Georgia Senate Runoff: First Referendum on Obama?

A runoff election for a key Senate seat may be required in Georgia, where it appears that neither Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss or Democratic challenger Jim Martin has the 50 percent required to claim the seat.

Georgia has a unique law that requires senators be elected with a majority of the vote.

But, with 99 percent of precincts counted Wednesday afternoon, Chambliss was just short of the 50 percent mark.

Chambliss had 1,841,449 votes, or 49.9 percent.

Martin had 1,727,625 votes, or 47 percent.

Libertarian Allen Buckley had 126,328 votes, or 3 percent.

There are still tens of thousands of outstanding ballots to be counted, but they come from areas that are likely to favor Martin and thus narrow the margin.

As a result, the Democrat says, "We're in a runoff. The runoff race begins right now."

Martin, whose campaign has been in contact with that of Democratic President-elect Barack Obama, suggested that the December 2 runoff will be something of a referendum on Obama.

Quoting from the victory speech of the next president, who won 47 percent of Georgia's vote Tuesday, Martin said, "Those remarks will guide me over the next four weeks. This race is about helping Barack Obama get our economy back on track and making it work for the middle class."

Even without Georgia, Democrats are set to move into a much stronger position in the Senate.

The Democrats--who entered the 2008 election season with a razor-thin 51 to 49 Senate majority, which relied on the fragile commitment of Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, a backer of Republican John McCain's presidential run--picked up five Republican seats Tuesday:

• North Carolina legislator Kay Hagan easily defeated Senator Elizabeth Dole, a former Cabinet secretary and presidential candidate who until the rise of Sarah Palin had been the most prominent woman in the Republican Party.

• New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor, upset Senator John Sununu.

• Virginia's Mark Warner, another former governor, took the seat of retiring Senator John Warner.

• New Mexico's Tom Udall, a former attorney general and current member of the U.S. House, won an open Republican seat in that state.

• Colorado's Mark Udall, Tom's cousin and a congressman from that state, also won an open Republican seat.

That brings Democrats to 56 seats, an impressive position.

But if the party could get to 60, it would have a decisive, filibuster-proof majority.

To get to 60, however, it must win a Georgia runoff and prevail in reviews of the voting in three other states where the finishes were agonizingly close.

To wit:

• In Minnesota, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Democrat Al Franken trailed Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, who took Paul Wellstone's old seat, by less than 600 votes out of almost 2.5 million cast.

• In Alaska, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Nick Begich trailed scandal-plagued Republican Senator Ted Stevens by roughly 3,400 votes out of almost 210,000 cast.

• In Oregon, with 73 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Jeff Merkley trailed Republican Senator Gordon Smith, who suggested during the campaign that he was an Obama-friendly Republican, by under 10,000 votes out of more than a million cast.

The truth is that margins of 10,000 votes are tough to overturn.

Even a 3,400 vote margin is a considerable one, especially in a small state like Alaska. But the final counts and the official canvasses that follow in Alaska, Oregon and Georgia will be closely watched.

As for Minnesota, where Franken and Coleman fought a bitter battle for more than a year, further wrangling is all but certain.

Franken was already talking about a recount, and he said his campaign would review reports of irregularities in Minneapolis where there were complaints about registration challenges and other polling-place issues.

"We won't know for a little while who won the race, but at the end of the day we will know the voice of the electorate is clearly heard," Franken promised. "This has been a long campaign, but it is going to be a little longer before we have a winner."

Comments (15)

1. It was a pretty significant disappointment to see Ted "NO!" Stevens apparently slip through the wickets like a greased pig. It sure would be a breath of fresh air if he received a challenge from the Senate on the basis of his recent convictions.

   I won't be holding my breath over that possibility.

   In any case, back to Minnesota.

   Give 'em hell, Stuart!

   ;-)

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/05/2008 @ 5:41pm

2. And if the Senate tells a victorious Ted Stevens to take a walk, will the duhvine Sarah appoint herself?

   A life in the Senate ain't so bad. Ask Ted.

   Or does she believe she actually has a shot at the top?

   Might ask Dan Quayle for his thoughts on that leap of faith.

   Not to mention Romney & Bloomberg & their checkbooks.

   Posted by sloper at 11/05/2008 @ 6:53pm

3. Actually, as the Repub base demands more "pure conservatives"....Snowe and Collins might feel the urge to join a filibuster break and you wouldn't need all 60.

   Posted by Mask at 11/05/2008 @ 7:35pm

4. If the dems had 60. Would it be realistic ti think all 60 would vote the same way on issues? I think to much emphasis is being placed on that "magic" number.

   Still, the more the merrier.

   Posted by bleedingheart at 11/05/2008 @ 8:29pm

5. 60? Will this become the latest excuse for Democratic non-performance?

   There's nothing in the Constitution about filibusters. The procedure and the number required for cloture are rules imposed by the Senate on itself less than a century ago and can be changed by a simple majority--when the VP is agreeable. (Read what happened when Nixon was VP and LBJ was Majority Leader in Robert Caro's -Master of the Senate-.

   The chamber already badly misrepresents the nation's population--2 Senators for California and 2 for Wyoming!? (Does the filibuster make the situation even worse?) The procedure only started in the 20th Century and has less than a sterling record (it was used to protect Jim Crow, and unused to protect the Supreme Court from reactionary appointments by GWB). The number for cloture was, in fact, changed in 1975.

   Perhaps now is the time for D(d)emocrats to take a serious look at the pros and cons of the filibuster--not just assume it's an immovable object that prevents needed change.

   Posted by fragen at 11/05/2008 @ 10:42pm

6. By state law, sara can't appoint herself. she could resign and let her lt gov appoint her.

   Posted by wmdenn at 11/05/2008 @ 10:45pm

7. Go Al Franken. Congrats to Senator-Elect Hagan, who was forced by a despicable Dole campaign to run ads explaining (1) that she's a Sunday School teacher, and (2) it's kind of not nice to bear false witness [that's one of the Big Ten, I believe]. And why are we even talking about this stuff in a nation where there are not supposed to be religious tests for office? Madness. Glad North Carolina made the right call.

   I don't see a blog up on this subject yet, but what's going to happen to the GOP? Yeah, they're getting read to make Palin the scapegoat, for appearance's sake. But what will they really do? I mean, Obama won INDIANA! Chambliss can't get to 50 percent in MIssissippi! Will they get a clue? Or will they just keep doing down, down with the Southern Strategy/election-stealing/wedge issue ship? Stay tuned...

   Posted by RLawrence at 11/05/2008 @ 10:46pm

8. By state law, sara can't appoint herself. she could resign and let her lt gov appoint her.

   Posted by wmdenn at 11/05/2008 @ 10:45pm

   That still doesn't work, they hold a special election to fill the seat (thank you Murkowski!). No guarantees Begich wins that unless Stevens is in a jail cell. So the Senate might be up in the air for awhile yet.

   Posted by yutsano at 11/05/2008 @ 10:58pm

9. I do not understand why the Democrats back down from GOP threats to filibuster. I say call their bluff: make them do it. Talking endlessly is not fun. They need piss-bags. Instead, the Demos allow the threat of filibuster to obstruct the majority.

   Posted by philbq at 11/05/2008 @ 11:44pm

10. Looks as if the threat of filibuster is a superb excuse for the majority of Dems to grant lobbyists what they want, and then collect their corporate rewards.

    Filibuster was used primarily as the old Dem South's weapon in defeating proposed civil rights legislation.

    Perhaps it should be abolished, while the Dems now have the majority to do this?

    Only if lobbyists don't fight it. And the dems don't mind losing the weapon themselves, when they're in the minority.

    Posted by sloper at 11/06/2008 @ 01:16am

11. What happened to the Minnesota race where KVH claimed to have settled Michele Bachmann's hash?

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 11/06/2008 @ 04:14am

12. Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 11/06/2008 @ 04:14am

    Actually, quite a bit of karmic justice.

    Now Bachmann is SURROUNDED by a "bunch of un-Americans" and her and the "real Americans" are in the minority.

    Quite an apt punishment for the harpy.

    Posted by Mask at 11/06/2008 @ 08:49am

13. Posted by Mask at 08:49am:

    <<< Now Bachmann is SURROUNDED by a "bunch of un-Americans" and her and the "real Americans" are in the minority. Quite an apt punishment for the harpy. >>>

    An example of pique indulging in dishonesty.

    Bachmann had complained of Obama's demonstrable, radical roots. For that a furious Katrina vanden Heuvel denounced Bachmann on television. She was aghast, she was morally outraged. It made her "afraid for her country." In other words, for raising the issue of Obama's long and close association with an unrepentant terrorist, Bachmann was a danger to the country, a subversive.

    Katrina's performance, she and her friends later boasted, undermined Bachmann's chances and brought extra funding to her opponent.

    That Bachmann was not undone by Katrina's McCarthyism, galls Mask enough to concoct a lie and to pretend, it is all for the best.

    Another example of the ideologue's penchant to twist words to maul reality.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 11/06/2008 @ 1:41pm

14. It is unbelievable - although totally predictable, given that accusing the opposition of the very thing of which you yourself are guilty is a known Rove-ian tactic - that M. Pirovano would accuse KVH of "McCarthyism". Watch the tapes and it is clear who first accused who of anti-Americanism. Bachmann may have survived this time, but she is sure to sink her own battleship eventually.

    Posted by jbartkowski at 11/06/2008 @ 3:36pm

15. jbartkowski at 3:36pm said:

    <<< It is unbelievable . . . a known Rove-ian tactic - that M. Pirovano would accuse KVH of "McCarthyism". Watch the tapes and it is clear who first accused who of anti-Americanism. Bachmann may have survived this time, but she is sure to sink her own battleship eventually. >>>

    You slander me as a Karl Rove because I had the temerity to call Katrina on her demonizing.

    You assume only the Right practices McCarthyism, the Left can't possibly. The Left owns that grievance, eh. Well you are wrong, and Katrina exposed herself on national television as a true practitioner of Joe's method.

    Bachmann critiqued Obama, as a candidate who is unrivaled in the number of his friends who despise the US. And she had the likes of Ayers, Dhorn, Wright, Pfleger, etc., in her briefcase, to prove it. Those people are on record as bombing and damning America. That does not make them "pro-Americans."

    Katrina replied not with facts proving Bachmann wrong but by growing pale and wailing, Bachmann made her "afraid for my country."

    Now that IS McCarthyism. Smearing opponents as dangers to the country was exactly how virtuous Joe made his living. His essence was to point a finger of moral indignation at supposed subversives, while waving an empty briefcase.

    Katrina did precisely that, and felt pious about it.

    It is there on the video tape, and cheap indignation won't wipe it away.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 11/06/2008 @ 11:57pm