Conservative blogger mulls challenge to Sen. Chambliss

Influential conservative commentator Erick Erickson said on his radio show Tuesday he’s considering a primary challenge to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, after the Georgia Republican made dismissive comments about his pledge never to raise taxes under any circumstances.

“For a week now I’ve been getting calls to see if I would challenge Saxby Chambliss once he really got into the whole raising taxes issue,” Erickson said, according to The Georgia Tipsheeet political blog. “Well, the pace quickened. I got a lot of people pledging a lot of money in the last couple of days if I did something like this. And I’ve been very adamant I wasn’t going to do it, but after a few conversations today with a few heavy hitters in Washington, D.C., and some here in Georgia, I should at least consider it.”

Chambliss is one of a handful of Republicans who have backed away from the anti-tax pledge they signed with conservative activist Grover Norquist. Last week, Chambliss told local Georgia television station 13WMAZ that addressing the nation’s looming “fiscal cliff” took precedence over honoring the pledge.

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” he said. “If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.”

Chambliss later took to Twitter to say he was “in favor of significant tax reform to lower tax rates and generate additional revenue through job growth,” but acknowledged in the 13WMAZ interview he expected that Norquist and other conservatives might hold his decision against him when he is up for reelection in 2014.

Erickson, who lives in Macon, Ga., is a CNN political contributor and editor of the conservative blog at RedState.com.

“I had been rather dismissive of it, but in the past two days have been approached by several organizations and individuals I greatly respect who have asked me to really consider it,” Erickson told CNN on Tuesday. “I owe them that and will consider it, but am not prepared to commit to it. I have plenty of time to think about it.”

Erickson said he’s had Chambliss in his sights for a while.

“Back in December of 2008, I wrote that Chambliss found himself in a runoff because he sided with every bad compromise from immigration to energy to the farm bill to the bailouts. Conservatives supported him because we knew he was what stood between America and 60 Democrats in the Senate. But he never learned his lesson and continues to support all the compromises that have gotten us into this mess in the first place,” he told CNN. “Whether it is me or someone else, conservatives should make beating Saxby Chambliss their chief cause in primary season 2014,” he said.

On Tuesday, Erickson tweeted about what he’d do as a senator.

If I were a senator I'd object to every UC, until Obamacare was repealed. Shut down the Senate lest they shut down America

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson)

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