Word: chambliss
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...That's because Chambliss and Martin are both running fairly typical Republican and Democratic campaigns in a strongly Republican state. Chambliss was first elected to Congress in 1994, and his campaign sounds a lot like the template Republicans used to seize Capitol Hill that year, except for the emphasis on term limits and changing Washington. He's portrayed Martin as a squishy Big Government liberal who supports Obama, higher taxes, socialized medicine and pro-abortion judges who legislate from the bench, but opposes the Second Amendment, prayer in schools, offshore drilling and a bill to make English the official language...
...Obama got only 47% of the vote in Georgia, which is not a bellwether state. And so national fatigue with Bush will not necessarily translate into Georgia fatigue with Chambliss, who is in many ways nearly a parody of a Bush-Cheney Republican. He has supported the Administration on just about everything but its efforts to rein in outrageous farm subsidies. He is so tight with the sugar industry that he attacked a whistleblower who reported safety problems after an explosion at a Georgia mill killed 14 people. He has been an ardent supporter of sending U.S. troops into harm...
...Like many Republicans in Washington, Chambliss has trumpeted the idea that the GOP's electoral difficulties are the result of insufficient conservatism and can be reversed only with a stronger defense of traditional values and more consistent opposition to government spending. But it's not as if Republicans in Washington have failed to defend traditional values; they got two conservative Justices on the Supreme Court, passed all kinds of laws restricting abortion and stem-cell research and practically shut down the government to try to save Terri Schiavo. And while it is true that Republicans spent taxpayer dollars like drunken...
...That's one more reason today's runoff is a big deal. A Chambliss victory would not send much of a message to the nation; it would just confirm the obvious fact that Georgia is more conservative than the nation. But it could reinforce the dangerous message that recent electoral results have been sending to Republicans. GOP moderates like Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays and GOP pragmatists like North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory keep losing, while most Republican survivors have been conservatives from conservative districts and conservative states. So the party keeps looking more like Chambliss and moving further...
...defensible electoral strategy - if you're trying to win elections in the Deep South. But the rest of the country isn't likely to embrace Chambliss any more than it has embraced Bush...