Say Anything Blog

In Georgia there’s a run-off Senate race between incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat challenger Jim Martin which was mandated by Georgia state law because neither candidate got over 50% of the vote in the first election.  This is an opportunity for Democrats to expand their Senate majority, but they seem to be squandering it.

The question is…why?

The runoff between incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss and Democratic contender Jim Martin takes place this Tuesday. Barack Obama has avoided appearing in Georgia on behalf of Martin. Turnout is always a challenge in a runoff election. Obama’s appearance would obviously lend significant assistance to the contender. Why has he avoided Georgia?

I think the answer is two-fold, one part obvious and one part conjecture.

For the conjecture part, I think Obama may not want to invest any political capital in this race in Georgia because Martin might lose anyway.  Right now Obama is still riding high from his big election day victory.  If he ties himself to this race in Georga and Chambliss wins anyway at least part of that goes away.

For the obvious part, I don’t think Democrats really want a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  They won’t admit to that, of course, but if their majority is so large that the Republicans are helpless to stop any part of their agenda suddenly they don’t have any excuses for not passing some of the more extreme aspects of their liberal agenda.  The Democrats talk big taxes and big spending, but as illustrated by their backing away from promises to “roll back” the Bush tax cuts, they know those policies aren’t necessarily what’s best for America.

They have to campaign on them anyway, of course, because that’s the sort of thing their far-left liberal base wants to hear.  But promising a socialist agenda and actually executing one are two different things, and most of these Democrats aren’t too stupid to get that.

Which is why they must appear to pursue such an agenda without actually getting anything done.  If they can’t blame those nasty, evil, obstructionist Republicans for getting in their way they don’t have any excuses left.  Plus, if four years from now things in this country aren’t going so well a Democrat filibuster-proof majority is going to be twisting in the wind.

Which isn’t a position Obama (who is appearing to be a lot more pragmatic than his campaign let on) or his Democrats want to be in.