Since getting elected to Congress, John Barrow and Jim Marshall have worn GOP targets on their backs.

This year Democrats are shooting at them, too.

It's an awkward position for the two downstate Georgia Democrats.

In past elections, Barrow and Marshall thwarted strong, well- funded GOP challengers by touting their conservative credentials and distancing themselves from the national Democratic Party.

Now Barrow and Marshall must convince a majority of Democratic primary voters that they aren't turncoats.

They're going about it in strikingly different ways.

Barrow, who represents the 12th Congressional District in east Georgia, is actively campaigning for the July 15 primary election. The Savannah Democrat is burning shoe leather, spending a significant amount of campaign cash on the primary contest, and he has faced off with his opponent, state Sen. Regina Thomas (D-Savannah), at public debates.

Barrow has also closely aligned himself with Barack Obama. He endorsed Obama months before the Democratic presidential candidate won enough delegates to clinch the nomination. Obama returned the favor.

"We're going to need John Barrow back in Congress to help change Washington and get our country back on track," Obama said in a 60-second radio ad he recorded for the Georgia congressman.

Marshall, on the other hand, has virtually ignored his primary opponent, Robert Nowak. The Bibb County Democrat is keeping a lid on campaign spending for the 8th District congressional primary election to help ensure he'll have enough money to withstand another stiff challenge from the GOP.

Steering clear of Obama

The 8th District incumbent also appears to be putting as much distance as possible between himself and Obama, and he is even considering skipping the party's national convention next month in Denver.

"If the outcome is a foregone conclusion, as it appears right now, there may be no need for me to go," Marshall said during a recent interview. "I certainly have a great deal to do with my job, my family and my own race."

Political experts say Barrow and Marshall appear to be making the right moves politically.

"Marshall is doing the right thing by ignoring Nowak and not attaching himself to Obama," said J. Christopher Grant, a Mercer University political science professor. "What Marshall is mostly afraid of is getting tagged as a liberal. That's the only way he gets beat."

Grant said Marshall can afford to ignore Nowak. Nowak, a Houston County public school teacher with no previous political experience, has neither the clout nor the money to mobilize the Democratic Party base, Grant said.

"As a white liberal, Nowak isn't going to do much to mobilize black voters in central Georgia," Grant said. Barrow and Marshall are both white.

The two congressional districts share similar characteristics, but there are key differences.

Less than a third of Marshall's district electorate is African-American. In Barrow's district, four of every 10 voters are black.

Marshall's district also leans more Republican than Barrow's. In the 2004 presidential race, the 8th District went for President Bush; the 12th District sided with John Kerry.

In the Feb. 5 GOP and Democratic presidential primary elections, the split between Republicans and Democrats was roughly even in the 8th District, while 60 percent of the total votes cast in the 12th District were Democratic.

Political experts say that explains why Marshall must work harder to appeal to Republican voters than Barrow, and in part, why Barrow can't ignore Thomas, who is African-American.

Black voters and Barrow

Jessica Johnson, a Savannah beauty supply store employee, hasn't decided whom she's going to vote for. But she said Obama's endorsement of Barrow will help the incumbent among other black voters.

"It should help him a lot," Johnson said. "I thought it was very honorable for Barrow. If Obama is willing to endorse him, that says a lot about Barrow."

Another African-American voter from Savannah, F.D. Fletcher, said Barrow's conservatism "is his Achilles' heel, if he has one."

"The more you start talking conservative, the more you have to talk about [President] Bush," Fletcher said during a short interview outside the church he attends, Asbury United Methodist.

"I know based on my experience and based on my socioeconomic situation, I don't identify with someone who talks about how conservative he is or how much he agrees with Bush," said Fletcher, who is a conductor for CSX Railroad.

The National Journal in March ranked Barrow the third-most-conservative Democrat in the U.S. House. Marshall ranked No. 1 on that list. By contrast, the Journal ranked Obama as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.

Barrow insisted his support for Obama doesn't mean he's turning to the left politically.

"My support of [Obama] and his support of me is reflected in the fact that we're trying to focus on the things that we agree on," Barrow said. "I disagree with Senator Obama on some things. He disagrees with me on some things.

"But he's trying to get the economy to work for the middle class again," Barrow said. "And so am I."

Despite the Obama endorsement, left-wing groups and liberal Democrats have continued to attack Barrow's voting record, as well as Marshall's.

Earlier this year, OpenLeft.com, a political blog, put Barrow and Marshall on its list of "Bush Dog Democrats."

Marshall, according to OpenLeft, "has one of the most reactionary records —- across the board —- of any member of the House Democratic caucus."

The blog accused Barrow of "undercutting Democrats and the Democratic message."

Last September, Marshall infuriated left-leaning Democrats when he voted against a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Marshall was the only U.S. House Democrat to do so. Georgia's seven GOP congressmen and two Republican senators also voted against the measure. Bush vetoed it.

SCHIP provides most of the money for the federal-state program in Georgia called PeachCare, which provides health insurance for children who live above the poverty level but whose families have trouble affording private health insurance.

On their Web sites and at public appearances, Nowak and Thomas have attacked the incumbent opponents for, among other things, their support of the Iraq war and legislation to expand the federal government's power to obtain wiretaps without a warrant. They also criticized the incumbents for opposing legislation barring discrimination in the workplace.

Nowak has called Marshall "a political transvestite." Thomas says Barrow isn't "a true Democrat."

Sylvia Thompson, a Macon Democrat, says she has consistently voted for Marshall and probably will again. But she said she'd be willing to consider another candidate who had the resources to run a credible campaign against Marshall.

"Anybody who voted for that war ought to be kicked out," said Thompson, 72.

Many political experts still consider the incumbents to be odds-on favorites to win re-election. University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock bases his prediction, in part, on a discontented electorate. Recent polls have shown that 80 percent of U.S. voters think the country is on the wrong track, and Republican and Democratic strategists alike have said that's bad news for the GOP.

But Bullock said he also thinks Marshall and Barrow will win because their Republican challengers this year don't have the same political stature as previous opponents. None of the Republicans challenging Barrow and Marshall has ever held elected office. Bullock considers that to be a sign that the national GOP has backed away from mounting a full-scale assault on the Democratic incumbents this year

Defeating Republicans

In 2006, Republican Max Burns ran against Barrow, and Republican Mac Collins challenged Marshall. Both GOP challengers were former congressman trying to get their old seats back. That year, the national GOP spent more than $1 million on the Burns and Collins campaigns combined. The party enlisted Bush to come to Georgia two times in the final three weeks of the election to rally Republicans voters in their districts. Yet Marshall and Barrow prevailed.

Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney was the featured guest at a Macon fund-raiser for Marshall's Republican challenger, Rick Goddard of Warner Robins. Goddard is a retired Air Force officer.

Barrow's opponents include John Stone, a former spokesman for Burns and the late U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), Ben Crystal, an associate marketing director and former radio talk show host, and businessman Ray McKinney. Crystal and McKinney are from Savannah.

National Democrats still consider the two districts at risk. For the second straight election, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has included Marshall and Barrow on its Frontline Democrats list of the party's endangered U.S. House members.

However, some south Georgia Republicans say they are resigned to Barrow and Marshall winning again this year.

"We're still for Max Burns but he's not running this time," Benny Bowen, an Emanuel County rancher, said during a late Sunday lunch at a Statesboro Krystal with his wife, Cricket.

"We're voting for Stone, but I'm looking to that not being a close vote."

Marshall said he hopes the GOP is too busy putting out fires elsewhere to bother him this time.

"With as many seats open around the country, as many viable Democrats challenging incumbent Republicans across the country, I'm hoping [Republicans] aren't going to be putting in the same resources as last time," Marshall said.

"But I'm expecting it might happen," Marshall said. "And I'm prepared for it."

 Staff 
Map of Georgia locates the 8th Congressional District and the 12th Congressional District in relation to Atlanta.
Source: Carl Vinson Institute of Government