BAINBRIDGE — Politics lives always for the moment to come. And it can't come soon enough.

At 7:20 a.m. Thursday on U.S. 27 in Bainbridge, in a brightly lit gas-and-go, Charlie the Cashier breakfasted on a customer who had dared to speak well of John Kerry.

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"What about the $87 billion?" the young man shouted at the customer, who already had his back to the glass wall, his hands held up in surrender. "That's armor, that's Humvees. Don't give me Kerry. Pssh."

If there is a portion of Georgia that suffers from hypertension, this is it. The southern border counties have borne witness, via cable television and radio, to the fight in Florida — and have become part of it.

In Atlanta and most everywhere else in Georgia, relief from politics can be had with the blip of the remote control. Here the contest is inescapable and unnerving, an angry dog that's finished with the meat and now gnaws on splintered bone.

Moments that aren't filled with naked attacks are laden with insinuation and seduction. "Alone in the voting booth," whispers a Bush ad from Tallahassee, "why take the risk?"

A flat-land holiday to cut through the fog of the Florida war

It was in this climate that a Republican RV, its police escort and assorted entourage, headed east, from Bainbridge to Thomasville to Quitman to Valdosta to Tifton and beyond. Gov. Sonny Perdue and U.S. Senate nominee Johnny Isakson were the stars of the day, the fifth of a week-long journey around the state.

They're the personifications of the alliance that now raises up the modern Georgia GOP: Isakson, the life-long suburban Republican, and Perdue, the rural former Democrat.

At each stop, the pair devoted a healthy portion of their speeches to rallying the faithful for President Bush. Isakson sought the farm vote by swearing allegiance to Bush's tax cuts.

But a primary point of the trip was to help Republican state legislative candidates cut through the national fog that has enveloped South Georgia.

The GOP tour touched five House races and three Senate contests Thursday.

Judging by the amount of television purchased by Republicans and Democrats sitting in Atlanta — the 30-second spots all sandwiched among Bush and Kerry ads — all eight contests are crucial.

Call them "Atlanta politicians" and you've already made a racial, cultural argument

One of the hottest contests is the state Senate race between Democrat incumbent Tim Golden and Republican challenger Rusty Griffin, both of Valdosta.

On the leg to Quitman, in the cushy, red-white-and-blue RV, Griffin complained to the governor about the conservative defense offered by Golden, who considers himself a "Zell Miller Democrat" and has cast votes against gay marriage.

What you have to do, Sonny Perdue said, is tie South Georgia Democrats to something bigger. Then the governor showed him how: "They're hiding behind folk that aren't so conservative," Perdue told the crowd at the next stop.

Win or lose, Sonny wins on the gay marriage amendment

Curiously, gay marriage was never mentioned from the stump Thursday. But in the RV, it came up in the course of general conversation. That a court challenge almost certainly awaits the amendment on the other side of Tuesday. And that the state Supreme Court could toss the amendment aside.

The prospect brought a faint smile to the governor's lips. A reworked anti-gay marriage amendment couldn't come back until November '06, when Sonny Perdue would be running for re-election.

Suddenly, Republicans are picturing Isakson in a top hat and long coat-tails

Given the surge in voter registration, and the crush of advance voting — thought to be of slight advantage to Democrats — Republicans are acknowledging that President Bush might not get the 55 percent of the Georgia vote that he achieved in 2000.

Many, in fact, are holding out the possibility that Isakson could top Bush in the vote count on Tuesday. Isakson didn't blanch at the prospect.

"I'd be honored," he said.

An argument for the death penalty in cases of extreme bad taste

Off the GOP bus tour, everyone in Macon is talking about the anonymous flier slamming President Bush at the expense of the disabled.

The flier shows Bush's face pasted on the body of a running child, with the caption: "Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win you're still retarded."

Republicans are blaming Democrats. Democrats are charging that it's an obvious piece of disinformation distributed by the GOP, the Macon Telegraph reported Thursday.

The newspaper said a similar flier surfaced two weeks ago in Tennessee. Its origins there remain a mystery. There, as in Macon, each party blamed the other.