Fresh Loaf

There’s a rumor going around (mostly peddled by Peach Pundit’s Erick Erickson) that Rusty Paul, a former state Republican Party head, has been trying to build support for a potential bid to unseat Sue Everhart, the current GOP chairwoman.

Paul says it ain’t so.

“I have not made a single call to a single person seeking support for a run for party chair,” says Paul, who already serves on the Sandy Springs City Council and runs his own political consulting business.

But, as is often the case, the rumor may have the details wrong, but it’s on target with regard to the underlying issue. Fact is, there’s a rift in the party right now over what went wrong during the lackluster election season.

Sure, the state GOP eventually managed to hang on to the U.S. Senate and PSC seats, and didn’t lose any ground in Congress, despite facing a top-o-the-ticket threat from the Obaminator. But Georgia is still a really red state and a sitting Republican senator who hadn’t been caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy (more…)

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No one really expected Georgia’s U.S. Senate race to be this tough, cost this much or last this long. Incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss started off with more money than God, favorable approval ratings, and a late-in-the-game Democratic challenger whose heart, critics said, seemed to be elsewhere. And the Libertarian nominee Allen Buckley? Puh-lease.

But then Wall Street had its meltdown and Congress threw it a gold-plated life preserver. Chambliss was among the 74 senators who voted for the bailout package in a move that angered a great number of conservatives — and royally pissed off Libertarians.

And according to results of Tuesday’s General Election, Buckley gobbled up more than 100,000 votes that arguably would’ve gone to Chambliss. Why do I think that? Buckley’s take for the night was 127,050 votes, or 3.4 percent of people who voted in the race. Libertarian Presidential nominee Bob Barr only snatched 28,583, or 0.7 percent. And everyone — including me — was wondering what impact the presidential race would have on contests farther down the ticket.

After the jump is a transcript of a chat I had nearly two months ago when I interviewed Tom Perdue, the political veteran who managed Chambliss’ campaign, for a story I wrote about the U.S. Senate race.

(more…)

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A top campaign aide insisted that Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss wants to include Libertarian Allen Buckley in debates. But Buckley complained last week that Chambliss doesn’t want to debate.

“We didn’t wait for the Democrat to say that the Libertarian should not be involved in the debate, because that’s generally what the Democrat does. They don’t want the Libertarian involved in the debate. We said the Libertarian would be involved in all the debates. If he doesn’t want to show up that’s his business.”

— Tom Perdue, Chambliss’ campaign consultant, in a Sept. 4 interview with CL

“Saxby is running from his record. His goal is clear: to minimize debates and blast the airwaves from now until the election with commercials stating that he ‘represents our conservative values.’ He doesn’t represent my values. Let’s debate as much as possible.”

— Buckley in a Sept. 10 press release

“We have no comment.”

— Kate Hansen, a campaign spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Jim Martin

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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