crowd-pleasing jab at President Barack Obama.

State Sen. Eric Johnson of Savannah, the Georgia Senate's former GOP leader, also took aim at a prominent Democrat former Gov. Roy Barnes, who's considering a comeback attempt after losing to Perdue in 2002, but hasn't committed.

Johnson noted his role as one of the Republican leaders who battled Barnes and Democrats in court over district lines for the state House, a GOP victory that helped the party win control of the legislative chamber in 2004.

``I'm the only candidate for governor who's gone toe-to-toe with Roy Barnes and won,'' Johnson said.

State Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton told delegates he opposed ``rebranding'' the Republican Party and shifting from core conservative principles in an effort to broaden the party's base. Activist Ray McBerry, who unsuccessfully challenged Perdue's re-election in 2006, said he was the best candidate to stand for states' rights against the federal government.

The convention Friday was the gubernatorial candidates' first chance to pitch their campaigns to some of the Georgia GOP's most active supporters. Still, there's plenty of time before the primary on July 20, 2010.

Delegate Kathy Statham, a 58-year-old customer service rep from Grayson, said she has been leaning toward supporting Oxendine. But after Handel's fiesty appearance, she said, ``I'll take a second look.''

Statham said her biggest concern is ensuring Republicans hold onto the governor's office after Perdue, Georgia's first GOP governor since Reconstruction.

``I need to back the person who is strong enough to win against a Democratic contender,'' Statham said. ``I want to back a winner.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)