In last week’s election, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) received more votes than his Democratic challenger Jim Martin but fell 0.2 percent short of the 50-percent-plus needed under Georgia law to win the election. Both candidates are expected to be headed for a runoff election next month.

Last night on Fox News, when asked why he wasn’t able to “close the deal” with Georgia voters on election day, Chambliss said that because of Barack Obama, there was a “high percentage of minority vote” and that his campaign wasn’t “able to get enough of our folks out” to vote:

COLMES: Why do you think you’ve been unable…[to] close the deal with the people of Georgia in terms of what happened on Election Day?

CHAMBLISS: Well, listen, we have, for the first time in the history the our state, a 30-day advanced vote period, and let’s give the Obama people credit. They did a good job of getting out their vote early.

There was a high percentage of minority vote, and I am tickled to death that as many Georgians as did examined their right to vote. That’s what make our election process the envy of the whole free world, but we weren’t able to get enough of our folks out on Election Day.

Watch it:

Apparently, when Chambliss refers to “our folks,” he’s talking about Georgia’s white voters. He added that it’s going to be a “challenge to get them out in the runoff” but that his campaign “look[s] forward to that challenge.”

In fact, Chambliss has used racially loaded, us-versus-them rhetoric in this campaign before. Just prior to Nov. 4, Chambliss bluntly warned his white base that “the other folks are voting,” adding that the “rush to the polls by African-Americans early” has “got our side energized early, they see what is happening.”

However, it seems that Chambliss’s base wasn’t as energized as he thought.

Former Democratic presidential nominee John Edwards “will break almost three months of public silence when he speaks at 7 p.m. today” at the Indiana University Auditorium. Edwards will deliver a speech, give his reaction to the election, and answer students’ questions. “The Union Boards’ decision to bring Edwards to speak – which cost $35,000 – has garnered criticism on whether it is appropriate to pay someone to speak who recently admitted his extramarital affair.” (HT: On Politics)

Sunday on CNN Late Edition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) encouraged his party to “not to get stuck in ideology, in the ideological corners” and instead offer broader solutions to America’s most pressing problems, especially climate change and the health care crisis. “Let’s clean our ocean, let’s clean our water, let’s clean our air, let’s create health care reform, let’s pass the budget, let’s fix the budget deficit and the structural deficit.”

The comments infuriated right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, who railed against Schwarzenegger yesterday. She said she had “never, never, ever gotten the whole Schwarzenegger thing,” finally declaring California should “secede” from the United States:

INGRAHAM: Arnold Schwarzenegger is embarrassing on so many levels. … Every time we look to moderate to liberal Republicans for answers, we’re disappointed. Not only are we disappointed, we end up getting shafted. [...]

I read this and my blood boils. Left coast? I mean, just secede already, at this point. Okay. Secede already. I can’t take it anymore from California.

Listen here:

The fact that Schwarzenegger also repeated his opposition to the anti-gay amendment, Proposition 8, certainly did him no favors with Ingraham either. In fact, he said the law “falls into the same category” of anti-miscegenation laws from the early 20th century that banned blacks and whites from marrying.

The Schwarzenegger-Ingraham debate reflects the larger struggle within the Republican party. While National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (R-NV) said last week that the party shouldn’t focus on abortion or anti-gay marriage amendments, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) insisted the party should double down on the issues, focusing on “a belief in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”

Last summer, Brave New Films delivered a petition with 43,000 signatures to congressional leadership with the message, “Lieberman must go.” Today, the project released a new film emphasizing that Lieberman is no progressive. Watch it:

BNF is asking people to call their representatives and Senators and urge them to remove Lieberman from his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.