Georgia Now A Swing State In Election?

By AARON GOULD SHEININ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As Barack Obama’s campaign announced Thursday that it will launch television advertisements in Georgia and 17 other states Friday, a new poll shows the Democratic hopeful essentially tied with Republican John McCain in Georgia.

The poll from Atlanta-based Insider Advantage shows McCain’s lead shrinking from 10 percentage points a month ago to a 44 percent to 43 percent split today, with Libertarian nominee Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia, drawing 6 percent.

In the new ad, the first of the general election campaign to make Georgia’s airwaves, Obama speaks directly to the camera and seeks to connect with voters through a biography that emphasizes family values.

“America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both,” Obama says in the ad, which is running in 13 states that President George W. Bush won in 2004.

The television ad follows a radio spot Obama cut this week on behalf of U.S. Rep. John Barrow, the Democrat in Georgia’s 12th District.

The McCain campaign on Thursday said they welcome Obama’s expenditure.

“We’re obviously overjoyed when Barack Obama spends money in a state that we are very, very confident that John McCain will carry in November,” McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky said.

While Obama’s ad touts his support of the benefits for the military, of shrinking welfare rolls and of tax cuts for working families, Sadosky said Obama will raise taxes on seniors, small businesses and families. And Sadosky questioned Obama’s open discussion of faith in the ad.

Obama, he said, “has equated people of faith with some level of bitterness. That sort of message, regardless of how much you spend on advertising, will not resonate with the voters of Georgia.”

The Obama campaign did not release details of the ad buy and it was not immediately clear if it will air in the Atlanta market. But it is going up in Virginia and North Carolina, as well as Georgia, as Obama begins his attempt to expand the campaign into states long thought of as solidly Republican. Georgia, for example, hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton upset incumbent George H.W. Bush in 1992.

But Clinton in 1996 was also the last Democrat to be competitive in Georgia, even though he lost the state to Republican Bob Dole by less than 2 percentage points.

The poll released Thursday by Insider Advantage suggests Obama is ready to compete now. It shows Obama leading by almost 11 percentage points among those independent voters than often decide an election, according to Insider Advantage CEO Matt Towery.

The poll was of 500 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

It shows the race to be tighter than any other Georgia poll has shown. A Rasmussen Reports poll released June 10 showed McCain still with a 10-point lead and the average of all other Georgia polls (not including the new Insider Advantage poll) shows McCain ahead by more than 11 percentage points.

“This is a very precarious situation” for McCain, Towery said. “It’s precarious because it’s going to be a battle to the end.”

Towery said Obama could actually pick up another 2 to 4 percentage points given the phenomenal increase in voter registration among African Americans in Georgia.

“I had it in my gut this was going this way, but I really didn’t have it confirmed until last night.”