Obama a no-show in Georgia Senate race

Tribune Correspondent James Oliphant spent last week in Georgia, covering the U.S. Senate runoff between Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin. The race could determine the success of the Democratic legislative agenda. Here is his report:

by James Oliphant

ATLANTA - Here, in a campaign office on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Jim Martin is feeling the spirit.

The Democratic Senate candidate is normally so unassuming, he sometimes seems out of place at his own campaign events. But here at the historically black Morris Brown College, surrounded by former Barack Obama campaign staffers and African-American luminaries such as Reps. John Lewis and Bennie Thompson, the bespectacled, 63-year-old, white lawyer has discovered his inner preacher.

"We're all in this together!" Martin intones.

"Talk to me!" a man in the group shouts in response.

"The Republicans believe if they have 41 votes in the Senate, they can stop this great president!"

"That's right!"

"Now this isn't Landslide Jim, you're talkin' to," Martin says. "I need your help."

Martin was never supposed to be this close to a U.S. Senate seat. A relative unknown in Georgia politics, the former head of the state's Department of Human Resources had to survive two primaries before securing the privilege of receiving what promised to be a whomping at the hands of Republican incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

After all, this isn't some swing-state such as Ohio or Florida. This is Georgia, where John McCain topped Obama by 5 points and President George W. Bush won by 17 points four years ago. In 2002, Chambliss was able to unseat a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Max Cleland, in part by questioning his patriotism.

But Martin benefited from the heavy black turnout on election day Nov. 4 and was able to draw close enough to Chambliss to force a run-off election, to be held Tuesday.

For the past three weeks, the Georgia Senate race has given the political world a last campaign fix. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Sen. John McCain have all stumped here. Monday promises the arrival of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to campaign for Chambliss.

The big-name attention to Georgia is rooted in the Democrats' effort to secure a 60-vote majority in the Senate, which would defeat Republican filibusters and allow easy passage of many pieces of legislation. Right now, they hold 58 seats, with two races, here and in Minnesota, still not settled. Chambliss repeatedly calls himself "the firewall," the man who can single-handedly derail the Democratic agenda.

Polls show Martin trailing by three to five points, a gap that might be overcome in a run-off election, where voter turnout is the decisive factor. Many here say that if Obama came to Georgia to rally the African-American base, it would put Martin over the top.

But Obama has shown little inclination to campaign. After the November election, the early talk was of how Georgia would serve as a post-victory test of Obama's "brand" -- a chance to see whether his formidable campaign machine could rev up one more time and deliver a deathblow to the GOP. But that machine hasn't quite materialized here as expected.

To be sure, Martin is getting help - a lot of it. Obama volunteers have flocked to Georgia from other states, and holdovers from Obama's campaign who engineered the surprisingly high turnout here remain at work, as well.

But Obama's supercharged fundraising apparatus and email network hasn't been activated for Martin, and Obama's office has played no day-to-day role in assisting the candidate. With just a few days to go, the president-elect has only recorded one radio ad on Martin's behalf.

Obama "has made no commitments" to travel to Georgia, said presidential transition spokesman Nick Shapiro.

Republicans are still wary of a fourth-quarter appearance. "It's not election day yet," Mike Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said last week while touring the state. The committee has poured $2 million in advertising dollars into the state and has sent volunteers.

Duncan, unsurprisingly, rejects the notion that Obama could lock down a victory for Martin, noting that McCain won Georgia. "The voters here have already rejected Barack Obama once," he said.

Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University, said Obama would be taking a risk in coming to Georgia that could damage his political momentum.

"If Obama really thought that Martin was going to win, he'd make a quick hit and claim victory," Black said.

Indeed, Bill Clinton stepped into a similar situation here as president-elect in 1992, backing Democrat Wyche Fowler in a run-off. Fowler lost, and the episode was one of several reasons that Clinton's presidency was considered to have gotten off to a shaky start.

Obama, however, remains a large part of the race. Martin's television ads prominently feature the incoming president -- a case of a Southern white politician invoking an African-American to woo voters. Only 26 percent of white voters backed Martin a month ago.

The day of Martin's college appearance, a different sort of call-and-response was taking place north of the city, in the town of Woodstock. Chambliss was there campaigning with former presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.

The two spoke to supporters at a restaurant called, fittingly, the Right Wing Tavern, festooned with memorabilia from past Republican campaigns ("I love Newt," "W stands for Women").

Chambliss and Giuliani were there to remind the crowd of the GOP's now-precarious position.

"This is the most important election in the history of our great state," Chambliss said. "We in Georgia have the chance to decide whether our country moves to the left."

Guiliani punctuated his remarks by ticking off the names of Democratic congressional leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Each got the expected full-throated reaction.

"We need the Senate to serve as a check against runaway government," Giuliani said. "I could talk forever about all they damage they could do."

Cash from outside groups has rushed into Georgia, much of it tied to a major battle between the business community and organized labor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent more than $1 million on advertising in the state. It fears that if Democrats won a 60-seat Senate majority, they would pass a bill making it easier for unions to form in businesses. Under the so-called "card check" legislation, companies would recognize unions if a majority of workers signed cards saying they favored a union, replacing the traditional method of a secret ballot among workers.

The AFL-CIO said it is sending 10,000 volunteers to Georgia in the final week to drive the union vote. There are about 325,000 union voters in the state, which could make a difference in a low-turnout election.

Television ads in the race have been relentless and negative. Chambliss accused Martin of being soft on penalties for child solicitation. Martin responded with an ad detailing about how his daughter was kidnapped in 1980, when she was eight. (She escaped.)

Martin has accused Chambliss of opposing tax relief for the middle class. More recently, he has slammed Chambliss for playing golf in 2003 while the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member, debated the run-up to the Iraq War.

The exchange of attacks is reminiscent of six years ago, when Chambliss ran an ad that pictured then-Sen. Cleland, a triple amputee who lost his limbs in Vietnam, alongside Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Chambliss defeated Cleland by seven percentage points.

For much of his campaign, it looked like Martin, a former state representative and public defender, had little chance of knocking off Chambliss.

"I have a little more help than I had before," Martin said.

That help has included a visit by Donna Brazile, the veteran Democratic strategist, who was part of an effort last week, along with Reps. Lewis, Thompson and John Conyers, to spark African-American turnout. Martin's campaign has faced an uphill battle in convincing voters who came out in record numbers to vote for Obama that they need to do it again. (In fact, some simply voted for Obama and left the polls without voting for any other candidates on the ballot.)

"This is your moment," Brazile told a largely African-American crowd in Atlanta Tuesday. "Answer the call."

But Brazile said Obama's presence in the state wasn't needed for Martin to win.

"He should continue to focus on Jan. 20," she said. "There are a lot of boots on the ground here."

Will they be enough to pull of what would be a stunning victory? Chambliss clearly is taking Martin's threat seriously, recruiting Palin and others for a last-minute appeals.

William Miller, national political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Republicans should be worried, even if Obama doesn't show up.

"Anyone who is not concerned about the organizational prowess of the Democrats and Obama in Georgia needs to be," Miller said. "What they showed is how to turn people out in very large numbers."

joliphant@tribune.com