Georgia Senate Race Update

The New York Times reports that we are indeed heading for a December 2nd run-off election in the Georgia Senate race with only 433 votes left to be counted as of Sunday and that amount being too slim to lift Republican Saxby Chambliss over the 50-percent threshold necessary to avoid another election.

John McCain has already committed to campaign for Chambliss in the next month and Democratic challenger Jim Martin, who ran about 1.5 percent behind the Republican in the general election, is lining up President-elect Barack Obama to help him garner the support necessary to win.

Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley, who got 3.4 percent of the vote last Tuesday, said he will not endorse either candidate in the runoff until one of them signs a series of pledges honoring Buckley's campaign platform. Buckley is scheduled to have the campaign “commitment form" ready this week and, among other things, it will ask each candidate to commit to reducing the federal deficit, promise to cut federal spending and support a "realistic" change to the Social Security program.

“If they don’t sign it, they won’t get my endorsement,” said Buckley.

My feeling is that if Martin can agree to Buckley's conditions with a clear conscience, he should sign it. If not, he should tell him to kiss off and focus on running a campaign with a lot of Democratic heavy hitters coming in to get even more Democrats out to vote on December 2nd.

Finally, here's a great new ad that Martin is running that harnesses Obama's victory last week and the support the President-elect is going to need in the Senate: