Jim Martin, Democrat
Senator Saxby Chambliss, Incumbent Republican
National Republican Trust PAC on Behalf of Saxby Chambliss
It would be so nice to win this seat back. I don’t normally call anyone names but with Saxby Chambliss, I will say this, somewhere there is a pond missing its scum. The race is close but the latest Politico/Insider Advantage points to a three point lead for the Republican incumbent. Here’s the latest from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
It’s just one week until Georgia voters go to the polls to decide a U.S. Senate runoff that could tilt the balance of power in the Washington. But it’s far from certain if most voters will even bother returning for one more shot of partisan politics.
The nationally watched Dec. 2 Senate runoff between incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, smack dab in the middle of the holiday season.
Both campaigns on Monday were predicting a healthy turnout for their side. But both are keenly aware that they are heading into the final week of a bitter campaign with voters focused on family, food and football.
“We’re just going to keep focused on our message,” Martin said Monday.
Chambliss’ camp, meanwhile, was maintaining its strategy of bringing GOP heavyweights to the state to stump for Chambliss. Today, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani campaigns for Chambliss, just two days after former Vice President Al Gore came to Atlanta for Martin.
The state Senate race has attracted a long line of political big shots as Democrats push for a 60-vote, filibuster-proof “super majority” in the upper chamber and Republicans pull out all stops to hold Chambliss’ seat.
Democrats now have 58 seats —- only races in Minnesota and Georgia have to be decided.
The national media has focused on the race, but Chambliss and Martin worry that Georgia voters could get distracted by the holidays. Georgians can expect a barrage of televised political attack ads to interrupt their football games in coming days. And they can expect plenty of telephone calls urging them to vote.
Chambliss and Martin are trying to keep voters focused on a race that they know they will win or lose based on turnout, which historically tends to be abysmally low for runoffs.
The last high-profile U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia was in 1992, between incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler and Republican challenger Paul Coverdell. Only about half the voters (55 percent) who cast ballots in the general election that year came back to the polls for the runoff. And that runoff vote took place before the Thanksgiving holiday.
“It will probably be harder to get people back this time,” said University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock, author of a book about runoffs.
Bullock said the Thanksgiving holiday will play a role this year, but runoff turnout also could be affected by the fact that 500,000 new voters cast ballots in the Nov. 4 general. First-time voters, he said, are less likely to return for a runoff.
There is also the problem of voter fatigue. Some Georgians will have voted four times by the time the runoff concludes. Democrats already have voted in the Democratic primary, the Democratic U.S. Senate runoff and the Nov. 4 general election.
Both camps continued to step up the rhetoric on Monday. Martin accepted the endorsement of the Veterans & Military Families for Progress, which has about 500 members nationwide but only about a half-dozen in Georgia. Martin took the occasion to blast Chambliss for what he called a “four-day junket to Boca Raton, Florida,” in the days leading up to a key vote in the war in Iraq.
“I would not have done that,” Martin said. “I would have been in Washington.”
Chambliss’ campaign called Martin’s claims “just another attempt to mislead the people of Georgia.”
“Veterans across Georgia and across the country have endorsed Senator Chambliss’ re-election, including two of the largest veterans groups —- Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vets for Freedom,” said Chambliss spokeswoman Michelle Grasso.
