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As John McCain prepares to stump for Sen. Saxby Chambliss today, ahead of the US Senate runoff in Georgia, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released an ad that uses McCain’s past criticism of Chambliss against him.

The infamous ad that Chambliss ran against then Sen. Max Cleland in 2002, question the triple amputee, Vietnam War hero’s patriotism by linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

Here is the original ad:

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Back when John McCain was still a maverick he denounced the ad, “I’d never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield — it’s worse than disgraceful. It’s reprehensible.” It is this denouncement that has found its way into a Democratic ad for Jim Martin.

So far, Obama has declined to head to Georgia to campaign for Martin ahead of the December 2 runoff, he has kept all of his Georgia field offices, left most of his paid staff on the ground there, and sent an additional 100 field operatives to the state to help the Democrat. However, McCain’s stumping for Chambliss in a state that the Republican won might make it necessary for Obama to campaign for the Democrat in the state.

The runoff is necessary because Chambliss won the election earlier this month, but he finished tenths of a percent below the state mandated fifty percent threshold. I am going to guess that Obama probably will show up in the state sometime before the runoff. From a strategic point of view, it is still too early to deploy the president elect there. I would try to have Obama endorse Martin in an ad the week before the election, and have him in the state in the final few days of the campaign.