Sen. Saxby Chambliss leads Democratic challenger Jim Martin by just six points, according to a poll released today by Team Martin.

Chambliss leads Martin 42-36 – anything under 50 percent for an incumbent shows vulnerability – and only 21 percent of respondents think the country is on the right track. The Mellman Group’s poll of 600 likely voters was conducted Wednesday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

Martin actually leads Chambliss 52-37 among voters who know both. The problem is that Chambliss' name ID is 67 percent and Martin's is 47 percent.

A poll memo is available here.

I encourage you to take any internal poll released to the public with a big ol’ shaker full of salt, but as Paul Broun showed us, sometimes they can be right on the money.

However, these numbers contradict earlier Rasmussen polls that show Chambliss topping 50 percent with a double-digit lead over Martin. Those polls show Chambliss holding steady since March but Martin gaining more and more support.

Remember, Chambliss hasn’t even begun to spend his $5 million war chest, so I wouldn’t get too excited, but if Martin can use the results to raise some serious cash then we might have a race on our hands.

Broun’s briefings

In Broun’s weekly column/talking points/press release thingy that he sends to reporters at the beginning of every week, the congressman slaps around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

He makes fun of Pelosi for selling only 2,500 copies of her book (Is that true? No wonder she needs a book tour.) and encourages people to call her office and demand a vote on the Republicans’ all-of-the-above energy bill. After all, Broun said, if we’re drilling for ice on Mars, we can drill for oil in America.

Which raises the question, to paraphrase David Bowie, is there oil on Mars? And if so, should we invade?

Broun also sides with the Georgians – no, not us, the other ones – in their confict with Russia. He quotes John McCain saying that he “looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes and saw three things — a K and a G and a B.”

Oopsies

I made a little arithmetic error in a recent post. Cops don’t make $90,000 a year. A potential $1.8 million local budget cut due to the state repealing its property tax equals about 40 to 60 jobs, not 20.

I was told there would be no math involved.

Blake.aued@onlineathens.com