Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) is at the intersection of farm bill politics, trying to accommodate his fellow Republicans on the committee, a stubborn White House, a reluctant presumptive presidential nominee and the Democrats who control Congress.

And then there are the hundreds of thousands of people watching Chambliss very closely back home, where the first-term senator faces his first Senate reelection contest this fall. Georgia is home to 49,000 farms that span 10.5 million acres, and the farming industry accounts for $34.5 billion in economic activity in the Peach State — and provides jobs for 366,000 people, all according to 2006 data from the University of Georgia.

“This is the hardest conference I’ve ever been involved in,” said Chambliss, who spent eight years in the House before his 2002 Senate election. “The difficulty as ranking member on any committee, and particularly here, is that I do have to represent the opinions of all the folks on my side of the aisle.”

The Senate on Thursday granted a little breathing room, passing an extension until May 16, but Chambliss’s problems are still numerous. Not only is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the GOP’s standard-bearer for president, leaning against supporting the bill, but Bush has long threatened a veto. The president this week called the bill “massive” and “bloated” and said he opposes the size and structure of subsidy payments to farmers.

Subsidy payments to farmers who earn more than $500,000 are particularly abhorrent to the White House. Bush last year vetoed a children’s healthcare bill that would have benefited families that earn less.

Yet Democrats and Republicans alike say Chambliss is the right point man. A 26-year lawyer for rural co-ops in southeastern Georgia — home to some of the state’s most fertile acreage of peanuts and cotton, colleagues say it was no accident that Chambliss pulled off the rare feat of becoming chairman of the Republican-led Agriculture Committee while a freshman senator.

“With all the moving parts of a farm bill, it’s amazing you get any of them passed. This year, if there is a farm bill, it will be due to his efforts above all others,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an Agriculture Committee member. “You’ll hear that echoed by every member of the Senate who’s been following this.”

Farm bill politics have always been among the most unusual issues on Capitol Hill because the philosophical differences usually break along regional lines instead of partisan divides.

Bush is perhaps the biggest of Chambliss’s many problems. Chambliss said the president dislikes several other components of the bill, most notably provisions on labor and food aid.

Chambliss claimed that all of the president’s main points have been addressed, and that Bush on Thursday seemed open to a final compromise.

“Philosophically, obviously he’s got some issues he wants us to address,” Chambliss said. “He did not mention a veto. He wants a bill he can sign.”

Chambliss’s partner has been Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), an Agriculture Committee member who chairs the Budget Committee and whom Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took the unusual step of tapping this spring to take a lead role in the bill’s stalled negotiations — bypassing Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

Conrad salutes Chambliss for “exceptional work” but agrees the task has been unusually tough.

“I’m in my 22nd year here, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Many senators say the unusual Republican divide this year over the farm bill is due to the same old issue of regionalism: The Bush family hails from Connecticut and Texas, for example, and McCain is from Arizona, while only Republicans from truly agricultural states can truly appreciate the impact of policies on people.

“If he gets caught between the president and McCain and his people, he’s got to go with his people and he is going with his people,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who sits on the Agriculture Committee. “I don’t know if he’s got so much of a problem getting a bill through the Democratic Congress as much as he’s got a problem getting a bill by the White House.”

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a former Agriculture Committee member, echoed Grassley but predicted McCain will eventually convert.

“John’s going to be with us,” Craig said. “But on agriculture, if I’m going to listen to a senator or a national leader on agriculture policy, I’m going to listen to Saxby Chambliss before I’ll listen to the president or John McCain.”

Chambliss also has his own political fate to consider. Friday is Georgia’s filing deadline period and four Democrats are vying to take on Chambliss: investigative reporter Dale Cardwell, business consultant Rand Knight, DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones and attorney Jim Martin, an unsuccessful 2006 candidate for lieutenant governor. National Democrats have touted Martin.

Yet Chambliss does not have a Republican primary opponent and is favored to win back his seat.

The 64-year-old Republican said he has reached out to McCain several times, but has also told the Arizona senator to focus on his presidential bid and leave the farm bill details to him. McCain, he said, has “not been engaged.”

“I’ve told him he needs to be out there campaigning and let us who are here work on major legislation like the farm bill,” Chambliss said. “We are trying to find common ground between his position — which is longstanding, much longer than mine — and where I come from, particularly from a political standpoint, where the voters in ag country come from. Those are historically red states, and John needs those voters.”