Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, won’t be attended John McCain’s fundraiser in Atlanta today. He has a birthday party to go to.

As the AJC pointed out Sunday, Georgia’s Republican congressmen didn’t exactly save the date for the McCain event.

Only one, Tom Price of Marietta, confirmed he would attend. Ben Smith quotes Broun as saying he wasn’t sure if he’d be there.

I followed up with Broun’s spokeswoman, Jessica Morris, who said the congressman had a scheduling conflict. He had already agreed to attend the birthday party of a 100-year-old Habersham County woman in Gainesville. Sensing where I was going with this, Morris emphasized that Broun has endorsed McCain and appeared with him at several events in Washington.

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.

It’s one of two things: Either the Georgia GOP establishment is finally embracing U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, or it’s a trap.

Gov. Sonny Perdue and Broun are teaming up for September skeet shootout/fundraiser in Eatonton to benefit TeenPact, the Christian youth leadership academy founded by Broun’s campaign treasurer, Tim Echols, whom Perdue recently appointed to some state board or other. No word on whether Dick Cheney is attending.

$250 gets you in, $500 gets you a photo and for $2,500 you can shoot clay pigeons with Perdue and Broun.

As a devout Christian, Rep. Paul Broun is surely familiar with the Bible verse, “Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find.”

I’ve been asking for and seeking information about what, exactly Broun is spending his congressional allowance on, but I have not received, nor have I found, any answers.

All I know his he’s not paying for a chief of staff. And that may be all I know until early next year.

I spent most of Wednesday on the phone with various political sources in Washington and elsewhere getting an off-the-record crash course on member’s representational allowances, the $1.3 million to $1.5 million congressmen get annually to pay salaries, rent, etc. That’s your money, by the way.

The housing crisis is an issue that’s right in Rep. Paul Broun’s wheelhouse. He bragged Monday about voting against a federal bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“The Fannie/Freddie bailout is the most expensive legislative package since President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Not only does H.R. 3221 give the Executive Branch more power, but it also lifts the ceiling on our national debt by at least $800 billion,” he said.

“Congressional liberals have now allowed the risks of loan defaults to be taken over by the American people by giving the Treasury Secretary a blank check through 2009.

“Congress has got to stop spending money that we do not have.”

CQ on NBAF

Grady Thrasher and Kathy Prescott are going global.

The founders of the local anti-NBAF group For Athens Quality of Life made their way up to Washington Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security’s first public hearing on its draft environmental impact statement for the National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility.

The D.C. newspaper Congressional Quarterly interviewed them.

“We don’t think it should be on the mainland because the release of foot-and-mouth would be a catastrophic event,” Thrasher said. “We don’t want it in our community. But we don’t want it anywhere else, either.”

Paul Broun’s budget boondoggle is the talk of the town today.

Personally, I think it’s all a bit overblown. Politically and symbolically, it’s a big issue, especially for a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative. But in the midst of a trillion-dollar war, is a $5,000 big-screen television really going to bankrupt the federal treasury?

What bothers me as a taxpayer is how difficult it is to get records of such spending.

It does not make Bobby Saxon happy when people assume that the GOP primary was Rep. Paul Broun’s real test.

Saxon, who’s been using my pessimistic blog posts to motivate volunteers, sent out a press release calling out the Wall Street Journal for making assumptions about the 10th District race.

“It looks like some political pundits need help remembering that Georgia’s election season doesn’t end in July.

“In a July 17 article of the Wall Street Journal called ‘Dr. Broun Goes Back to Washington,’ columnist John Fund writes, ‘Dr. Broun will be going back to Washington next year, having won 71% in last night's primary.’ There is no mention of Bobby Saxon or his November challenge against Congressman Broun.

Blogging about Paul Broun already heated up onlineathens.com earlier today.

Wonder if the blowout Broun coasted to in his race in the Republican primary got any boost from dropping Mark Richt's name into his radio spots? It was just as lopsided a win as the Bulldogs over Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl.

“To fire up the team, Coach Richt says finish the drill. To lower gas prices, Paul Broun says start to drill,” the ad said.

No matter your political leanings, it’s hard not to find the line cheesy.

The U.S. congressman showed up for a Georgia football practice during the last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Richt’s name shows up again in another spot before the November general election.

Unless, of course, Georgia happens to stumble in a couple October surprise upsets.

Good morning, all.

Paul Broun didn’t just win last night, but he trounced an opponent who had more money, full party backing and called the largest metro area in the district home. Sound familiar?

We broke down Broun’s 70-30 win this morning. You’ll find Broun took 85 percent of GOP voters in Clarke County, 78 percent in Oconee and boasted 3- and 4-to-1 margins across the rural portions of the district. The closest Barry Fleming came to a county victory was in Richmond County, where he won 48 percent. Columbia County, where twice as many voters cast ballots as any other county in the district, went for Broun 58 percent to 42 percent. Amazing stuff.

In November, Broun will face Democrat Bobby Saxon, a businessman and Army veteran from Nicholson. No question, Saxon will lose by a similar margin. Perhaps even more (if that’s possible) as Saxson continues the proud tradition of Democratic sacrificial lambs in the 10th.