Meanwhile, Republicans are doing their best to make sure this ends up as more than a war of Democratic aggression. Both parties have begun diverting significant resources, including some big names, to the peach state. John McCain and Mike Huckabee have already stumped for Chambliss. Bill Clinton is putting his weight behind Martin. And Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Al Gore are on their way, as are a host of Obama campaign operatives. The Republican National Committee has committed 2 million dollars to helping the Chambliss campaign, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee has begun airing ads that claim Martin helped create the biggest tax hike in Georgia history.

The run-off was mandated by Georgia election rules, which say that a candidate needs to receive a majority of the vote in order to be elected. On Nov. 4th, Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley kept both Chambliss and Martin from hitting the 50 percent plus one mark. Buckley — who will not be on the ballot this time around — is embracing his spoiler status and showing, as they say in Georgia, a bit of chutzpah. He’s has now said that in order to receive his endorsement Chambliss and Martin would have to sign on to a lengthy statement of principles. Neither is likely to do so.

Update: Due to an editing error, the original version of this post mistakenly identified Senator-elect Jeff Merkley as Gordon Merkley. Our apologies, and thanks, to the readers who pointed out the mistake.

So far it has been a mixed month for Jefferson. He rolled to an easy primary win on Nov. 4 (the vote was delayed on account of Hurricane Gustav) after his constituents showed a surprising willingness to forget about the whole bribery thing and that other time when he used the National Guard to help rescue his belongings during Katrina.

Tougher times lie ahead, though. Jefferson is hitting the campaign trail and his court date is scheduled for shortly after the Dec. 6 election. If he wins the election, he will get two more years in Congress. If he loses the trial, he could be sentenced to 235 years in prison.

After the parade Biden and Christine O’Connell, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged him in this year’s race for his Senate seat, took part in the “Burial of the Tomahawk,” a delightfully literal-minded ceremony in which a hatchet is, well, buried. Then a town crier read the election results to the assembled crowd and everyone ate ox roast sandwiches (exactly what they sound like).

ABC News reported that the Return Day crowd was unusually large, and mildly annoyed about the security measures being taken to protect the  vice president-elect and the bad weather. Undaunted by the rain, Biden was his normal effusive self.

“It’s been an honor representing you, and thank you,” he told the crowd. “I’m still at this moment and continue to be Senator Joe Biden, the proudest title I’ve ever had, representing the state of Delaware. I love you, thank you very, very, very, very much.”

The Delawareans cheered.

“Feels good,” he said. “It feels good to be home.”

It probably did.

From Edgewood, Kentucky:

Voting here went pretty smoothly this morning. My sister took her five year-old daughter so that she could take part in this historic election. There was a Kids Vote booth and the polling station, and my niece was very excited to tell me about how she got to vote for Barack Obama, then she went back to singing her “O-O-O-Obamaaaaaa” song. While KY will still almost undoubtedly go to McCain, but there was a larger than average Democratic presence, which hopefully translates into a bad day for Mitch McConnel.

I work in Cincinnati and I was struck by a couple of things on my way to the office. I passed two polling stations, and they both had full parking lots at 10:00am. I also passed two vans that were being used to help get voters to the polls, one was full and en route, the other was being filled by two older ladies in Obama shirts going door to door.

While I am definitely hoping that Obama wins, I am still absolutely amazed and excited by to see the people of our country getting so involved.

From Cobb County, Georgia:

I voted at my precinct in my very republican county this morning at about 11:00 a.m. There was no line, no wait, nada. This was one of 7 sites open in the county for early voting last week. I drove past it last Friday thinking that, perhaps on the afternoon of Halloween the line would be short. It wrapped around the parking lot like one of those terrible Atlanta airport security checkpoint lines. So I waited to vote until today. It was a breeze. What to make of it? I don’t know. Perhaps the Republicans are staying home despite a hotly contested US Senate election.

From Ivan Shreve in Athens, Georgia

Just thought I’d drop a quick line and say that a pair of Obama workers were just showed up at my front door ten minutes ago. A young woman asked me if I had voted yet and I replied, “Yes, I voted last Wednesday.” Since she was wearing an Obama apparel, I told her that I’d voted for the man on the front of your shirt.

There was a male volunteer with her who asked me about an individual on his voters list and I told him that she no longer lived at the address. But I was positively gobsmacked to see the level of the campaign’s “ground game”–right at my front door. I’ve got a good feeling about tonight.

From Hamburg, Germany:

We cannot vote here in Germany but today all over Europe and the rest of the world a lot of people are anxiously looking to the US. Will Obama make it? While most of us think he is ahead, there are nagging doubts. Will the Republicans in some way pull off a last minute stunt that will guarantee an electoral college majority for McCain?

We have a hard time understanding the high obstacles for voting in your elections. Is today normal workday? We vote on Sundays. Why are waiting lines as long as those in third world countries? This is strange for us. Why is it that you have actively to register to vote?

We are well aware that American presidents have a high impact on our life – you bet Dubya did. Thus, we feel somewhat powerless. The only certainty over here is that we feel uncertain..

From Chesterfield County VA:

I live in the Salem Church precinct and my husband and I went to the polls this morning at 5:40. Even though the polls weren’t opening until 6:00, there were people in line already and parking was a BIT of a challenge.

When the polls opened at the line went quickly. A voting official said that the computers to validate IDs had some issues at first but that technicians fixed the problem immediately. One of the officials was walking around saying’ “Good Morning and welcome to America.” That was cool. Folks seemed very excited and willing to wait — also cool!

We voted and were numbers 249 and 250 to cast our ballots. There were hundreds behind. We were home by 7:00.

From Northern Georgia:

Today is unseasonably warm in Deep Red North Georgia, so I had my convertible top down as I drove the hour of backroads between my home in Big Canoe and the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta where I work.

Traffic around the three polling stations I passed was heavy enough that I had to slow down and got to see what was going o.

At 6:45am, the first station (Ball Ground, GA) was jammed; the sizeable

parking lot was packed and volunteers had been deployed to redirect peopleto ad-hoc overflow parking. Further down the road, 7:02am, a repeat. A larger parking lot, also overflown.

I got to count stickers on the parked and parking cars; a little

over half McCain-Palin, the rest Obama. In line, waiting voters were

talking and laughing, friendly with each other; I couldn’t hear what theywere saying but you could make an educated guess about who was supporting who, and this didn’t seem to be producing any friction.

Third stop, 7:18am. Traffic stopped dead as volunteers try to find spots for the fleet of incoming pick-em-up trucks. People standing outside talking loud on their cell phones, plenty of laughter. Lots of exchanges between people who body language says don’t know each other, fashion analysis says probably didn’t vote the same way. Enthusiasm and energy, but not too many signs of frustration with the process or enmity about differing choices.

A few years ago, a school teacher I know had to abandon her efforts to

organize a local chapter of North Georgia Democrats due to death threats, vandalism and such. There was no sign of that kind of thing here today, which is probably the best news there is. Despite the bare knuckles that flew in this election, it may be that we’ll actually come together as a country after all, even up in these hills.

From North Carolina:

I was working at a voting station when this older African-American woman came up to me. She asked for some help. She didn’t know the name of the man she wanted to vote for, but she could describe him.

She said he was a “light skinned guy”.

“You mean Barack Obama?” I asked.

“Yes! That’s him!”