What a day for Georgia.  After learning we have a place on the map, a new Insider Advantage poll drops the bomb we've been looking for; Georgia is now within the margin of error:

McCain: 44%
Obama: 43%
Barr: 6%
Undecided: 7%
5% +/- MOE (408 likely voters)

[...]

“Georgia is competitive for Obama for several reasons. First, it has a high African-American voting age population (VAP). Second, it has an unusually high percentage of younger voters (18-29). Both of these groups are more in the Obama camp, with black voters already at the 83 percent level and likely to climb.

“Equally important, like its neighbor Florida, Georgia has a high percentage of voters who consider themselves independent. Obama is carrying that critical swing vote by about 10 percent in the poll.

I just wanted to pop in here and see if folks are seeing this kind of push by Republicans in other parts of the country.  Forgive me for being brief.

In Georgia, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R- Veteran Smearer) is asking his supporters to "Thank a Democrat" for the raising price of gas.  Putting aside for a moment Saxby's shameless advice, considering when he was elected - in 2004 2002 - that gas was closer to a dollar a gallon and R's controlled everything...but I digress.  I'm sure Saxby didn't appreciate the irony of releasing the video the same day he voted against ending oil company subsidies.

Rand Knight is running for the Senate in Georgia, and he is a Democrat:

I am running for U.S. Senate because I am sick and tired of our great country being misrepresented to the rest of the world, and misled into poor decisions that are costing irreplaceable lives, an indebted future, an unhealthy food supply, and failure in our healthcare and educational systems.

Our current Republican Senatorial leadership has completely forgotten that our number one job is to take care of business at home. When we have poverty in every city, homelessness on the streets, failing urban infrastructures, air and water so polluted that you cannot go outside or swim in many places, and almost $9 trillion in National debt, we must do better to solve our nation’s problems.(emphasis mine)

Follow me below the fold for a look at a couple of key issue statements.

The Georgia netroots kicked it up a notch today in the GA-10 special election to replace deceased Rep. Charlie Norwood.  Follow me below the fold for the smack down.

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Cross Posted at Tondee's Tavern

As candidate speculation continues, I'll be tracking the potential candidates, rumored or actually taking the steps to run, for Senate in 2008 against incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss.

This is updated on an "as needed" basis, and community feedback and input in the comments would be appreciated.

In the latest revision, we have 2 downgrades in probability.  Rep. Jim Marshall and Jim Butler each take one step down in probability of a '08 Senate run.  The only "up arrow" in the bunch is Vernon Jones (*sigh*).

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For those folks who have not heard, Georgia will hold a special election in the 10th district to fill the vacancy caused by the passing of Rep. Charlie Norwood on June 10th.  10 candidates have filed to run in this special election.

Over at the Georgia community blog Tondee's Tavern it has been "all 10th District, all the time" lately, and I thought I would recap all the fun we have had learning about the "front runner" State Sen. Jim Whitehead (R-Evans).  I started looking into Whitehead's remarks some months ago (Feb. 20th to be exact), long before others just recently started getting a whiff of the odiousness of his past work.

For those of you keeping tabs on GA-10, the race to replace the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, front-runner State Senator Jim Whitehead (R-Augusta) is attempting to break out onto the national stage.

First, a re-fresher on the courage and strength of Jim Whitehead.  This is just how damn scared and paranoid he is:

"What I'm seeing is frightening.  We think we are so secure, we are so free, and we are so protected in the state of Georgia - but don't believe it.

On my little old ga blog, I keep something I started called the Saxby Files.  The Saxby Files are a place I trying to capture the most obscene quotes, votes, and notes that flow from the Saxby Chambliss operation.  As I went to do an update after a long stretch of neglect, it became pretty clear I couldn’t even get past Iraq before my head began to smolder...

When you go down the road of documenting Sen. Chambliss’s own words, the first thing you recognize is that he now speaks "Senate". The concept of plain speech has left him, if he ever really possessed it in the first place, and what you get now is a calculated and pre-packaged rhetorical breeze that sounds very milquetoast when you first hear it.

It’s really hard to find anything Saxby has said that is not already a part of the assimilated borg speak of Republican talking points that we all have grown accustomed of hearing.

You have got to love the "liberal media" in Georgia:

Ad campaigns, both from Collins and third-party groups, have attacked Marshall's record on the death tax and on taxes in general. Marshall favors the death tax - known to Democrats as the estate tax - and has voted to renew it, as stated in various campaign ads. But Moore notes that Marshall has also voted to raise the tax threshold to $5 million for one person and $10 million for a couple, though that bill has not yet become law.

Marshall has said he thinks a complete repeal would drive up other taxes. Collins said Congress needs "to repeal the death tax totally."

On the more general issue of taxes, Marshall says that he's voted for more tax cuts than he's voted against.

But he got an F last year from the National Taxpayers Union, which describes itself as nonpartisan rating service that looks at "every vote that significantly affects taxes, spending, debt and regulatory burdens on consumers and taxpayers." In 2004, Marshall received a D from the group, according to www.ntu.org. (emphasis mine)

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