Well it's official. Though Jim Martin is a Better Democrat, Chris and I have been pretty much AWOL on this race. That was not by design, we just sort of didn't feel it. Personally, my belief was that Obama wasn't willing to risk his political capital for Martin despite Martin's request, the Senate Democrats had just betrayed on Lieberman, so there was limited upside for progressives. I like Martin a great deal, but Georgia is Georgia, and I couldn't in good conscience ask people to support someone ardently under these conditions. God bless those who can get up for every race where a Democrat is running, and God bless the organizers who went to Georgia to push for Martin, but I've never believed in the 60 vote threshold argument, and I go back and forth on whether to take risks simply to further establishment Democratic power when the existing establishment Democratic power base refuses to take risks themselves.
If there's some lesson from Georgia, the relatively low turnout despite great organizing work suggests whatever changes occurred to the map in November, 2004 have not really shifted voter allegiances in any firm ideological sense yet. While the Democrats as a whole have changed the conversation somewhat, McCain nationally still got 46% of the vote, and that's only 4 points from a majority, or 1 in 25 Americans. And Georgia is still Georgia.
... Martin also was behind in nine consecutive polls. That was a big factor as well. I couldn't ask people to plunk down cash in this economy for such a long-shot.
This is a thread for returns in the Georgia Senate race. Keep in mind that the early returns will probably, just like on November 4th, be from more pro-Chambliss areas.
Update: Martin is underperforming November 4th by about 8%:
I have a spreadsheet comparing results by county between the runoff and the general election. Martin appears to be underperforming by about 8%. It looks like it will be a short night, unfortunately.
Chambliss will win. It will probably be called very soon. Damn. Much now rests on Minnesota, including the Employee Free Choice Act.
Martin doing 3.2% worse than his 48.5% share of the two-way vote on Nov 4th. That means he's at like 45%.
Hopefully a lot of Absentee/Early Voting in the numbers. Again no democratic counties are in - with extremely low turnout, moderate turnout in those counties can win it for Martin.
Update 3: The numbers are really bad, and Martin is underperforming everywhere. Chambliss will win, and I will stop updating.
Better Democrat Jim Martin is up against Saxby Chambliss in Georgia today, and it's pretty clear, sitting in DC, that there just is not that much enthusiasm for this race on the Democrati side. The last nine polls are showing Chambliss ahead. The dynamic here is set by Republicans throwing everything they have into the race, including surrogates like John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney in there, whereas Democrats have put Al Gore and Bill Clinton to surrogate for Martin, but not Obama. Obama has cut a radio ad and some robocalls, but the high voltage press and field jolt that would be possible - especially among African-Americans - in a low turn out run off is missing. That choice seems to have contributed to a corresponding enthusiasm drop across the party for Martin, as it should. Obama has put his organizers in the battle, but not his own prestige. I have seen the number of mentions of '60 votes in the Senate' drop substantially, ironically even as that goal is quite possible should Franken win and Martin take the seat. If nothing else, this should suggest that the 60 vote goal was always something of a chimera.
From what I understand, Chambliss is a weak candidate, failing to do good constituent services or really endear himself to Georgians on a local basis. This will come down to turnout, but it seems unlikely that Chambliss has been framed well enough to lose him that slender margin he's always carried. People just aren't that interested in the race. Sean Quinn down in Georgia suggests that Obama field organizers are finally seeing GOTV numbers they are happy with. That's a hopeful sign.
Never one to let an opportunity to misled the people of Georgia, Saxby Chambliss has requested that he actually be excused from the December 2nd runoff against Jim Martin and just be declared the winner.
It is rumored that in private statements, Saxby has claimed that the knee that allowed him to have six deferments from serving in Vietnam has been acting up again, and not a minute too soon, as the race for what could be the 60th Senate Senate appears closer than ever.
Just in case, his deferment is not granted and Saxby never had a problem in the past, Saxby has started to run a commercial in Georgia focusing on the attacks on 9/11.
Yesterday, I asked you to help Democrats Jim Martin and Mark Begich via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page as the Georgia Senate race heads toward a run-off against Shameless Saxby Chambliss and the Alaska Senate race heads toward a protracted vote count and possible legal battle against convicted felon Ted Stevens.
You responded with hundreds of dollars and we are so close to our goal on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page - please help Martin and Begich meet the goal this weekend:
Democrat
Current
Goal
Difference
Jim Martin
$3,385 $3,900
$4,000
$615 just $100
Mark Begich
$5,553 $5,820
$6,000
$447 just $180
Please make a contribution today via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and help Jim Martin and Mark Begich eject Saxby Chambliss and Ted Stevens from the U.S. Senate.
As you may have noticed, we busted through our goal of 600 donors on the Better Democrats page. We're amazed and shocked that people here were able and willing to raise this much money on our little ole blog for progressive Democrats in such a short amount of time. I think what it means is that there's a real hunger not just for change, but for progressive change. And that's the key. In 2009, we could be sitting with a Blue Dog swing block or we could be sitting with a progressive swing block. And the difference between the two is immense.
A couple of big donors have stepped up to match donations of up to $3000 apiece for the women on the page. I've moved them all up to the top. Alice Kryzan just got the Working Families party line, which should help her immensely. Darcy Burner, Debbie Cook, Annette Taddeo, and Sam Bennett are all facing tight races, but all of them are winnable. Chris and I have blogged about how the caucuses are divided not just by ideology but by gender, so having more women in Congress will be very important. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are nearly all men. In 2006, most of the new Democrats were men. This cycle, we need to even out the freshman class.
Now, Chris and I are shocked that 600 of you have thrown some cash towards Better Democrats since we set up the page. But that's still about 1% of the daily readership of this blog. That means that a lot of you haven't given. Well now's a great time, since you can get your donation matched to a great progressive Democratic woman. Even if it's just $5, it matters. So give. And don't be shy about throwing some cash to some of the men, too, they're ok I guess.
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.
Missouri, Colorado, and Virginia are bad enough, but Georgia? There are going to be a lot of Democrats in Congress who are suddenly representing much bluer districts than they are used to. It's gonna get weird.
Ok, so we made it through that $50K barrier for Better Democrats. I suppose it's time for a little update on how our candidates are doing.
Markos and Crisitunity blog the new Dailykos/Research 2000 poll (these polls are such an awesome concept), which shows the race all tied up at 46-46. It's a random digit dial, which makes this kind of poll more favorable to Reichert since cell phone only and VOIP users aren't sampled. The stats seem to bear that out; Obama's ahead by only 6 points in the poll, and most people think he's up more than that in WA-08. Trendwise, it's very good news that Darcy's gone up by 8 points since the last Kos poll, when she was behind 49-41. Reichert's dropped 3 points and Darcy's gone up 5.
The Mormons are pulling the plug on Prop 8 calls from Utah.
Progressive Democrat Senate candidate Jim Martin is about two points off of Chambliss in a composite of polls, which is far closer than anyone could have imagined a month ago. Al Franken is up by three, Begich leads by two, and Merkley's up by six.
We managed to convince Debbie Wasserman Schultz to back Annette Taddeo, which is not a small feat. Taddeo is in a tight race with Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the district that encompasses South Beach. South Beach. That's the setting of the Bird Cage movie.
Massa's opponent is on the 'death list' of Republicans, Dennis Schulman and Tom Perriello are closing, and Grayson is up over 10 on his opponent.
When Blue Majority split up earlier this year, it took us some time to figure out the right way to add to the Democratic wave. In retrospect, the Better Democrats concept should have been obvious - with our work on Donna Edwards and Ed Fallon, it was pretty clear the direction this community was headed. I'm really proud of what all of us have been able to do with Better Democrats. In the waning days of a campaign, money becomes less important, because the electorate is basically settled. In this case, though, there are so many seats on the bubble, including many of our best Better Democrats (Merkley, Darcy, Perriello, Martin, etc), that a little more cash to bring them up to the level of Obama actually matters. So to those of you who have given till it hurts, thank you. And for those of you who haven't, what are you waiting for?
Over in Quick Hits, Neil the Ethical Wereworlf provides a link to saxby-chambliss.com, a website he put up on the Georgia Senate campaign. Neil seems to have done it on his own, first by purchasing a URL the Chambliss campaign foolishly let slip by, and second simply by producing some very cool content for the website.
To top it off, multiple commenters in the thread have indicated they will redirect their personal Google Ads on the Georgia Senate campaign toward the page. It is a remarkable confluence of the Personal Paid Media campaign and some great work by Neil. Fantastic, outstanding, creative grassroots activism.
Well done Neil. And well done WI Dem and Brian Weatherson who are running Google Ads on the Georgia Senate campaign. If you want to start running Google Ads for a campaign this year, click here for great guide on how to do so. And, if you want to support Jim Martin, hop on over to the Better Democrats page, and drop in a few dollars.
Based on all the polling, voter registration, and absentee/early voting data I am seeing, and on conversations with key operatives in the field and other analysts following Senate races, I believe Kentucky and Georgia should be moving up on everyone's radar screens.
And we're shooting for a goal of 100 new donations by tomorrow, and here's why. In two weeks, money will start to become less valuable for candidates because they won't be able to buy enough advertising time.
Our Better Democrats page is flush with great people who will make you proud in Congress. Jeff Merkley will be an aggressive progressive Senator in the Wellstone model; the NRSC has decided to stop spending in all races except Oregon and North Carolina, so let's help him out. Mark Begich is in a dogfight against the execrable but hilarious Ted Stevens, Eric Massa, a single payer advocate in the most Republican district in New York state, is leading Randy Kuhl, Annette Taddeo is standing against the bailout, Perriello is creeping up on the racist Virgil Goode, Alan Grayson is beating up on his opponent and proudly running as a liberal in central Florida, Dennis Shulman just got added to Red to Blue, and of course, Darcy Burner is finally leading against Dave Reichert.
Next year, the fight is going to shift from defeating the Republicans to winning over more Democrats to our agenda. With strong Congressional majorities, the fight within the party is the one we can set up for with this amazing wave.
So give and give deep. It will matter, and it will matter in the best way possible.
So last week I asked whether we should endorse Jim Martin, candidate for Senate in Georgia. Most people said yes, but I wanted to do an interview with him to make sure he's a Better Democrat. After five days of hard campaigning, he was finally able to get back to me this series of thoughtful answers. I don't think you'll agree with everything here, but there's plenty to like.
After reading through the interview, let me know whether you think we should add him to the Better Democrats page.
Question: Most people wrote off this Georgia Senate race months ago. What changed? Why are the polls closing?
Senate Guru is on strike! What are the Guru's demands? To get the Guru back to blogging, we need to raise seven twenty-dollar bills each for red state Democratic Senate candidates Jim Martin, Jim Slattery, and Ronnie Musgrove on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page. Your Andrew Jacksons will go toward a great cause: dislodging Shameless Saxby Chambliss, Bush-cover-up-artist Pat Roberts, and ethically questionable Roger Wicker from the U.S. Senate. So, please, this weekend, send your twenties to these competitive Democrats in red states via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and get the Guru back to blogging!
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