Campaign Diaries

Stung by a series of stunning special election losses over the past three years, the GOP is leaving nothing to chance in Georgia and it is unleashing a series of brutal ads against Jim Martin that paint the soft-spoken and little-known former state Senator as a danger to Georgia families. Molestation, drugs near schools, drunken driving, child prostitution and domestic abuse - Martin has apparently had a hand in it all.

There truly seems to be something about Saxby Chambliss’s races that brings out the worst tricks of the GOP playbook. Freedom’s Watch latest ad, in fact, could go down as one of the most vicious of the 2008 cycle. The ad pursues an attack that Republicans have been using for the past few weeks, as it accuses Martin of not looking up for the safety of children. It blames Martin for having voted against stiffer penalties for domestic abuse and drunk driving:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw7H6qsT0hs"]

Freedom Watch complements its message with images of a sleeping child and frightening footage of an man who is about to hit his wife. The ad crosses all lines with flashing images that strongly suggest a man actually slapping a woman:

(Note that this could be one of the last ads Freedom’s Watch produces, as the conservative group is about to disintegrate due to a lack of funding. Freedom’s Watch was one of the major players of the 2008 cycle, boosting Republican candidates in a number of races in which the NRCC and NRSC were unable to stay on par with their Democratic counterparts.)

The NRSC is also busy painting Martin as a child abuse-inducer. The Republican committee’s latest spot accuses the Democratic nominee of being soft on child molesters and dealers who sell drugs near schools. “Raising taxes, easy on criminals, too extreme,” concludes the announcer:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1jYqfQhOVc"]

Democrats, meanwhile, are seeking to make this election into the carbon copy of Chambliss’s 2002 election, when the Republican had attacked Vietnam veteran and triple-amputee Max Cleland for lacking patriotism. This time, they are pointing out that it is particularly offensive to accuse Martin of endangering children’s safety since his own daughter was kidnapped when she was eight years old. A recent Democratic ad directly evokes that horrendous event to hit back on Republican attacks though Martin does not choose to engage Chambliss particularly strongly:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG40hEXVEf8"]

Unfortunately for Democrats, who were hoping that last week’s weak black turnout would improve as we get closer to the election, the latest data shows that African-Americans still make 22.5% of early voters (a total of 345,564 Georgians had cast an early ballot as of Wednesday evening). Unless the share of the black vote is substantially higher on Tuesday, a Martin victory is more than improbable.