By Monica Langley
ATLANTA-- Sam Nunn, one of the last Georgia Democrats to serve a
full term in the Senate, had just finished watching his
granddaughter win a soccer game when he turned his attention to a
more pressing family contest: his daughter Michelle's run for U.S.
senator.
"Keep reminding voters that President Obama's term is up in two
years, but you'll be an independent and long-term investment," he
counseled his daughter, who is running as a Democrat for an open
Senate seat now held by the Republicans.
National Democrats have just decided to pour $1 million into
this race in Georgia, a sign of how important a victory here would
be to their effort to beat the odds and hold on to control of the
Senate. Yet success here actually could come down to Ms. Nunn's
ability to distance herself from her party and the increasingly
unpopular man who leads it.
Days after the fatherly advice, the 47-year-old first-time
candidate squared off against her Republican opponent David Perdue
in a debate.
"We have two more years of President Obama, and then we will
have another president," she said, "and we need someone who is
going to work with and respect whoever is the president to actually
get things done on behalf of the American people."
As Ms. Nunn strives to break Republicans' stranglehold on
statewide races in the South in recent years, her party affiliation
is missing in action. Her campaign website doesn't divulge that she
is running as a Democrat, and bumper stickers, buttons and most
materials don't list her party. During two recent campaign swings,
she didn't mention her party affiliation and used the word
"Democrat" only once. She is positioning herself as a bipartisan
whose experience running a service organization associated with a
Republican president shows she knows how to bridge divides.
Her opponent Mr. Perdue, the 64-year-old former chief executive
of Adidas AG's Reebok unit and of Dollar General Corp., doesn't
want voters to forget Ms. Nunn's affiliation with the Democratic
Party and Barack Obama. "My race is against this failed
administration and the wrong direction President Obama has taken
this country," he said in a recent interview.
Polls have shown a tight race, with the most recentone the first
to give a narrow lead to Ms. Nunn. The Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee decision to pump $1 million into advertising for
the Nunn campaign came as it pulled the plug on further spending in
Kentucky, where the Democrat trails in the polls. If neither
candidate in Georgia wins an outright majority--a Libertarian
candidate also is on the ballot--they would face a Jan. 6
runoff.
To gain control of the Senate, Republicans need to take a net of
six seats from Democrats. The party is optimistic it can win six
seats now controlled by Democrats, and most analysts think its
chances of doing that are better than even. But it can ill afford
to give back a seat such as Georgia's, currently held by retiring
Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. The South has been particularly
congenial to the GOP.
Democrats have been on a long losing streak across the five
states considered the Deep South--Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi and South Carolina. There is just one Democratic
senator from the region, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, down from six
when Bill Clinton came to Washington after the 1992 election.
Georgia last elected a Democrat to a full term in the Senate in
1996, when Mr. Nunn was wrapping up his quarter century as
senator.
In the last three statewide elections for senator or governor in
Georgia, no Democrat has gotten more than 43% of the vote. Ms. Nunn
can't win simply by rounding up existing Democratic voters, who
aren't plentiful enough to deliver victory.
She has to build a new Southern-state coalition. It would start
with core Democrats, particularly blacks and Hispanics, and include
many women. But she also would have to win over voters who, in her
father's day, would have been called conservative Democrats. Now
those prototypical Sam Nunn supporters are moderate Republicans and
independents.
Demographic shifts could play in her favor. During her father's
years in the Senate, "in Georgia, a Democrat could win with the
black vote and 40% of the white vote," says University of Georgia
political scientist Charles Bullock. "Now, with the growing black,
Hispanic and Asian population, a Democrat needs 30% of the white
vote."
Georgia's other senator, Republican Johnny Isakson, says Ms.
Nunn "can't have it both ways"--appealing to the left and the
right.
For his part, Mr. Perdue, says his opponent's "campaign plan is
to keep her under wraps" so voters won't realize "she's too liberal
for Georgia."
Ms. Nunn and Mr. Perdue are both trying to appeal to moderate
voters. Mr. Perdue says the Obama administration has killed jobs
and that he will bring fiscal responsibility and conservative
values to the Senate. Ms. Nunn says she would work across the aisle
"to break gridlock" she says is preventing progress on the deficit
and job creation.
They differ on immigration policy and health care. Mr. Perdue
says he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while Ms. Nunn
says she wants to improve it. Both candidates say they want to cut
regulation and favor comprehensive tax reform.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Perdue hammers at his opponent's
party support. He told diners at a restaurant in Forsyth last month
that Ms. Nunn "had Michelle Obama in here and former president Bill
Clinton in town, but I'm talking to people like you."
In her meetings with voters, Ms. Nunn talks less about issues
than the political process. During recent events for business
groups, women, African-Americans, military-base personnel,
churches, and residents of small towns and cities, she delivered
the same pitch: A vote for her is a vote for bipartisanship in
Washington. She touted her record running a public-service group
for some 25 years, most recently as CEO of former Republican
President George H.W. Bush's Points of Light foundation of
volunteerism, which she highlighted in her first ad.
But it was Mr. Perdue who flew last month to Kennebunkport,
Maine, to secure Mr. Bush's endorsement, along with a photo of the
two of them and former first lady Barbara Bush. Mr. Perdue also
launched a TV spot accusing Points of Light of funneling money to a
terrorist group while she was in charge--an accusation Ms. Nunn
called "a terrible lie" in a response ad.
Mr. Perdue seldom passes up an opportunity to focus voters on
her party affiliation. "My Democratic opponent will be nothing but
a rubber stamp for this administration and Harry Reid," he said at
a debate last week, referring to Senate Democratic Leader Reid.
Ms. Nunn shot back, "I'm not sure David recognizes he's not
running against President Obama or Harry Reid. He's running against
me. My name is on the ballot."
"Michelle, you're dead wrong," Mr. Perdue replied. "I'm
absolutely running against Barack Obama and Harry Reid."
Mr. Perdue talks up his business résumé and expertise, saying he
could create jobs and strengthen the economy: "I would be the only
Fortune 500 CEO in the Senate," he said.
At the latest debate, Ms. Nunn noted that her opponent had left
Georgia to work as business executive while she had stayed in
Atlanta. She also attacked him for comments he made during a 2005
deposition in which he described the outsourcing to foreign
countries he had presided over as a business executive. Mr. Perdue
responded that he was "proud of creating and saving real jobs."
Ms. Nunn is fond of noting that she is a ninth-generation
Georgian. She was born in Perry, where her grandfather had been the
mayor and had a farm. Mr. Perdue's family had a farm in the same
rural county. His first cousin is former Georgia governor Sonny
Perdue.
When Sam Nunn was elected to the Senate in 1972, he moved his
family, including 6-year-old Michelle, to the Washington area.
After earning a history degree at the University of Virginia, she
returned to Atlanta, where in 1989 she became what she called the
"glorified intern as executive director" of a new volunteer service
outfit called Hands On Atlanta.
Starting with a handful of service projects around Atlanta, Ms.
Nunn enlisted businesses to fund hundreds more efforts in Georgia,
from restoring playgrounds to stocking food banks, then launched
similar projects in other states. The organization merged in 2007
with Points of Light, a national group inspired by the former
President Bush, creating one of the country's largest
volunteer-service organizations.
Ms. Nunn moved the combined group to Atlanta and was named chief
executive, with a $250,000 salary. Neil Bush, chairman of Points of
Light and President Bush's son, said Ms. Nunn "used her strength
and will to blend two diverse organizations--a grass-roots,
hands-on, startup culture with a presidential-legacy,
fancy-ballroom, entrenched-Washington culture."
Over the years, Ms. Nunn says, she rebuffed occasional
invitations to run for office. Last year, after Sen. Chambliss
announced his retirement, she decided the timing was right. "I had
to resolve I had the hunger for running because it's a hard path,"
she said in an interview. "And that my kids"--now 9 and 11--"could
be integrated on the trail, though they may not thank me now."
She has made her public-service background a feature of her
campaign stops, favoring appearances at community-service events
over the big rallies sometimes suggested by party operatives.
Before her daughter's soccer game, for example, she stopped by an
Atlanta school where she picked up a paint roller and worked with
middle-school children to paint its cafeteria walls.
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To follow her around the state now is to see her trying to
assemble the kind of spectrum-spanning coalition that supported her
father. She left her Atlanta house one recent morning at 7 a.m. and
switched out of flat shoes to heels on her way to an
African-American church. At Jackson Memorial Baptist Church, a
minister held Ms. Nunn's hands and prayed to "anoint" her mouth "to
speak the truth" and her feet "to generate votes."
At other stops, she courts local business leaders. She invited
Mitesh Shah, a longtime Republican and head of a real-estate
investment firm, to lunch at an Atlanta restaurant. He said he
agreed to go at the urging of several Republican friends.
Mr. Shah says he told Ms. Nunn, "I started as a college
Republican and supported Romney, but I'm so frustrated with
politics, I'm out." He recalls her responding: "For all the reasons
you're out is the reason I'm in." Mr. Shah says he took a month
before deciding to support her based on her commitment to reach
across party lines. He has since hosted an event for her with other
Atlanta business leaders.
As the first female nominee from a major party to run for the
Senate from Georgia, Ms. Nunn is trying to woo women voters, who
have been key for Democrats nationally in recent years.
Mr. Bullock, the political scientist, says she is focusing on
white women, a swing vote in Georgia, in an effort to pick up
sufficient white votes to win. Several of Ms. Nunn's commercials
feature white women or the candidate herself talking directly to
the camera.
At a home overlooking the Chattahoochee River in the tony
Buckhead section of Atlanta, Ms. Nunn met in early summer with
women leaders from business, arts, politics and nonprofits. "Her
party name is the only thing that hurts her," says one attendee,
Martha Brooks, an independent who serves on several corporate
boards. "It would be a lot easier to win in Georgia if she were a
Republican." Ms. Brooks says she decided to back Ms. Nunn.
Ms. Nunn's mother, Colleen, recently led a "senior mobilization
week." She also gathers intelligence about Mr. Perdue, which she
forwards in daily emails with what she calls "rapid-response"
suggestions. One recent day, she texted her daughter a photograph,
taken by a volunteer, of the RV Mr. Perdue uses while campaigning,
its side adorned with his name and "The Outsider"--which she saw as
overly lavish.
Ms. Nunn travels the state in a Chevrolet Traverse sport-utility
vehicle. She recently described herself as a "worrier" while
picking up one of the chocolate bars stashed in pockets throughout
the vehicle. "The fact that I can eat a lot of chocolate and not
gain weight shows how much energy and worry I have," she said. "And
sleepless nights."
Back at the soccer field, her father had one other observation
about his political heir. "No father wants his sweet daughter to
get meaner, but Michelle has had to get tougher," he said. "That is
what a hard-fought campaign will do."
Write to Monica Langley at monica.langley@wsj.com
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