Free Republic

Congressman Broun applies the following four-way test to every piece of legislation: 1. Is it Constitutional and a proper function of government? 2. Is it morally right? 3. Is it something we need? 4. Can we afford it?

A historic Senate runoff in Georgia is shaping up as a political battle royal that could hand complete control of Congress to President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The Dec. 2 special election comes on the heels of the Nov. 4 election in which incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss outpolled liberal Democratic challenger Jim Martin. But Chambliss fell just short of the 50-percent margin that Georgia law requires.

A historic Senate runoff in Georgia is shaping up as a political battle royal that could hand complete control of Congress to President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The Dec. 2 special election comes on the heels of the Nov. 4 election in which incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss outpolled liberal Democratic challenger Jim Martin. But Chambliss fell just short of the 50-percent margin that Georgia law requires. Already, a tsunami of cash from across the country is pouring into both campaigns.

U.S. Sen. John McCain will come to Georgia to campaign for Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Moultrie lawmaker’s campaign confirmed Friday. “We just have to work out the dates,” said Chambliss’s spokeswoman, Michelle Grasso. Grasso said the campaign is also in touch with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s office about a possible Georgia appearance. “She wants to come down, but right now we are working with her schedulers to see if that’s possible,” Grasso said. Chambliss is headed for a Dec. 2 runoff with Democratic challenger Jim Martin of Atlanta. Neither candidate got a majority of the vote in their...

To revive our movement we need strong conservative leaders. We need Saxby Chambliss of Georgia who is unafraid to be conservative. Senator Chambliss is in a runoff we can’t afford to lose. In 2006 we lost three conservative senators we should not have lost. In each case the trade off for America has been ugly and painful to watch. In Pennsylvania we traded Rick Santorum who was a 90+ American Conservative Union rated Senator for a total phony named Bob Casey who delivered an 8% ACU rating. In Virginia we lost George Allen ( 96%) and got another phony named...

HULL — An east Georgia gun shop has stopped using President-elect Barack Obama’s name to sell weapons after some passers-by interpreted it as a call to violence against the country’s first black leader. The Georgia Outdoor Sports shop in Hull used an outdoor sign to advertise an “Obama Sale” on guns and ammo Wednesday morning just hours after his victory was announced. Shop owner Carrie Mentel said she was trying to capitalize on gun owners’ concerns that their right to bear arms will be limited under a Democratic administration. On Thursday, she changed the message on the outdoor sign to...

WASHINGTON -- John McCain has won Georgia's 15 electoral votes, keeping the state in the GOP column for the fourth consecutive presidential election. Because of an unexpected low turnout in the Atlanta area, The Associated Press waited past Election Day to call the winner until the number of outstanding votes could be verified. In the Georgia Senate race, Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss has failed to reach the majority vote requirement needed under state law to avoid a runoff. The freshman senator will face Democrat Jim Martin in the Dec. 2 contest to fill the last seat in the new Senate.

Fox just called GA for McCain...

Keeping hope alive.

the Wire, McCain Appears to Hold Georgia; Chambliss Appears to Hold Senate Seat for GOP ... Unless...: 48 hours till votes are counted in Georgia, John McCain appears to have enough white votes to hold onto Georgia's 15 electoral votes, according to SurveyUSA polling for WXIA-TV Atlanta and WMAZ-TV Macon. McCain leads 3:1 among whites and polls above 50% among both men and women and voters older than 35. Obama leads 3:2 in greater Atlanta, but that is offset by McCain's 2:1 advantage in Northwest GA and 4:3 advantage in Southeast GA. For Obama to win Georgia, he needs voters...

The polling organization says incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss leads Democratic nominee Jim Martin 48-43. It also says if Libertarian nominee Allen Buckley’s support remains consistent, a runoff is likely. Says Rasmussen: Senator Saxby Chambliss leads Democratic challenger Jim Martin by five percentage points in his bid for re-election in Georgia. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race finds the Republican incumbent with 48% of the vote and Martin with 43%. Libertarian Party candidate Allen Buckley picks ups seven percent (7%) of the vote while two percent (2%) remain undecided. But, under Georgia law, a candidate must win at...

Yesterday Sen. John McCain boosted his TV advertising units in seven key swing states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, closing the gap between his advertising and Sen. Barack Obama’s. On Sunday, Oct. 26, McCain ran just 331 TV ad units in those seven states — 308% fewer than the 1,350 ad units Obama ran that day. But on Monday, Obama’s lead in these key battleground states shrank to 113% — or a margin of 1,528 ad units, after McCain’s campaign increased the number of TV ad units it ran in those states by 308%, to 1,353...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Federal judges have ordered Georgia elections officials to stop using Social Security numbers and driver's licenses to check voters' immigration status until the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to approve the process. . . . It also blocks the state from removing flagged names from voter lists unless voters say in writing that they are ineligible.

Georgians whose eligibility to vote has been questioned must be allowed to cast a ballot in the Nov. 4 election, a panel of federal judges ruled Monday. The court also ordered Secretary of State Karen Handel to “make diligent and immediate efforts to notify, in a uniform manner, every person whose voter registration presently remains flagged.” Those voters must be told that they can vote by a “challenged ballot,” if necessary, and that there is a discrepancy in their registration information, the court said. Challenge ballots are typically cast on paper and are set aside and not counted until the...

Mason-Dixon Polling & Research / NBC News 10/22-23/08; Likely voters, MoE +/- 4% Mode: Live Telephone Interviews (As broadcast on Meet the Press) Iowa Obama 51, McCain 40 Georgia McCain 49, Obama 43 Missouri McCain 46, Obama 45

ATLANTA (MyFOX ATLANTA) – The Georgia Senate race could have major implications on the national political scene. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss with 47 percent, just a two point lead over Democratic challenger Jim Martin who sits at 45 percent. Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley has one percent of the vote according to the poll. The outcome in Georgia could play a big part in determining whether the Democrats are able to win a 60 vote majority in the Senate. A majority of that size would be able to overcome Republican efforts to block legislation...

(10/24/08) A new InsiderAdvantage / Poll Position survey shows Georgia is a toss-up state in both the U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns. In the presidential race, Barack Obama has a slight edge over John McCain, although it is within the margin of error. In the U.S. Senate race, Saxby Chambliss has a 2-point edge over Jim Martin, although it, too, is within the margin of error. The two polls were conducted last night, each with 615 registered, likely voters. The margin of error for both is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The results: Presidential Obama, 48 percent McCain, 47...

Gwinnett County elections officials will have to hand-copy votes from at least 10,000 absentee ballots onto new ballots that can be read by a machine. The original ballots, designed to be filled out by hand, are flawed because of a printing error. The circle beside the candidate’s name is too thick and somewhat misshapen, and consequently an optical scanning machine won’t be able to read the votes on Election Day. The county discovered the problem last week during routine testing. Gwinnett had already mailed out 19,700 flawed ballots before it realized the problem. Of those, 10,000 have already been marked...

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Cleland has gotten into the 2008 Georgia Senate race, firing a broadside at his old nemesis, Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss beat Cleland in a 2002 upset win that included a controversial television ad questioning the triple-amputee Vietnam War veteran’s commitment to national security. The ad came at a time when Cleland and other Democrats were holding up approval of the Department of Homeland Security over a unionization issue. The ad, which played only a minor role in the 2002 campaign, infuriated Democrats, especially in light of Chambliss’ come-from-behind win. Cleland on Thursday...

John McCain shines with experience, not star power, and will provide the leadership that America needs. THE NEXT president of the United States must be able to build a consensus, unify a divided country and tackle an uncertain economy, two wars and national security. It's a job for someone with a proven track record, not untapped potential. Substance matters more than style. The next president must make tough decisions for the good of America, not get cozy with the special interests. We believe the candidate who's best equipped to be our country's next chief executive during these difficult times is...

-snip- McCain knows perfectly well that Obama is more likely to be targeted by a nutty assassin than a white candidate would be. That’s the reason Homeland Security ordered Secret Service protection for Obama in May 2007, the earliest any candidate has been given a security detail. So why would McCain stoke the fires of resentment and risk igniting a homicidal maniac? That’s why he was criticized by Congressman Lewis, who never said McCain was a segregationist, like Wallace. Lewis did, however, say that the inflammatory rhetoric McCain and, especially, Palin have used reminded him of the “atmosphere of hate”...

In the first presidential campaign involving an African American nominee of a major party, both candidates have agreed on this much: They would rather not dwell on the subject of race. But their allies have other ideas. Yesterday, civil rights leader John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, became the latest advocate to excite the racial debate, condemning Sen. John McCain for "sowing the seeds of hatred and division" and accusing the Republican nominee of potentially inciting violence. In a provocative twist, Lewis drew a rhetorical line connecting McCain to the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, and through Wallace to...

"George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights."

Civil rights icon John Lewis compared Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to George Wallace in a posting to Politico's forum "The Arena," accusing McCain of fostering “an atmosphere of hate� and “hostility� like the one that led to white supremacists’ 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.  Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia who has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), pointed in his posting to “the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign,� and said the senator and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, “are sowing the seeds of hatred and division.� McCain, in a book he wrote with aide Mark Salter...

WXIA in Atlanta and WMAZ in Macon have just put out a new SurveyUSA poll that indicates the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Georgia have tightened significantly during the economic free-fall. Bottom line: The two TV stations say Republican John McCain, who had held a 16-point lead two weeks ago, is now polling 52 percent, with Democrat Barack Obama at 44 percent. Only 2 percent are undecided. Margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percent, with 677 likely voters polled. The biggest swings in the presidential race are among young voters and those with household incomes of less...

Yet another poll shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain with a commanding lead over Democrat Barack Obama in Georgia. The new survey — commissioned by WXIA-TV (11Alive) in Atlanta and WMAZ-TV in Macon, and conducted by SurveyUSA — puts McCain at 57 percent , with Obama trailing at 41 percent.

ATLANTA --- Democrat Barack Obama's campaign in Georgia is in the midst of a deep slide, according to a poll released Thursday. A new InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position survey of likely registered voters indicates a steep decline for Mr. Obama. It shows Republican John McCain with the support of 56 percent of the respondents to Mr. Obama's 38 percent.

Sneak Peek: McCain Up in Ohio & Georgia Another sneak peek from Strategic Vision, which will be releasing polls in Ohio and Georgia tomorrow. Both surveys were conducted from Sept. 7-9 with MoE's of 3.0%. In Ohio, McCain leads Obama by four points, 48-44, with 2% for other candidates and 6% undecided. This is SV's first poll in Ohio. In Georgia, McCain is ahead of Obama by thirteen points, 52-39, with 3% for Barr and 6% undecided. Obama has dropped four points and McCain added one point since SV's last poll in Georgia at the end of June.

Democrat Barack Obama's campaign has pulled ads running in Georgia and shifted some of its paid campaign staff from Georgia to North Carolina while contending that it's not surrendering the state to Republican John McCain.

Obama campaign shifting some people out of Georgia Will continue voter-registration drives By JIM GALLOWAY, AARON GOULD SHEININ asheinin@ajc.com The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday, September 09, 2008 Nearly three weeks after dropping its TV ads, the Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama will shift personnel out of Georgia into more competitive states like North Carolina, staffers confirmed Tuesday. The movement of resources reflects a quickly tightening, state-by-state race for the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House. Campaign officials declined to specify how many of approximately 75 paid Obama staffers will be redeployed, and denied that the move signaled...

Nearly three weeks after dropping its TV ads, the Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama will shift personnel out of Georgia into more competitive states like North Carolina, staffers confirmed Tuesday. The movement of resources reflects a quickly tightening, state-by-state race for the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House. Campaign officials declined to specify how many of approximately 75 paid Obama staffers will be redeployed, and denied that the move signaled reduced expectations in the state. “Even if a huge number of people left, we’d still have the largest presidential campaign staff in the history of the...

Barack Obama’s campaign says recent reports hinting that the Democratic presidential hopeful has pulled the plug on its Georgia campaign are woefully uninformed. In the past few days both The New York Times and The Associated Press have questioned Obama’s commitment to the state given the campaign’s decision to end television advertising here.

ATLANTA – Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman and the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president, responds to concerns that he’ll siphon votes from Republican John McCain. “The fact of the matter is the Republican Party has problems that go far deeper than Bob Barr,” he said. Barr is fundraising in Georgia over the weekend. “Our goal is to impede the chances to be president for both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama,” Barr added. Barr is one of two former Georgia congressional representatives running on third party tickets. Cynthia McKinney is the Green Party’s presidential nominee.

Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate after defeating Vernon Jones in a run-off primary election earlier this month, is now trailing incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss by just six percentage points. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Peach State finds the incumbent ahead of his challenger 48% to 43%. When “leaners” are included, Chambliss leads 50% to 44%. Though the latest numbers could represent a temporary primary “glow” for Martin, the poll marks the lowest level of support for the incumbent since tracking of this year’s election began.

Politicians grabbing Barack Obama’s coattails should take note: In the Georgia democratic Senatorial primary runoff held yesterday, Jim Martin defeated Vernon Jones by a 60% to 40%. Martin will now face the Republican senior Senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, in November’s election. This doesn’t seem to bode well for Obama’s presidential quest. Jones’s campaign hoped to emulate Obama’s impressive primary victory in Georgia (he defeated Senator Hillary Clinton in Georgia, 66.4% to 31.1%), but now he’s failed to even make it to November’s ballot. In fact, Jones distributed campaign paraphernalia consisting of a picture of himself and Obama, with the...

POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — Senator Barack Obama on Tuesday forcefully addressed concerns that he had moved too quickly to the political center, acknowledging complaints from “my friends on the left” about his statements on Iraq, his approaches to evangelicals and his remarks on other issues that have alarmed some of his supporters. "Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he told a crowd gathered at a town hall-style meeting in this Atlanta suburb. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.” “I am someone who is...

All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr....

June 19, 2008 — A New InsiderAdvantage / PollPosition survey conducted June 18 of registered likely voters in the November presidential contest shows Sen. John McCain leading Sen. Barack Obama by a single point in Georgia, making the race in Georgia a statistical tie. Libertarian Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia, received 6 percent of the vote. The telephone survey of 408 registered likely voters is weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 5%. It was conducted with InsiderAdvantage’s research partner Majority Opinion Research. PollPosition is InsiderAdvantage’s new...

State Rep. Ron Sailor on Tuesday pleaded guilty to laundering what he believed to be $375,000 in drug money for an undercover officer posing as a drug dealer. Sailor, 33, a Democrat who represents parts of DeKalb and Rockdale counties, agreed to resign his position in the legislature. Shortly after his arrest three months ago, Sailor admitted his wrongdoing and began providing information for a public corruption investigation. "It is an active and ongoing investigation," U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said after the guilty plea. Sailor provided "useful information in opening windows into public corruption we were unaware of before his...

No one who has been following Barack Obama's upstart path to the Democratic presidential nomination should be surprised at his campaign's claim that he does not need to win Florida and Ohio to have a chance at winning it all in November. Obama has been pursuing an ambitious national strategy from the start. I'm probably the only candidate who, having won the nomination, can actually redraw the political map," Obama replied to a question about his strategy from a Concord, N.H., woman at a house party last August. Pacing around the old Victorian home, the wooden floor creaking, Obama went...

John McCain still holds a substantial lead over Barack Obama in Georgia, according to the first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state since the Democrat clinched his party’s presidential nomination. Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters in Georgia voters, generally considered a safe Republican state, favor McCain to 41% who support Obama, with 6% supporting another candidate and 2% undecided. McCain is also far ahead in terms of voter favorability – with 61% holding a favorable view of him as opposed to 45% who feel that way about Obama. While McCain’s unfavorables total 37%, over half of Georgia voters (54%)...

All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr....

The Associated Press announcement that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president has prompted former President Jimmy Carter, one of Georgia's three undecided delegates to the national convention, to officially pick a side. Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for Carter, confirmed that the former president has told the Obama campaign "they would have his vote after polls close tonight." Carter has strongly hinted that he would support Obama, but did not commit until Tuesday. Two other superdelegates -- Richard Ray, president of the Georgia AFL-CIO, and U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon -- said they'll continue to sit...

I returned from vacation this morning and just had to share this with you guys. The first leg of our trip was a visit to beautiful Savannah, GA. While trying to get my bearings upon our arrival, I made a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood that ... I would not normally visit. However, we spotted this interesting sight and I made it a point to get a shot of it while leaving this area. This is located at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd and Victory. Now, some might simply see this as just...

Columbus — Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ. "John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either." Everhart was praising McCain for never denouncing the United States while he was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I'm not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ, I'm looking at the pain that was there," she said.

“I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.” Martin Luther King, Jr. I am running for U.S. Congress in 2008. I believe that our United States government is facing a moral crisis. As a country we are in danger of forsaking the moral cornerstone upon which our nation was founded. No longer do many of our leaders make decisions based on constitutional imperatives, time-honored values, or Christian principles. Foundational phrases like “One Nation under God”and“In God We Trust, which symbolize the genesis of our...

Broun has big lead March 17th, 2008 by Buzz Brockway The Tarrance Group conducted a poll that shows Paul Broun with a commanding lead: “Of course, I am very pleased with the results of the poll,” Broun declared, “It really confirms what we have been confident of internally for some time. The people are happy with the job that I have been doing to represent them. They know that I have kept my promises, that I am working hard for positive change in Washington, and that I am providing leadership on issues like illegal immigration and cutting government spending.” Congressman...

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun may be picking up another opponent in the Republican primary this July. State Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) just told us that she’ll decide “in the next few days” whether to enter the race. This is important because it would force a three-way geographic split in the 10th District congressional contest. Broun hails from Athens. House Majority Whip Barry Fleming, who announced last summer, draws his support from Augusta. Schaefer currently represents northeast Georgia, which provided Broun with much of his surprise margin of victory in last year’s special election to replace the late Charlie Norwood. Schaefer...

Republican presidential nominee John McCain said Friday that Georgia will be a competitive state in the race for the presidency and he vowed to return and fight for every vote.....

Mike Huckabee was officially awarded 51 of Georgia's 72 delegates to the 2008 Republican National Convention on Monday when the state GOP released final certified results of its Feb. 5 primary. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, won 7 of the state's 13 congressional districts, getting three delegates for each, plus a bonus of 30 delegates for winning the overall state vote. John McCain, who finished second to Huckabee, won four districts and will have 12 delegates. Mitt Romney, who finished third, won two districts and gets six delegates. Romney, however, has dropped out of the race and pledged his...