Well Georgia is still Georgia. CNN is calling the Senatorial runoff for Saxby Chambliss:
During our thirty years in Atlanta, we got used to the idea that Georgia was politically three places: Atlanta; the "black belt;" and everywhere else [which is a lot of space]. So this result is not unexpected, at least not by me. For Jim to do as well as he did running as an Atlantan Democrat Statewide is absolutely remarkable. But we had hoped for more.
The hard part of this campaign was watching Chambliss’ ads on t.v. – the endless string of ads. They were Rovian, Lee Atwater ads filled with nasty utter nonsense. Unfortunately, Jim had no platform to engage this stuff as it happened like Obama had – no nightly news with segments on the race, no CNN. Just a few blurbs on the local news.
We live in North Georgia now. It’s a rural place that was Republican during the Civil War and through the Dixie-crat era. On a number of occasions, each of us had someone say, "Oh is Martin that guy they’re saying all those bad things about on t.v.?" We’d say, "Yes, but they aren’t true. Chambliss is the one that questioned Max Cleland’s patriotism last time." Then we’d have to remind them who Max Cleland is. Undaunted, we would continue, "We’ve known Jim Martin for thirty years and there’s no more honest guy alive." They’d say, "Really?"
But I had a good experience today. The Jamacan Fed-Ex driver who delivered my new monitor to the cabin today saw the Martin sticker on my truck and lit up like a Christmas Tree. We commissurated together about our gloomy feeling after going to the polls. We parted smiling. Small things.
The South [GA, AL, MS, LA, SC] is a place I love. I chose to come back here over some other attractive options. It’s home. But there are aspects of living here that are trying at times. I’m not even sure that it’s racism that drives it any more. It’s more like a sort of disengaged regionalism – or a living colloquialism – something intangible that has to do with identity. It sometimes feels like the South still doesn’t want to even be in the game. Whatever it is, it makes Jim Martin who lives in Atlanta and is a Democrat into a foreigner. Knowing Jim [who drawls with the best of them and actually deeply cares about the Georgia football games] makes all of that seem patently absurd. But it’s a reality that feels like running in wet concrete.
Anyway, we’re sorry we couldn’t deliver. Washington will just have to live with Saxby Chambliss whose only contribution will be to say silly, sarcastic things when he lobbies for the people who supported his campaign by paying for all of those dreadful ads, or be a quarrelsome, unprincipled contrarian. We’ll continue to hope for a day when there’s enough of whatever it is that’s happening in Virginia and North Carolina to drift down. And Thanks to Jim for giving it his best shot. He was born to be a Senator, and he would have been a great one. He just wasn’t born in the right place – at least not at the right time…
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