During an interview with Hannity and Colmes last night, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) falsely claimed that he “never sought to privatize social security”:

COLMES: Do you acknowledge now that, had we privatized Social Security, as you wanted to do, people would be suffering even more and losing their life’s savings in the name of retirement? [...]

CHAMBLISS: I never sought to privatize Social Security. I do think that people ought to have some control over their money, rather than the government, just mandating to them how they’re going to invest their money.

After Colmes challenged Chambliss’s response, Sean Hannity jumped to the senator’s defense repeatedly arguing that Chambliss was not for privatization, but rather for “choice.” Chambliss agreed saying, “privatization is not the right word.” Watch it:

In fact, Chambliss is a strong and long-time supporter of privatization. In July, Chambliss argued that the “key” to preserving the Social Security program was allowing workers to invest their social security payments in private “personal retirement accounts.” Indeed, in an article titled “Social Security privatization victorious in 2002 elections,” Michael Tanner — leader of the social security privatization initiative, SocialSecurityChoice.org — praised Chambliss’s election victory over incumbent Sen. Max Cleland (D) in 2002:

… Cleland had attacked Chambliss for wanting to turn “the Social Security benefits of people on Main Street over to Wall Street to play Russian roulette with.” Chambliss, in contrast, signed a pledge…promising to support individual accounts if he was elected.

Cleland’s argument was extremely prescient. Despite Chambliss’s claim that privatization would result in workers getting a “return that’s greater than what the government has gotten on the Social Security trust fund,” the Wonk Room found that someone retiring in October 2008 who had invested in Chambliss/Bush-style private Social Security account for 35 years would have “seen a negative return on their account…and lost $26,000 in the market.”

On Monday, Georgia’s U.S. Senate candidates — Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin — had competing rallies around the state in advance of the Dec. 2 critical run-off contest. Martin and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) held four events around the state, while Martin held one main rally in Atlanta in the evening.

The two men’s events couldn’t have been more different. ThinkProgress attended the Chambliss rally in Perry, GA, which took place indoors at the Georgia National Fairgrounds. The attendees were predominantly white, older, and many came with their families. The crowd cheered and clapped enthusiastically, always at the appropriate times.

While people were clearly excited about the GOP candidates, some of it appeared to be manufactured. News reports showed people on-stage holding handmade signs — including ones that read “Palin-Chambliss 2012″ and “Vets for Saxby” — but those were handed out before the event by a campaign aide. A sign in the entrance to the venue said that attendees were prohibited from bringing in such large signs on their own:

As ThinkProgress reported earlier, Palin’s events throughout the state were largely a rehash of her talking points when she was John McCain’s running mate. At the Perry event, she stressed that Chambliss has a “strong independent spirit,” just like McCain — ignoring the fact that he has voted with the GOP on every single key vote from the 109th Congress onward. Watch a portion of her remarks:

McClatchy reported on some of the reasons people came to hear Palin speak, including one woman who said that she wanted her daughters to “see a fine, upstanding, Christian woman with five kids and a good career” and another who said that Palin was just a “Josephine the plumber or Sarah the fisherman.”

Martin’s event, which was held on the steps of the State Capitol, attracted a smaller crowd, but was far more boisterous, with drivers passing by honking in support. The young, diverse crowd often spontaneously shouted out replies to the speakers, and the event had the atmosphere of a college party. Additionally, Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth took direct aim at Chambliss’s policy positions, specifically noting his record on veterans issues:

In 2004, when I was flying my Blackhawk helicopter north of Baghdad and I got hit with that rocket-propelled grenade that blew up between my legs and took them off — and almost took off my right arm — the only thing that saved me was my buddies and the armor that I was wearing. … In his six years in the United States Senate, Saxby Chambliss has voted against providing armor for our troops. He has been against providing armored vehicles for our troops. And then, when my buddies and I came home, he has been against the G.I. Bill.

Watch it:

Today, Gov. Sarah Palin traveled to Georgia to campaign for Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R), who faces a tough runoff election tomorrow against Democratic challenger Jim Martin. In the first of four stops today, in Augusta, Palin told the crowd, “The eyes of the nation are on you,” adding, “The stakes are so high” and that “America is counting on you.”

Yet despite Palin’s insistence on the importance of the Chambliss race, she apparently couldn’t bring herself to write a new stump speech. Instead, she recycled many of her favorite lines from this fall, substituting Chambliss’ name for Sen. John McCain’s:

Palin On Washington:

On CHAMBLISS: Too many politicians forgetting why they were sent to Washington. Well, Saxby has not forgotten and he has not forgotten who it is that he is serving. He is serving you, residents of Georgia, and he is serving all of America. He knows we must put government back on your side.

On McCAIN: In Alaska, we went back to basics. We put government back on the side of the people, and John and I will use the same approach to reform Washington in our administration. We will never forget the people who hired us. We will be there to work for you, the good people of America.

Palin On Government Working:

On CHAMBLISS: He knows you do not have to feel you are working for your government, but your government must be working for you.

On McCAIN: John and I…we don’t think you should be working for government; we think government should work for you.

Palin On Independence:

On CHAMBLISS: Saxby has not forgotten why he was sent to Washington. He has stayed true to his principles. Today those principles are needed more than ever. Senator Chambliss, he has such a strong, independent spirit. And that’s another reason I really like him.

On McCAIN: John McCain and I, what we represent is that maverick independent spirit that will not let the self-dealing and excessive partisanship get in the way of what’s right.

Palin On Herds:

On CHAMBLISS: Saxby doesn’t just run with the Washington herd.

On McCAIN: John is his own man. He doesn’t run with the Washington herd.

Yesterday, Palin’s home-state newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, sharply criticized her for campaigning for Chambliss, citing Chambliss’ dirty campaign tactics against renowned war hero Max Cleland in 2002. “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,” the editorial said.

This morning of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) about a statement he made in July when he argued that the U.S. economy “may not be in a recession.” Wallace played a recording of Chambliss from an ad released by Jim Martin’s campaign:

CHAMBLISS: We may not be in a recession. I don’t know what that term means.

Chambliss attempted to defend himself, saying that he was “quoting Alan Greenspan.” Wallace, however, noted that while Chambliss used the Greenspan quote in July 2008, Greenspan had said in April 2008 that “we’re headed into a recession.” Chambliss responded by attempting (and failing) to fall back on the “technical definition” of a recession:

Chris, if you’ll remember, [a recession] was supposed to be two consecutive months of negative GDP, and at that point in time we hadn’t seen that. But, you know, economists disagree on the technical definition of recession, and obviously that’s what i was talking about.

Still, however, Chambliss could not bring himself to admit that the economy is in recession.

Watch it:

In attempting to appear knowledgeable about the economy by citing the “technical definition” of a recession, Chambliss actually demonstrated his ignorance. Indeed, Chambliss said this morning that a recession is “supposed to be two consecutive months of negative GDP” growth. In fact, the often cited — though misleading — definition of a recession to which Chambliss was referring says nothing about “two consecutive months,” but rather “two consecutive quarters.”

Definitions aside, Chambliss’s apparent inability to recognize that the U.S. is in a recession demonstrates he is uninformed about the state of the economy. Indeed, the Federal Reserve’s latest economic outlook “warned that a recession is believed already to be underway could last until mid-2009 or later.” Further, as Forbes recently reported on the significant rise in unemployment claims in recent months, “[c]laims above 400,000 are generally considered a sign of recession, and claims have been above that level for 17 weeks.”

Perhaps most startling is that according to a recent survey by the National Association of Business Economists, “96% of the economists surveyed” believe a recession has begun. While economists may disagree about what constitutes a recession, they seem to agree that the U.S. is in one.

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Chambliss has a long history of using official funds to feed his golf habit and endear himself to lobbyists. For example, Chambliss oversees the Republican Majority Fund PAC. Under him, 68 percent of its spending has gone to travel, golf events, meals and administrative costs. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, “[O]f the top 10 recipients of the Majority Fund’s money since 2007, only one was a political organization.”

At the 2000 Republican convention, Chambliss — along with then-lawmakers Bob Ney and Tom DeLay, who have both faced significant legal and ethical troubles — hosted a golf event for lobbyists at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia, which has a long history of discrimination against people of color. As the New York Times reported in 1993:

Unable to meet the requirement that clubs must have nondiscriminatory membership policies to host tournaments, the Aronimink Golf Club has asked to be relieved of its agreement to be the site of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America said tonight.

Aronimink, a private club in Newtown Square, Pa., near Philadelphia, has no minority-group members. [...]

O’Brien said the club had told the P.G.A. it had a seven-year waiting list for new members, but asked that it be considered as the site for a future championship when is is able to conform to the national association’s policy on membership.

However, 10 years later — and three years after Chambliss’s golf event — it’s still not clear whether the club had stopped its discriminatory policies. USA Today reported that as of April 2003, Aronimink had 325 members. Just five were women. The club “declined to elaborate on the number of minority members.”

And even if the club was discriminating against people of color, it’s not clear Chambliss would care. Earlier this month, Chambliss lamented that because of Barack Obama, there was a “high percentage of minority vote” and Republicans weren’t “able to get enough of our folks out” to vote. Last month, he said that “a rush to the polls by African-Americans…got our side energized.”

Since 2005, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who is currently locked in a tough run-off election battle against Democrat Jim Martin, has been in charge of the Republican Majority Fund. The PAC, established in the 1970s, was set up to help fund GOP candidates. However, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today, Chambliss has instead used it as a personal fund to ingratiate himself to lobbyists, reward his political contributors, and fund his golfing habit:

Under Chambliss, however, 68 percent of the Majority Fund’s spending – about $1 million – has gone for travel, golf events, meals and administrative costs, reports to the Federal Election Commission show. Political contributions comprised just 32 percent of the committee’s spending, or $472,500.

In 2007 and 2008, the Majority Fund’s political donations accounted for 26 percent of its spending, the second-lowest among the 25 largest leadership groups. [...]

[O]f the top 10 recipients of the Majority Fund’s money since 2007, only one was a political organization.

Five were golf resorts.

Chambliss is an avid golfer. Despite having a “bum knee” that kept him out of military service in Vietnam, Chambliss ranked as the #2 golfer in the Senate and the 33rd best golfer in Washington, DC, according to a 2005 feature by Golf Digest. That same year, while his colleagues were in a closed-door session discussing pre-Iraq war intelligence, Chambliss took the day off to golf with Tiger Woods.

Therefore, it’s perhaps not surprising that two months after taking over the Republican Majority Fund, “Chambliss put on a golf outing at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla. — the first of 20 at top courses and resorts: Pebble Beach in California; The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla.; The Greenbrier in West Virginia, among others. Chambliss’ companions on these trips were, with few exceptions, registered lobbyists and their clients.” In the past two years, Chambliss has also used these official funds to golf with lobbyists for defense contractors, AIG, and Fannie Mae.

In 2007, Chambliss even spent more than $7,000 of the Republican Majority Fund’s money on “golf supplies.” He must feel right at home with his colleagues in Congress and the Bush administration.

Yesterday, the struggling Freedom’s Watch released an attack ad against Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin, saying that he “failed to look out for Georgia’s families.” “First he actually helped block stiffer penalties for drunk drivers,” warns the voice in the ad, which echoes previous GOP ads. “And then, Martin voted against tougher sentences for domestic abuse.” Watch it:

Martin’s daughter was kidnapped when she was eight years old. In a new ad, he states, “You never forget the horror of coming face-to-face with violent crime. … I never forgot the way she trembled when she faced her kidnapper in court. That’s why I fought so hard to crack down on violent crime.” Watch it:

In fact, Martin’s tough-on-crime record has been praised by people such as former senator Zell Miller, who is now backing Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) in the state’s tough run-off election. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/21/97]

On Thursday, Georgia’s Department of Labor announced that the state’s unemployment levels rose to 7 percent in October, the highest in 16 years; approximately 43,093 unemployed Georgians are looking for work. That same day, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who is locked in a tough run-off election battle with Democrat Jim Martin, gave a campaign speech on the state’s economic troubles:

It’s imperative that we continue down the road of putting liquidity, integrity and confidence back in the financial marketplace so that we can see the credit market free up and people having the ability to borrow money to to operate and expand their businesses.

However, Chambliss was so busy campaigning that day that he actually skipped the Senate’s vote on the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008, which extended unemployment benefits “by 13 weeks in states with an unemployment rate of at least 6 percent.” Chambliss was one of just four senators to miss the vote. WCTV reported that Chambliss later sent out a press released praising “the passage of the law and [said he] hopes it will help laid-off workers get by while seeking a new job.”

Yesterday, WXIA in Atlanta said that Chambliss claimed he would have voted for the bill anyway. Watch WXIA’s report:

Chambliss has been pulling in a parade of high-profile conservatives to campaign for him at the last minute, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and next week, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.