Category: Politics (Page 29 of 35)

It wil be tough, but Bob Geiger thinks the Democrats can do it. One race to watch is in Georgia.

Outside of McConnell, I’m not sure there’s a Republican incumbent we would all like to see tossed out on his ass more than Saxby Chambliss. A Republican Chickenhawk in the truest sense of the word — he got a bunch of student deferments during the Vietnam war and eventually wrangled a medical deferment for a bum knee — Chambliss made it into the GOP Slimeball Hall of Fame by smearing Max Cleland beyond recognition in 2002 to gain his Senate seat.

While Chambliss was in the trenches at the University of Georgia, Cleland was fighting in Vietnam, where he was a highly-decorated combat hero who lost both legs and an arm in an explosion. That didn’t stop Chambliss from bashing Cleland’s patriotism and running ads merging the Veteran with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in attacks that even John McCain said were “worse than disgraceful” and “reprehensible.”

Chambliss’s opponent, Jim Martin, also a Vietnam Veteran and a longtime member of the Georgia House of Representatives, has run a good race against Chambliss and benefited from a large inflow of DSCC money.

Here’s how I think it goes down: Chambliss will win by a small amount on Tuesday but fail to hit the 50 percent mark due to the presence of Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley, who has been drawing around six percent of the vote in the most recent polling. In Georgia, no candidate getting 50 percent means a run-off election on December 2nd. My belief is that this will happen, Martin will benefit from more time, an influx of national money and help from a star-studded cast of campaign surrogates, including President-Elect Obama and will defeat Chambliss in the second vote.

Who Wins (Eventually): Jim Martin (D)

A loss by Chambliss would be poetic justice. I think Martin has a chance due to the incredible black turout so far in Georgia, but I think he needs to win it on Tuesday. If the race ends up in a runoff, Geiger thinks Martin can pull it out. I’m sleptical. I know that Obama and the national Democrats will make this race a priority, but I would be surprised if black turnout reaches the same levels in a runoff when Obama isn’t on the ballot at the top of the ticket. Many in Georgia are waiting in lines for up to eight hours in early voters. I doubt that all of them would do that again.

Hopefully, Martin can pull it off on Tuesday.