Which Six-Term Congressman Was Turned Away When He Tried to Vote?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Southern Discomfort

A radio ad for the chairman of the Fulton County Commission in Atlanta is using some heavy hitters to warn of dire consequences if Republican Lee Morris defeats Democrat John Eaves. Georgia Congressman John Lewis says "you think fighting off dogs and water hoses in the sixties was bad?" Former Atlanta mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young says Republicans would "turn back the clock on equal rights." And the current Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin says the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders would be lost.

But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — which has a reputation as pro-Democrat and left-leaning — has endorsed the Republican Morris — saying his political and professional experience give him the edge over Eaves.

Race Not a Factor

Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama — who is African-American — last week campaigned for Maryland Senate candidate Ben Cardin — who is white. Obama urged voters not to let race lead them to cast ballots for Cardin's African-American opponent — Republican Michael Steele. Said Obama, “you don't vote for somebody because of what they look like."

But on Sunday Obama campaigned for Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. — who is black. Obama urged congregations at two black churches to vote for Ford, saying: "I'm feeling lonely in Washington."

Sight for Sore Eyes

South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford was able to see well enough to get to the polls today — but he couldn't get in. Sanford — who is running for a second term — burned his eyes under bright stage lights on Sunday. Today he forgot his voter registration card and was turned away at his polling place.

He came back later and voted.

License Rejected

Six-term Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Chabot found out how seriously poll workers are taking the state's new voter ID law when he had his driver's license rejected as ID because it had his business address on it. So Chabot went home and came back with a bank statement and a social security statement — and was allowed to vote.

Said a sheepish Chabot — "I guess this just shows the poll workers are really doing their job."

Dems Will Win

And Richard Armitage, the man who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA status to the press and then let others take the blame for it in the press, is now saying that Democrats will win the House and perhaps the Senate. And he says, approvingly, that this will mean increased oversight of the Bush administration.

In a speech in Canberra, Australia, Armitage said: "The message I think from the electorate is that fear doesn't work. You've got to go back to what is traditionally ours...to those things that made us important in the eyes of the world." He added that after 9/11 America was "exporting our anger and our fear" and that the U.S. needs to now export "hope, opportunity and inspiration."

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.