Today certainly is a day for interesting and surprising Senate polling. I noted earlier the numbers showing Andrew Rice down by just a single-digit margin against Jim Inhofe in Oklahoma. Now comes new polling from
Rasmussen Reports pegging Jim Martin within 5 points of Saxby Chambliss in Georgia -- the second straight survey to show results in that neighborhood.

Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate after defeating Vernon Jones in a run-off primary election earlier this month, is now trailing incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss by just six percentage points. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Peach State finds the incumbent ahead of his challenger 48% to 43%.

When "leaners" are included, Chambliss leads 50% to 44%.

Though the latest numbers could represent a temporary primary "glow" for Martin, the poll marks the lowest level of support for the incumbent since tracking of this year's election began. Last month, Chambliss had a 51% to 40% lead over the Democrat.

A poll released last week by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed Martin down 6 points, suggesting that Rasmussen's numbers here aren't likely too far off the mark. Now getting from 43 percent or 44 percent to closer to 50 percent will be no easy task for Martin; then-incumbent Democratic Senator Max Cleland received just 46 percent of the vote in 2002 in a race that was assumed to be much closer than that. Nevertheless, it does appear that the support given to Martin in the primary by Chuck Schumer and the folks over at the DSCC is paying off, if not in a race that's necessarily likely to flip at this juncture but at the least one that the Republicans are genuinely going to have to play defense in.

On one side of Peachtree Center Avenue, members of Georgia's organized labor community held up "Teamsters for Obama" signs and picketed in front of the Mariott Marquis hotel chanting, "Bush, McCain, Same Thing."  On the other side of the street, anti-war protestors, armed with bullhorns, led several cadences of "McCain says warfare, we say healthcare."

There's no word if John McCain saw or heard any of the demonstrations against his Atlanta visit today but nevertheless, the several dozen protestors gathered downtown this afternoon intended to express their dissent at a John McCain presidency.

Among those in attendance at the protest were state Democratic Party Chair Jane Kidd and state Sen. David Adelman (D - Atlanta) who used John McCain's visit to highlight his ties to controversial Republican Ralph Reed.

"We are here today on the streets of Atlanta with real Georgians who are struggling and need our support. Later today, inside this fancy hotel, John McCain will be meeting with Jack Abramoff's colleague Ralph Reed and other lobbyists to hear about their clients," Kidd said at a press conference directly across the street from most of the protestors.

"Instead of meeting with Georgians and hearing from us about what we need from our country, John McCain has chosen to talk only with people who are giving him thousands of dollars."

In recent days, Ralph Reed and his connections to disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff have been the target of criticisms from Democrats after the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that he had agreed to serve on McCain's "Victory 2008" fundraising team.  Associated Press reports say that "Reed's public relations firm...received $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters to fight the opening of casinos that could compete with Abramoff's Indian tribe clients."  [Source:  Associated Press, "McCain nets $1.75 million at Reed-linked event", August 18, 2008]

Also, according to the AP, John McCain raised over a million dollars at the "Ralph Reed-linked" event.

This is the third installment of my diaries on the current Georgia-Russia crisis on which I think the leading Obama supporting leftist blogs are dead wrong.

Interesting that, as Obama's VP announcement nears, the guy whose stock seems to have risen sharply in the past few days as the pundits' favorite VP choice is plucked to head to Georgia on a diplomacy mission.

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for White House hopeful Barack Obama, said on Saturday he would visit Georgia this weekend.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said he had been asked to go to Georgia by President Mikheil Saakashvili for talks over the conflict with Russia.

"I am going to Georgia this weekend to get the facts first-hand and to show my support for Georgia's people and its democratically-elected government," said Biden in a statement.

"I look forward to reporting to my colleagues in the Senate and on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the administration, about what I learn."

Biden said that he would also meet Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze and US ambassador to Georgia John Tefft.

Interesting that while John McCain dispatched Sens. Lieberman and Graham to Georgia, it was Georgia's president who requested Biden's presence there.

What makes this perhaps even more interesting is its intersection with the Veep-stakes. Does this make Biden more attractive as a VP choice, especially insofar as Biden's able to counter McCain's little commander in chief act these past few days, or is the fact that he would leave the country at all just as Obama is poised to announce his VP pick a signal that he is not in the running after all (the equivalent of Biden's being scheduled to appear on Wednesday night at the convention in a slot other than that reserved for the VP nominee.)

I have written once before about how the American left is wrong in going out of its way to chastise Georgia while giving a free pass to Russia. The lead champion of this meme is still TPM and Josh Marshall. It is commentary like that which flies in the face of public opinion and people who have worked in the foreign services that brands the left as weak on national security and surrender monkeys.

(UPDATE) As I have written below, I had hoped Gen. Clark would get the VP nomination or at least be involved in foreign policy but as of right now he seems to have been DISINVITED from the Democratic convention by the Obama campaign!!

"I grew up believing an evangelical couldn't be a Democrat."

Those are the words of Duluth resident Jonathan Merritt, 25 years of age and the son of a Baptist preacher, who has started to question the Republican Party.

... in the past year, as the presidential campaign has focused on the country's problems, [Jonathan]Merritt has begun to question the party of his father. There was his recent revelation that "God is green," a mission trip to orphanages in Brazil that caused him to worry about global poverty, an encounter with a growing strain of politically liberal evangelicalism that has taken off online, and a nagging sense that Bush's unpopularity has been an embarrassment to the evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for him.

"When you look at the political party that has traditionally championed poverty, social justice and care for the least of these, it's not been the Republican Party," said Merritt, who now considers himself an "independent conservative" and is unsure whom he will vote for in November. "We are to honor the least of these above even ourselves. It's very difficult to reconcile totally."  

[Source:  Washington Post, "GOP Loyalty Not a Given For Young Evangelicals", August 15, 2008]

The article goes on to detail Merritt's worries including a concern about the loss of life in Iraq and the toll it is taking on families, economic and environmental issues.

After reading this Washington Post piece about young evangelicals, I'm not so sure John McCain and the Republicans can win over these voters just by running on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

Jonathan Merrit still isn't a Democrat, but he's undecided in the presidential race.

This diary is about the crisis in Georgia, and the US response.  This diary is not about Sen. McCain, or about Sen. Obama.. it is about Pres. Bush, and his response to the crisis.

I have advocated a gradual ratcheting up of pressure on the Russians to reverse their present course of action.  I have also stated that I support what Pres. Bush is trying to do, at least as I understand it.  This is not a time to be taking potshots at the sitting President... there will be plenty of opportunities to do that down the line.

I understand that my view is a minority opinion here, and I am okay with that.

Along those lines, I note with satisfaction that the US and Poland have just "crossed the rubicon" with respect to Missile Defence.  I am sure the timing of move, and the fact that such a move was made at all, is not a coincidence.

There has been a lot of virtual ink spilled on the subject of the recent Russian incursion in Georgia, and the domestic political ramifications of same, but rarely so succinctly as this:

For years, the Bush foreign policy team has tilted heavily toward Georgia in its ongoing disputes with Russia, clearly leaving the impression (at least in the minds of Georgians) that the U.S. would come to Georgia's aid if the two nations clashed militarily. Bush told Georgia, during a 2005 visit, that "the path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone." Bush has sent American military advisors to build up the Georgian troops - who reportedly staged a joint exercise last month with 1,000 American soldiers. Bush has also urged bringing Georgia into NATO, a move long supported by McCain. The president has not been successful in fast-tracking membership, but here's the thing: Under the NATO treaty, members are required to defend other members. All for one and one for all. Which means that if Georgia was currently a member of NATO, we'd be warring militarily with Russia.

It gets more complicated. Georgia has long been in conflict with two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia - both of which want independence, both of which are supported by Russia. Georgia has sought to quell the separatist movements in those regions, and apparently assumed that the U.S. would come to its aid in any showdown with Russia. McCain has also fed that impression; last April, he got on the phone with the president of Georgia and expressed his solidarity - after a briefing with top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, a neoconservative whose private lobbying firm signed a contract this spring to provide Georgia with strategic advice.

Obama, it must be noted, has also supported NATO membership for Georgia; however, in July he publicly urged Georgia not to launch any military attacks in the breakaway regions. But Georgia, apparently fortified with what it viewed to be sufficient American solidarity, overreached late last week and launched a military attack in South Ossetia. Which in turn triggered the massive Russian response. Which in turn triggered McCain's outrage about "Russian aggression," and his warning of "negative consequences" for Russia (all of which was echoed by Dick Cheney, who warned darkly, "Russian aggression must not go unanswered"). Then, on the radio yesterday, McCain took his statements up a notch, declaring: "I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian empire." Then, at a fundraising lunch today, McCain (who now says he speaks daily with Georgia's president) warned again that the Russians are thirsting for empire, and said that he is dispatching two of his top campaign surrogates, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, off to Georgia. 

Rhetorically, at the very least, a certain somebody needs to take a chill pill.

Dick Polman - Toughness and bellicosity Philidelphia Inquirer 13 Aug 08

I'll say.  And those inclined toward a shallow 1938 Munich Agreement 'appeasement' analogy will gladly look no further than the relationship between politically Russian Ossetia and the ethnically German Sudetenland in the Czechoslavokia of 1938, framing Russia as the oppressor and hegemon.  The Western 'allies,' incidentally, were in no position, in 1938, to make any belligerent opposition stick at the time, and their leaders knew it.  A familiar situation perhaps to our current predicament as a consequence of our 'nation building' and alliance damaging exercises already under way.  And the analogists would be wrong as well, Ossetians, a distinct ethnic and linguistic minority, are only slightly less dubious of Russian political suzerainty than Georgian.  It's all about leverage.