Saxby Chambliss (BBA '66) came from more than 20 points down in the polls to win election to the U.S. Senate. But the first-term Republican is no freshman when it comes to political influence

B Y - K R I S T A - R E E S E - (M A '8 0)
P H O T O S - B Y - D E N N I S - B R A C K

n a small, marble balcony inside the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, Saxby Chambliss, the newly elected Republican senator from Georgia, is being fitted with an earpiece and microphone prior to a live appearance on CNN in which he will discuss the war in Iraq. Beside him, ready to present the Democratic perspective, is New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman. It will be a short interview, owing to Chambliss' ultra-tight schedule, which is plotted down to the minute, stretching from an early-morning prayer breakfast to a fund-raising dinner. As the senators ready themselves to comment on the search for weapons of mass destruction, breaking news crawls across the bottom of the screen: Arabic translators at Guantanamo Bay have been detained, and will later be arrested, on suspicion of espionage. The interview focus instantly shifts and, seconds later, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asks the two men: Is this evidence that Al-Qaeda operatives have made their way into a U.S. Army base?

In his deliberate, South Georgia drawl, Chambliss (BBA '66) defends the administration's progress on homeland security with his trademark unruffled calm: "I don't think Americans should be surprised that Al-Qaeda has tried to infiltrate an American military base. But is this evidence of that? I can't say. I'm just pleased to say the system is working."

Chambliss' steady nerves and unwavering support of President Bush make him a regular on CNN, Fox News, and the BBC, among others. The same steadfast quality may have helped him prevail in a series of pre-election debates with incumbent Max Cleland that helped bring about Chambliss' surprise, come-from-behind victory in the '02 Senate race. Elected four times to the House of Representatives before coming to the Senate, Chambliss has already earned coveted appointments on the Senate Select Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

"His committee assignments are the best I've ever seen for any freshman senator," says his Georgia senatorial colleague, Sen. Zell Miller. "He's doing a great job." Miller (AB '57, MA '58) is a Democrat, but he and Chambliss have consistently voted the same way and co-sponsored several bills, including one that grants posthumous citizenship to immigrant soldiers killed in action—which passed by unanimous consent.

In his first year in the Senate, Chambliss seems to have already acquired an elusive Washington quality: Gravitas, that elder-statesman aura of wisdom and authority. But there's another, more approachable, Saxby Chambliss who is revealed in the way his entire staff calls him by his first name. Colleagues feel equally familiar. He's in the Senate hallways striding from meeting to meeting: "Hey, Saxby, you going to that hearing?" calls Montana Sen. Conrad Burns. "I've got somewhere I've gotta be," Chambliss replies. "Oh, so your wife is in town?" Burns says, and they both laugh. As he leaves, Burns slaps him on the back: "Go get 'em, Saxby."

iding on the senators-and-staffers-only train between the Senate and the Capitol with former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, the two men spar over which of their college fraternities, Sigma Chi (Chambliss) or Sigma Nu (Lott) now has the majority in Congress. "We used to have the majority before Saxby came in," Lott laments. "But now the Sigma Chis are taking over. They're like fleas." Chambliss chortles. Another time, he poses for a photograph after a reporter has repeatedly challenged him on his stand on weapons of mass destruction. "Did you know . . . " he says to his aides through a perfectly poised smile as the reporter snaps the photo, " . . . that she's a Communist!"

In short, he hasn't lost his inner Saxby, never has strayed far from "the best years of my life," as he terms his University of Georgia years. Many of his closest friends today are Sigma Chi fraternity brothers and UGA classmates like Richard Stephens (BBA '66) who remember him as "a carrot-top with a buzz cut." Back then, he was just a shy preacher's kid who drank beer at Allen's in Normaltown and danced to James Brown and the Supremes when they played for fraternity bashes. Later, he would evolve into a sophisticated and accomplished man of the world.

UGA is where Chambliss met his future wife, Julianne Frohbert (BSEd '67), then a Phi Mu pledge studying elementary education. Now married more than 30 years, in some ways the couple's social life still revolves around Georgia football games and friends from college ("I've had the same season tickets for 25 years," says Chambliss). Julianne says their fraternity and sorority connections helped propel her husband into the Senate. At a pre-election sorority gathering, she told the group, "I'm your sister, and Saxby is your brother-in-law!" Fraternity brothers like Macon lawyer Jerry Harrell (AB '66) and Georgia-Pacific CEO Pete Correll (BBA '63) introduced him to groups around the state. At one of three critical stops President Bush made for the Chambliss campaign in Georgia, he told the crowd, "Saxby told me to keep this short because the Dogs are playing!" The throng woof-woof-woofed its approval.

Chambliss' election victory stunned prognosticators. His vigorous stumping to overcome an early 20-plus point polling deficit dropped more than a pound per point from Chambliss' slender frame. Political analysts pointed to a combination of factors that led to an historic Republican rout, which also landed another UGA husband-and-wife team, Sonny Perdue (DVM '71) and Mary Ann Ruff Perdue (BSEd '72), in the governor's mansion. It was the first time the GOP had triumphed in the Georgia gubernatorial race since Reconstruction. UGA political scientist Charles Bullock says Cleland was vulnerable because the Democratic Party seemed more liberal than Georgia voters. "If he had been more of a Sam Nunn, he might have survived," says Bullock of the moderate ex-senator Chambliss often cites as a role model. The Chambliss campaign ran a series of controversial ads criticizing Cleland's reluctant support of Bush's homeland security bill. "Cleland had the first opportunity to define himself, and he didn't," says Bullock. "He didn't even respond on his own behalf. Zell Miller did."

Chambliss also capitalized on Cleland's vulnerability in a series of debates in which the challenger "looked senatorial," according to Bullock. "He had command of the issues. People trusted him, and felt comfortable with him."

President Bush's overwhelming popularity among Georgia voters also helped on those campaign stops. Today, Saxby's office sports a photo of him and the president on the golf course. Chambliss' relationship with Bush also may have helped bring next year's G8 Summit to Sea Island. The diplomatic gathering of world leaders is expected to produce record revenues for the Georgia coast. "He's never been there before," says Chambliss of the president. "His daddy went there for his honeymoon. But he's going to go now."

Chambliss is equally down-to-earth in assessing his own strengths: "The one thing I bring to the table is the perspective of being a real person, of doing the things normal Americans do: raising kids and going to church. I knew it would be extremely difficult," he says of his upset victory. "But in running against Cleland, for example, I knew my voting record was more in line with the way Georgians think."

rowing up the son of a minister was a great training ground for a politician," says Chambliss. "We moved five or six times. When I was in high school, we'd move during the summer. My older brother and I would have to find new friends without school being in session. When you expect that over and over, you learn the advantage of meeting people easily." He spent his first two years of college at Louisiana Tech before the Episcopal Church transfered his father to the south Georgia coastal town of Darien. When Chambliss entered UGA in the fall of 1963, it was a halcyon era for UGA fraternities, as his Sigma Chi brothers recall.

"It was a very simple, fun time," remembers Pete Correll.

"It was before the stresses of the Vietnam War, and before the Civil Rights struggles. UGA was constantly rated as one of the Top 10 party schools by Playboy, and we worked till all hours of the night to maintain that status."

But if "Animal House's" wild-and-crazy Deltas spring to mind, the Sigma Chis were more like the movie's clean-cut Omegas. "We were all from middle-class, working families, out to do better," says Correll. Besides Chambliss, Correll, and future congressman Johnny Isakson (BBA '66), the circle of friends included fraternity brother Bob McTeer (BBA '63, PhD '71), later president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, and SAE member Jimmy Blanchard (BBA '63, LLB '65), CEO of Synovus.

Julianne met Saxby when, as sweetheart of the Sigma Chi pledges, she was assigned to arrange for a gift from the Phi Mus to the fraternity house. "He had this beautiful auburn hair," she recalls over lunch at a stylish Washington restaurant near Capitol Hill. The couple dated for the rest of their school years together, observing the customs of the day. Julianne may have longed for a sorority candlelight ceremony for being lavaliered, pinned, or engaged, but says "Saxby wouldn't marry me until after I graduated. He still claims he found out we were getting married when he read the engagement announcement in the newspaper."

Julianne remembers him teasing her about when he might actually pop the question. "One night, we were at the Varsity, and he said he had something in the glovebox for me," she recalls. "The way he let on, I was sure it was an engagement ring. I started getting all flustered and worried. So he finally let me open it . . . it was a hamburger."

For all his pranks, Chambliss says "the most significant event of my life" wasn't being elected to the Senate, or traveling to the Mideast to deliver the administration's messages to warring heads of state, but meeting Julianne. He credits her with steering him back to studying in college, and he knew that "no matter how late we were up Saturday night, we'd go to church on Sunday." Apart from their solid marriage, Julianne has proven to be one of his strongest assets on the campaign trail. "I'm not political," she says, "but I love campaigning!"

After Chambliss finished law school at UT-Chattanooga, they married and settled in Moultrie, near Julianne's hometown of Thomasville. She taught elementary school for the next 26 years, while her husband practiced business and tax law. With their son in college and daughter nearing completion of high school, Chambliss was approached about entering a local Republican primary. He lost that first race, but eventually won four terms to Congress. By then, he'd earned plum appointments with the House Select Intelligence Committee, which would later smooth the way to top Senate assignments. He has established himself as a friend of Georgia's military bases, working with community groups to prevent some slated closures. He is also a proponent of business-friendly tax and deregulation legislation.

In 2001, redistricting moved Chambliss' hometown of Moultrie into the territory of Republican Congressman Jack Kingston (AB '78) of Savannah. And so he began seeking the advice of conservatives who'd shaped the GOP revolutions of the post-Reagan years, including Newt Gingrich and Sen. Bill Frist, now majority leader. Frist "encouraged me to run" for the Senate, says Chambliss, "but he told me to wait until I was ready. Later, he told me, 'When you finally decided to run, you had the fire in your belly.' It's the same advice I'd give to anyone who wants to get into politics. If your heart's not in it, you'll lose. And when you decide, surround yourself with good people." Young people who are interested in getting into politics, he says, should: "Read the newspaper. Get a job. Meet a payroll. Start a family. Be a part of your community."

In the years since his election, Chambliss has maintained close ties to UGA, with nearly a dozen alums serving on his staff. While still in the House, he brought in a UGA agriculture intern each year, a program so popular that six other congressman now do the same. His first ag intern, Christy Seyfert (BSA '98), was "a farmer's daughter from Brooklet, Georgia," she says. "I never thought I would have the desire or the opportunity to work in Washington. The internship opened my eyes to the policymaking process." After her internship, she joined Saxby's staff, serving as subcommittee staff director. After five years in Washington, she's now deputy chief of staff for Congressman Max Burns, who represents Athens and her hometown.

nvited to the UGA campus in October to give the keynote address at the 2003 Richard B. Russell Symposium, which was devoted to homeland security, Chambliss began his remarks by thanking his alma mater for its efforts in that regard, including ag-related initiatives designed to thwart bio-terrorism (see "The science of food").

Then, as he has many times before on network newscasts, Chambliss addressed the most controversial issue plaguing the Bush administration: "Iraq has been known to possess weapons of mass destruction for years. We knew going into the Gulf War that, only three years before, the then-ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, had used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds. We knew also in the Iran-Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction to kill Iranians. Now we're finding that he used those weapons of mass destruction to kill his own people. We're unearthing mass graves on a regular basis."

With Sam Nunn and other noted Russell Symposium panelists in the audience, Chambliss shared some of what he learned from reading a recent report on Iraq filed by former U.N. arms investigator David Kaye, whose discoveries include "a clandestine network of labs and safe houses containing WMD-related equipment, a prison lab complex possibly used for human BW [biological weapon] experiments, reference BW strains found in a scientist's home. . . ."

The deeper into Kaye's report Chambliss goes, the more complicated the nomenclature gets. But after a decade of service on Congressional intelligence committees, killer toxins such as "Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever" roll off Chambliss' tongue as though he were a biochemist. It's a long way for a preacher's kid from south Georgia to have traveled. But in these troubled times, it's all in a senator's day's work.

Back to Top . Up Front . Features . Back Issues . Alumni Profiles . Class Notes . Contact Us . Search . Subscribe . Links . UGA Today . HOME