In a story Jason flagged earlier, Saxby Chambliss's Democratic opponent, Jim Martin, is imploring him to come down there for the likely December 2 Senate runoff election:
One of the big question marks in Georgia’s ongoing U.S. Senate campaign is how much President-elect Barack Obama will get involved.
Democrat Jim Martin desperately wants Obama to come here to boost Martin’s campaign against Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who has already secured a promise from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to visit the state on Chambliss’ behalf.
“Our campaign has talked to their campaign,” said Martin spokeswoman Kate Hansen. “And that it as far as it has gone. We would be honored to have him. We know his operation is incredibly busy right now.”
Attempts to reach a spokesman for the Obama-Biden transition team were unsuccessful Sunday.
This is a tough call for Obama. Every Senate seat is quite precious, and if Al Franken really does pull it out, Martin could get Democrats to the magic number of 60 seats. (That number is overrated, of course, because Senate votes are rarely along straight party lines. But it would still be a major psychological prize.) But Obama must be understandably wary of sticking out his neck here and then losing. I suspect he'd want to go in knowing that the odds of success were pretty good.
--Michael Crowley