A democrat is leading in Georgia? During a midterm? During the second term of a democratic presidency? What?

HIAWASSEE, Ga. — Georgia Democrats believe they're close to ending more than a decade of losses — and with it, potentially save Senate control for their party.

Democrat Michelle Nunn has jumped into a narrow lead in recent polling of the state’s open Senate race, a slight edge driven as much by questions about Republican David Perdue’s business career as the former charity executive’s centrist appeal.

If the daughter of one of the state’s last successful Democratic senators can keep up her momentum and pull off an outright victory in 11 days, it will give her party a fighting chance to hold onto a chamber that’s been slipping away in recent weeks.
Even local Democrats can’t quite believe their luck.

“Wow, really?” one astonished Democrat blurted out when Nunn told a few dozen local party activists at the BumbleBee Diner in Blue Ridge Thursday morning that she’s led in three straight public polls. By that afternoon, a Nunn staffer had to correct her during a speech — it was up to four.

“When Michelle announced, y’all know Georgia has been voting red, deep red for the last two or three elections, and I didn’t think she had a real chance, and I think a lot of y’all felt the same way,” Towns County Commissioner Bill Kendall (D) said while introducing Nunn on the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds in Hiawassee that afternoon. “But there’s a feeling in this fall air that Michelle has the momentum.”

Perdue — a businessman who bills himself a specialist at turning around struggling companies — has now struggled himself to overcome his recently revealed comments from 2005 deposition he’d spent “most of my career” outsourcing. In ads and in media, he’s been hammered with examples where jobs were outsourced or lost at companies he ran.

But the big question isn’t just whether Nunn can edge him in November — it’s whether she can top 50 percent on Election Day, a taller task given the third-party candidates on the ballot.

To do that, she’ll have to strike a delicate balance between keeping up her appeal to independents and turning out the state’s fast-growing African American population. Democrats haven’t won a campaign for governor or senator in Georgia since 2000, though many have reached runoffs.

“It was difficult to win a runoff in Georgia for a Democrat. It’s even worse now because the runoff period has become so extended,” former Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox (D) told The Hill, saying there was “no question” that Nunn has a better shot winning on Nov. 4 than she would on Jan. 6.

National strategists are taking notice of Nunn’s momentum. Both parties have begun spending in earnest in the Peach State in recent weeks, dumping millions into the late-breaking race.

National Republican figures are pouring into the state to try to help Perdue hold on. He launched a statewide bus tour on Thursday and is set to campaign with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this weekend, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and former presidential nominee Mitt Romney (R) dropping in next week.

Nunn, who founded the Hands on Atlanta charity and later merged it with former President George H.W. Bush’s Points of Light foundation, spent Thursday with her father, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), rallying pockets of Democrats in heavily Republican North Georgia.

At each stop, she painted herself as a centrist deal-maker, touting her work with Republicans like Bush and promising to be like her bipartisan father while blasting Perdue as a partisan obstructionist.

“David Perdue, my opponent… he’s traveling around Georgia with Ted Cruz. Y’all might remember he’s the architect of our shutting down the government,” she said in Hiawassee. “It’s just a perfect example of the dysfunction in Washington and we don’t need any more of that. What we need is for people to come together, to sit around tables like this and to get things done.”

She’s taking the same tone on TV. Her latest ad features the senior Nunn saying his “priority as senator was to get things done for Georgia by working with both parties,” and that he’s “seen time and again how Michelle was able to work with anyone.” Another spot pushes back against recent Perdue attacks tying her to President Obama by pointing out that they were there for an event honoring former President George H.W. Bush (R), her old boss.

While Nunn tied Perdue to Cruz, Perdue and Republicans have been relentlessly tying her to Obama.

They got some help on Thursday from the president in doing so, when Obama told an Atlanta hip hop radio station that “if Michelle Nunn wins, that means that Democrats keep control of the Senate, and that means that we can keep on doing some good work.”

Republicans immediately pounced on the comments.

"President Obama made it crystal clear that a vote for Michelle Nunn is a vote to further his failed policies in Washington. While Michelle Nunn has been running from Obama since day one, she will absolutely continue to implement his liberal agenda by expanding Obamacare, granting amnesty for illegal immigrants, and raising taxes,” said Perdue spokeswoman Megan Whittemore.

Nunn’s campaign scoffed at attempts to tie them together.

“She’s probably spent maybe 45 minutes with President Obama in her life,” said Gordon Giffin, a former ambassador to Canada, Nunn’s campaign chairman and her father’s longtime chief of staff. “She’s spent 47 years with Sam Nunn. Who do you think she’s going to get advice from?”

Former Georgia Gov. and Sen. Zell Miller (D) had the Nunns as his guests his hometown of Young Harris to attend a dedication of a new library at the local college, where he attended and used to teach.

The conservative Democrat, who famously denounced Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during his keynote speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, has backed Republicans for most of the last decade, including former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R), who is a cousin of David Perdue. In August endorsed his former staffer, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R). But in the Senate race, he’s backing Nunn.

“I’ve known Sam Nunn ever since his first campaign and I think Sam Nunn has been one of Georgia’s greatest statesmen. And I think Michelle is a chip off the old block. She’s got the same traits that made Sam what he is and what he did,” he told The Hill. “I’ve known her since she was a small child and I have a great deal of love and affection for her and I have a great deal of confidence in her.”

gatorfan wrote:Only partisan bigots like you would take that stance. She is better qualified and more centrist. Who cares what her party is except you and your little forum minions? Too funny.

boards of FL wrote:

gatorfan wrote:Only partisan bigots like you would take that stance. She is better qualified and more centrist. Who cares what her party is except you and your little forum minions? Too funny.

Georgia is a dark red state.  We're in the second term of a democratic presidency.  A democrat is leading a senatorial race in Georgia during a midterm.

Perhaps you should brush up on your history.  Or perhaps you should post a chart depicting the money supply in 1982 and then run away when asked to explain its relevance.

gatorfan wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

gatorfan wrote:Only partisan bigots like you would take that stance. She is better qualified and more centrist. Who cares what her party is except you and your little forum minions? Too funny.

Georgia is a dark red state.  We're in the second term of a democratic presidency.  A democrat is leading a senatorial race in Georgia during a midterm.

Perhaps you should brush up on your history.  Or perhaps you should post a chart depicting the money supply in 1982 and then run away when asked to explain its relevance.

Who cares? Unlike you I only want the most useful people elected - I don't gives a rats ass what party they are in or whether they are breaking new ground in a traditionally hostile state or region. I'll leave those irrelevancies to bigots like you.

Floridatexan wrote:

gatorfan wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

gatorfan wrote:Only partisan bigots like you would take that stance. She is better qualified and more centrist. Who cares what her party is except you and your little forum minions? Too funny.

Georgia is a dark red state.  We're in the second term of a democratic presidency.  A democrat is leading a senatorial race in Georgia during a midterm.

Perhaps you should brush up on your history.  Or perhaps you should post a chart depicting the money supply in 1982 and then run away when asked to explain its relevance.

Who cares? Unlike you I only want the most useful people elected - I don't gives a rats ass what party they are in or whether they are breaking new ground in a traditionally hostile state or region. I'll leave those irrelevancies to bigots like you.

When reviewing a candidate for elected office, it might be wise to examine that candidates POLICIES...and possibly to look past the rhetoric and decide whether that candidate is likely to uphold the policies you favor or is simply telling their constituents what they want to hear.  POLICIES ARE NOT IRRELEVANT.  Calling people names IS irrelevant.

PkrBum wrote:Lol... there are nearly NO differences in the results of the two parties. They certainly say different things...

which useful people such as yourself gobble up and mistake for outcomes.

boards of FL wrote:

PkrBum wrote:Lol... there are nearly NO differences in the results of the two parties. They certainly say different things...

which useful people such as yourself gobble up and mistake for outcomes.

I suspect that if Al Gore had won the presidency in 2000...

1.  We would not have gone to war with Iraq.

2.  We would not have cut taxes in 2001, 2002, and 2003.

3.  As a result of 1 and 2, we would likely not be saddled with the deficit/debt issues that we are seeing today.

4.  Given 1, we would not have to deal with ISIS.

5.  Given 1, 2, and 3, we would have been better prepared to deal with the economic downturn of 2008 through fiscal policy.


That is just for starters.  These are major, major, major differences that are fairly obvious to anyone with an understanding of politics that is deeper than the shallow end of a kiddy pool.

boards of FL wrote:

PkrBum wrote:Lol... there are nearly NO differences in the results of the two parties. They certainly say different things...

which useful people such as yourself gobble up and mistake for outcomes.

I suspect that if Al Gore had won the presidency in 2000...

1.  We would not have gone to war with Iraq.

2.  We would not have cut taxes in 2001, 2002, and 2003.

3.  As a result of 1 and 2, we would likely not be saddled with the deficit/debt issues that we are seeing today.

4.  Given 1, we would not have to deal with ISIS.

5.  Given 1, 2, and 3, we would have been better prepared to deal with the economic downturn of 2008 through fiscal policy.


That is just for starters.  These are major, major, major differences that are fairly obvious to anyone with an understanding of politics that is deeper than the shallow end of a kiddy pool.

PkrBum wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

PkrBum wrote:Lol... there are nearly NO differences in the results of the two parties. They certainly say different things...

which useful people such as yourself gobble up and mistake for outcomes.

I suspect that if Al Gore had won the presidency in 2000...

1.  We would not have gone to war with Iraq.

2.  We would not have cut taxes in 2001, 2002, and 2003.

3.  As a result of 1 and 2, we would likely not be saddled with the deficit/debt issues that we are seeing today.

4.  Given 1, we would not have to deal with ISIS.

5.  Given 1, 2, and 3, we would have been better prepared to deal with the economic downturn of 2008 through fiscal policy.


That is just for starters.  These are major, major, major differences that are fairly obvious to anyone with an understanding of politics that is deeper than the shallow end of a kiddy pool.

The bush action and federal reserve lowering interest rates were in response to an economic hit from the dot com crash and then 9/11. One could argue that the intervention was much cheaper and more effective than what obama has done.

Though I didn't agree with either measure.

And if you think it's only republicans that initiate military interventions... you need floaties to run thru a sprinkler.