Folks,
No need for the fundraising pleas any more. Thank you all so much for getting into this race in a big way.
I wanted to fill you in on one of the issues that may prove the final clash between Martin and Chambliss in the race for the Senate. So far, the biggest issue to mark this race has been the failing economy and Saxby's response. You can almost draw a line on the Pollster.com trend lines at the date of the bailout and watch Saxby's numbers collapse. No doubt about it - the bailout has Georgia independents (and many conservatives) PISSED.
However, Saxby Chambliss has an ace up his sleeve from the Georgia Senate primaries. Follow below for what that is.
Jim Martin served as Director of the Department of Human Resources, the Georgia department that deals with many issues of poverty and public health, including foster care. He was selected for the post by Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, and asked to stay on by Gov. Sonny Perdue, the current Republican governor.
A scandal broke out in Georgia foster care that caused Jim to step down.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution summarizes the event as follows:
Martin resigned his DHR post in Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue's administration under pressure following the deaths of Kyshawn Punter and Caleb Woods, two 2-year-olds from metro Atlanta who were in state care. Both were beaten to death after the DHR's Division of Family and Children Services received repeated complaints about abuse in their homes.
Vernon Jones, his primary opponent, pressed this line of attack hard (again from the AJC):
U.S. Senate candidate Vernon Jones turned up the volume in his race against fellow Democrat Jim Martin on Monday, accusing Martin of incompetently running the state Department of Human Resources, squandering taxpayer money to defend an accused killer and lying about his endorsements.
The DeKalb County CEO said that the media have given Martin a "free ride," and vowed to highlight Martin's record in the weeks leading to the Aug. 5 runoff.
"He has a failed record of accomplishment," Jones told reporters at an afternoon news conference at his Peachtree Road headquarters in Atlanta. "Jim Martin, while head of DHR, allowed many children to be abused. Some of those children died."
This is an attack that Jim, unfortunately, did not answer very forcefully. His defense was mostly that the problems in the foster care system were pre-existing, and it was only his insistence on transparency and improvement that caused these problems to come to light. This is a line of attack that my Monday Morning Quarterback believed had to be answered in order for Chambliss to go down, because even his brain-dead campaign would be able to find that line of attack.
And yes, they finally found it:
Our economy is in crisis -
Georgia families are losing their homes, their savings, their retirements -
And while Jim Martin talks about the middle class,
He voted to hit Georgia families with the largest tax increase in state history... and voted to raise his own government expense account.
In fact... Jim Martin was fired from his government job... because he betrayed the public trust.
Jim Martin’s record proves...you can’t trust Jim Martin.
I’m Saxby Chambliss and I approve this message.
The script above does not show that "allowed children to die" appears on-screen for several seconds. It is buried in the attack ad "Crisis," but you can expect this line of attack to amplified along with the "stop the liberals from running the country" line that is currently being used to re-energize conservatives that don't trust Sen. Chambliss.
I really think that this DHR line of attack is the final one that the Chambliss campaign has available to it. It needs to be countered, and it is up to us to help that happen.
This is the ad that needs to be seen all over Georgia to counter the attack. Jim points out properly that while DHR may have had problems during his term (partly due to continuous cuts to the budget imposed by Gov. Purdue and the Republican-controlled General Assembly), he has long made childrens' health a priority. Chambliss has not.
So, in the home stretch, help Jim blunt the final attack that Chambliss can reasonably make. If this attack fails, the chances of a Martin victory, especially given the demographic advantage Obama is providing him this year, much more likely.
Thank you.
UPDATE: Sorry, when I mentioned the lack of need for fundraising pleas, I meant that the Orange to Blue had supplanted individual efforts. Of course, we still need the ad to air in Georgia. However, I am astounded by the nearly $300k that has rolled in over just a couple of weeks.
ActBlue master page for Jim Martin