As we approach Tuesday's run-off, a lot going on in the Georgia Senate race.

• On Fox News Sunday today, Chris Wallace picked up on a moment featured in one of Jim Martin's ads in which Chambliss stated his version of "I really don't know that much about the economy." In the process, Wallace caught Chambliss in a lie trying to explain away his own ignorance.

  Watch it:

• Laura Packard has another entry in her "On the bus with Jim Martin" series. Read it at Blog For Democracy.

• The Alaska Daily News rips into Sarah Palin for campaigning for Saxby Chambliss:

  The man who couldn't bring himself to serve in the military said a man who left three limbs behind in war was a weakling who would turn the country over to terrorists.

  Chambliss was a congressman during the 9-11 attacks. Congressional Quarterly's "Politics in America 2006" noted that Congressman Chambliss "quipped that one route to security would be for local sheriffs to 'arrest every Muslim that comes across the state line.'"

  So there you have the fine American that Palin is trying to re-elect to the U.S. Senate.

  Gov. Palin's eldest joined the Army and has been deployed to Iraq. As a justifiably proud military mom, she might ask herself why she is using her conservative star power to support such a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.

• Barack Obama may not be going to Georgia to stump for Jim Martin but his online and campaign infrastructure sure is contributing to the cause. Per this MyBO post, you can get cracking on making phone calls for Jim Martin from home HERE and you can find your local field office and sign up for a GOTV shift HERE.

• In Georgia or know someone who is? Jim Martin's website has all the voting info you could want including a link to the Secretary of State's poll location finder.

• And now for your moment of zen:

Consider this an open thread... What's on your mind?

Following word that Bill Clinton will disclose donors to his foundation, the New York Times has confirmed that Obama will introduce his national security team in Chicago tomorrow, and that team will include Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:

CHICAGO -- President-elect Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will seal their rapprochement when he announces her nomination as his secretary of state, Democrats close to the process said Sunday.

Mrs. Clinton, once considered the Democratic frontrunner for president, is flying to Chicago to appear together with the man who beat her for the nomination, a person close to Mrs. Clinton said. The sight of them together, as she joins his administration, would have been thought unlikely just weeks ago, but Mr. Obama concluded she would strengthen his team.

...

In addition to her, Democrats said, Mr. Obama plans to announce that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has run the Pentagon for the last two years, and will appoint Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant, as national security adviser.

The events in India certainly reminded us that Obama will face more than just an economic crisis early in his Presidency.

Chris Cillizza has the details:

Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to make public 200,000 donors to his presidential library and foundation as part of an agreement with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team designed to allow his wife -- Hillary Rodham Clinton -- to be named Secretary of State, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement.

The former president has also agreed to allow the State Department and, potentially, the White House, to vet his personal business interests and speeches so as to avoid potential conflicts of interest, according to transition officials.

[...]

With that potentially sticky-wicket now a non-issue, the nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State appears to be on a glide path.

This news should presumably mean that Barack Obama will now have in place his nominees for the four big departments, State, Treasury, Defense and Justice, a fairly diverse group that includes people of both parties, of both sexes, and of more than one racial background. But even more than the categories in which these nominees and presumptive nominees could be designated, this group conveys a strength that underscores Obama's determination to usher in a period of effective governance. While the rest of Obama's Cabinet remains to be fleshed out, the early indicators suggest that Obama will have one of the most respected and accomplished cabinets we have seen in some time. In other words, though I might not have assembled the exact same team, it does seem to have the trappings of an effective Cabinet.

Three years ago this week I traveled up north for Thanksgiving dinner at my conservative Uncle's house outside Sacramento. As I knew my brother and I would be the only non-Republicans in attendance, I'd resigned myself to a politics-free Thanksgiving. It was one thing to rile up my Dad by bashing Bush around my parents' dinner table, quite another to do the same where I am an infrequent guest and where I know just a few people. What I didn't anticipate was just how much passionate criticism of Bush and the Republican congress there would be even without my or my brother's input. The Republicans at dinner that night were in utter revolt, over spending mostly, and it was the first time I had a sense that things were shifting in the country.

This year was quite different as I spent Thanksgiving at a friend's house with mostly youngish creative types who were varying degrees of liberal, but that's not to say there wasn't some heated conversation. I spoke to one guy who, knowing that I'm a "liberal blogger," challenged me to name one Republican I've ever voted for (I named two) and insisted that his support of Bob Barr this year even though he knew he couldn't win was somehow more virtuous than my support of Barack Obama since I'm just a partisan hack, so his argument went. He also railed against single party rule and insisted that Obama work across the aisle as he has promised to do (this is why he liked John McCain until he imploded.) There was so much wrong with this logic I didn't know where to start. I replied that certainly bi-partisanship would be great but not for its own sake. I asked him to think about what's gotten done during two years of divided government versus 6 years of single party government -- far more got done in those first six years; the fact that it was mostly bad is beside the point. Single party Democratic rule is the only way we're going to actually advance a mainstream agenda, which the American people have voted for 2 cycles in a row: ending the war in Iraq, funding stem cell research, increasing access and affordability to health care, curbing carbon emissions to rollback the effects of global warming, closing Guantanamo Bay and restoring our reputation abroad (and certainly the list goes on...) As much as it pains many to admit, these things that the progressive movement has been fighting for for years are now mainstream values and if Republicans are going to continue to obstruct it, the last thing Americans want is bi-partisanship. When the American people so thoroughly reject one party as they have for two cycles in a row, that is a sign that Republicans should be marginalized, not coddled and they should certainly not be allowed to hold the American agenda hostage.

I didn't say all of this, although I sort of wish I had, but it's just an example of the sort of holiday dinner table conversation I had this year. What were the hot topics around your Thanksgiving dinner table this year? Did you talk politics? Were you surprised by what you heard and can you draw any conclusions from it?

Discuss...

It's been quiet in the diary trenches since the holiday.  While you're waiting for the tryptophan to wear off, there were a few items not to miss.  From the diaries:

• Optimism in the health community and The Media Consortium's Weekly Pulse: Pro-Choice Cabinet Picks Boon for Health At Home and Abroad.
• A sobering reminder from RDemocrat: Iraq is Our War in January.
• In Choosing 8,000 from 1,000,000 of America's Most Brilliant, Bob Sackamento finds his confidence in competence restored.

• Bloggingheads.tv Science Saturday: The age of Roosevelt as viewed from the age of Obama.
• Mumbai Terrorist Seige Ends.
• Is it possible to predict how bad a recession will be?
• Return of the Anonymous GOP Block.
• Hendrik Hertzberg speaks.
• Conservative Thanksgiving satire.

Anywhere but the Labor middle. I've seen three recent polls out of Israel, and the others show about the same trend as this poll on IMRA:

Results expressed in Knesset seats. Current Knesset seats in [brackets].

25 [29] Kadima headed by Livni
07 [19] Labor
37 [12] Likud
11 [12] Shas
08 [11] "Israel Is Our Home" (Yisrael Beteinu)
08 [06] Yahadut Hatorah (United Torah Judaism-UTJ)
08 [05] Meretz
04 [09] "Jewish Home" (previously Nat'l Union/NRP)
03 [00] Green Party
09 [10] Arab parties *
00 [07] Retirees Party

Livni was ahead, but has fallen dramatically behind in recent weeks, as the global economic downturn has settled into Israel. She's not seen as someone with much economic experience, and Likud's Netanyahu leads on economic preference in recent polling. That said, I'm not sure where Netanyahu is going to go to get partner Likud with other parties to get above 60; perhaps with Kadima led by Mofaz? That's a chilling prospect. Another prospect would be for Netanyahu's Likud to join with Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu, pay off Shas, and pull in other rightwing or Orthodox parties if needed for a majority.

Though the center is collapsing in Israel, and the prospects for the left forming part of the majority are not that bright at the moment, a different scenario is unfolding. Labor is on the demise, Gil will vanish, and perhaps Meretz will pick up enough seats to become the third largest party, and become a voice of clear opposition:

I blogged on this a few days ago, about how the damaged Republican brand is not going to be easily resurrected by merely new online tactics by Republicans. The rightwing bloggers continue to dissect their loss, with Jose Antonio Vargas doing a overview of their comments in the WaPost, Republicans Seek to Fix Short-Sitedness. Markos, Building machines, and Matt Stoller, Why the Rightroots is Lacking, both dismiss the hopefulness of Patrick Ruffini for the rightwing on the net.

Says Markos:

We are now in exactly the position that anyone with a 'best-case' scenario could have imagined pulling off in the last two cycles. Democrats now need to govern correctly, and the netroots needs to hold them accountable. The worst thing we could do, is mimic how the rightwing bloggers acted though the earlier part of this decade, looking the otherway, as Bush was terrible or Republican congress critters were shown to be corrupt. Or worse, trying to defend it. From my perspective, part of the problem for bloggers on the right is their lack of credibility, after years of defending Bush's bad moves. If the Democrats do somehow manage to blow it this coming cycle of governing, lets at least not pretend. I'd rather be honest than obedient.

53 days till we can put all that crap behind us. I'm really looking forward to Feb and March of next year. I want to see how the people we worked so hard to elect will govern. I hope they too are looking forward to the coming moment at hand for a new age of effective governing in this nation. If we do that, it really doesn't matter what the Republicans do online to resurrect themselves, they will be in the minority well into the next decade.