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ATLANTA — In a year when the battle for the White House has pumped up political passions, Georgia’s five-man race for the chance to challenge Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss has been a sleeper.

The race has pitted the CEO of one of Georgia’s biggest counties and a former state lawmaker against three political newcomers who jokingly refer to themselves as the “three amigos.” The crowded Democratic primary field lacks a real front-runner and unifying message, and has generated little noticeable enthusiasm from rank-and-file Georgia Democrats.

And despite speculation that Barack Obama’s history-making presidential quest could drive a large number of Georgia’s heavily Democratic black voters to the polls, Chambliss has the power of incumbency and a $4 million in his campaign war chest.

Former state Rep. Jim Martin, 62, entered the race late and drew the ire of his opponents when he said he’s running because none of the other Democrats could defeat Chambliss. But critics point to his failed 2006 bid for lieutenant governor as evidence that he can’t win statewide.

Vernon Jones, 46, CEO of DeKalb County, has won praise for preserving greenspace, but critics say his personal foibles over the years have overshadowed his accomplishments. Among them: An incident in 1987 when he allegedly waved a gun at a woman; a 2004 allegation that he pushed a DeKalb County commissioner after a budget dispute; and a 2004 accusation of rape by a woman who did not pursue the case. No charges were filed. Jones calls himself a conservative Democrat, but his votes for President Bush in 2000 and 2004 might rankle some primary voters.

The other candidates are Dale Cardwell, 45, a former investigative reporter with WSB-TV in Atlanta; Rand Knight, 36, a former ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service and a private sector environmental scientist who now works in national security technology; and Josh Lanier, 55, who served as a congressional aide and later worked for a number of trade and nonprofit associations.

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WASHINGTON — Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is shooting down media reports that he’s decided to run for Senate.

National Public Radio on Wednesday reported that Ventura says he’s running for the seat, quoting him as saying “I run” because of Senator Norm Coleman’s support for the Iraq war. But Ventura tells The Associated Press he had been speaking hypothetically.

Ventura says in responding to the NPR reporter’s question about why he would run, “I gave him the reasons why I would run. But I said ultimately, it will come down to whether I want to change my lifestyle and go to that lifestyle or not.”

ABC News followed up with a blog item headlined, “Jesse Ventura To Run for Senate,” citing the NPR report.

Ventura says bluntly that no one knows whether he will run — not even his wife. He says the decision won’t be made until next Tuesday, the filing deadline.

Al Franken, who is running for U. S. Senate in Minnesota, addresses delegates at the Democratic Party's state convention in Rochester, Minn., in June. (AP Photo)

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WASHINGTON — Moving from celebrity to senator isn’t exactly an untraveled path. But that doesn’t mean comedian Al Franken, who is vying for a Senate seat in Minnesota, will coast to Capitol Hill on a wide, smooth road.

Franken, a Democrat, best-selling author and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, once penned a racy piece for Playboy that has offended the Midwestern sensibilities of some Minnesotans. It is that history as a satirist and comedian, Franken says, that puts him “in a little uncharted territory” as he tries to woo voters.

At his nomination speech a few weeks ago, Franken acknowledged that some of his past writings and comments were “downright offensive.”

“There were some things that I said that gave some people reason to believe I wouldn’t fight for all Minnesotans, specifically for women,” Franken said in a telephone interview. “I said I was sorry for that, ’cause that’s not who I am.”

If he can overcome his past, colorful commentary, Franken would join a long list of entertainers who have found a second or third career in elected office, most notably former President Reagan. They include:

–Helen Gahagan Douglas, a 1930s actress and opera singer who was a Democratic congresswoman before losing the 1950 California Senate race to Richard Nixon in a landslide. In that race, the future president called her “pink right down to her underwear” and earned the nickname “Tricky Dick.”

–Tough-guy actor and director Clint Eastwood, who became mayor of Carmel, Calif.

–Fred Grandy, Gopher on the TV show “The Love Boat,” who became a Republican congressman from Iowa.

–Sonny Bono, of “Sonny and Cher” fame, a Republican who became mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., and then a California congressman.

–Ben Jones, who played the mechanic Cooter on the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” before winning a congressional seat from Georgia as a Democrat.

–Jesse Ventura, a professional wrestler and actor who served one term as Reform Party governor of Minnesota.

–Movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Republican governor of California.

–Song-and-dance actor George Murphy, a Republican senator from California in the 1960s.

–Fred Thompson, a congressional staffer who became an actor and then a Republican senator from Tennessee and presidential candidate.

Also, actor Sonny Landham, who appeared in “48 Hours” and “Predator,” is mounting a Libertarian challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Not all entertainers have been able to make the switch. In 1967, former child actress Shirley Temple Black, a California Republican, stressed to voters, “Little Shirley Temple is not running,” but lost the congressional election anyway. The little curly haired girl went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

Entertainment is good preparation for politics, said Rep. John Hall, a New York Democrat who had been frontman for the band Orleans (big hit “Still the One”).

“The advantage to being a performer is that I’ve always been the product — I’m used to getting up in front of people and selling myself and my ideas,” he said. “They may be musical or lyrical ideas, but they’re ideas nonetheless.”

But some of Franken’s writings are a little stronger than, say, “You’re still the one I want to talk to in bed,” and Franken’s Republican opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, has highlighted the “Porn-O-Rama!” column Franken wrote for Playboy in 2000.

“Eight years ago I was making the streets of St. Paul safer,” said Coleman, the city’s former mayor, “and he was writing porn.”

When Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966, his Democratic opponent, Gov. Pat Brown, also ridiculed Reagan’s past career.

“While we’ve been building a dynamic working society in California, he was off making such film epics as ‘Bedtime for Bonzo’ and ‘Tugboat Annie Sails Again,”‘ Brown said. But the strategy didn’t work; Reagan won in a landslide.

By the time Reagan mounted his first successful presidential bid in 1980, he was invoking “Bedtime for Bonzo” — which featured Reagan and a chimpanzee. Responding to hecklers at a campaign event, he said, “A little while ago they were calling out ‘Bonzo.’ They’d better be careful. Bonzo grew up to be King Kong.”

Reagan biographer Lou Cannon said Franken has a bigger credibility hurdle to clear than Reagan did.

“Franken is a comedian, who writes these outrageous lines and books,” he said. “Reagan had most recently been host of the very dignified GE Theater. I also think that Minnesota is a different political culture than California, which was welcoming to stars.”

Still, Franken wouldn’t be the first entertainer to win in Minnesota; the state elected Ventura governor in 1998.

Ventura said he was on a flight with Franken a couple of years ago and warned him: “If you have any ghosts in your closet, get ready, because they’re going to be splattered all over the front page of the world.”

“It’s a shame,” added Ventura, who says he’s considering running against Franken and Coleman as an independent. “Take my opinion on his Playboy article — it’s irrelevant. He was asked to do a job, he’s a writer, whatever it is he does. I more worry about how he will govern.”

Ventura said his own celebrity status had been a boon in the ‘98 campaign — “you’re already a household word, so you don’t have to purchase that.”

Grandy had a similar take. He said his previous career on “The Love Boat” was a “secret weapon,” because people thought it would be a disadvantage. In fact, it provided instant name recognition.

“It’s better to start with a negative impression than none at all, because you can always turn that around,” Grandy said.

He said he didn’t have much show business baggage, having been on a “fairly white bread show. There was really not much there that you could call salacious or controversial.”

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WASHINGTON — A watchdog group asked the Senate ethics investigators on Tuesday to look into whether Sen. Norm Coleman’s living arrangement on Capitol Hill violates the rules.

Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, has been living in the basement of a Capitol Hill town house owned by campaign consultant Jeff Larson for the past year. He missed a couple of rent payments until the magazine National Journal brought them to his attention. Coleman also paid one month’s rent by selling furniture to Larson.

Coleman has said he moved into the basement apartment — which he described as a tiny bedroom and bathroom — to cut down on expenses.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wants the Senate Ethics Committee to determine, among other things, whether the $600 monthly rent Coleman pays is fair market value and whether Coleman would have paid the missing rent checks had the magazine not flagged them.

“Few Americans have landlords who sometimes fail to cash their rent checks, ignore unpaid rent, or accept furniture in lieu of rent,” said CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan.

“That Sen. Coleman has just such a landlord, who also happens to financially benefit from his relationship with the senator, creates exactly the sort of appearance of impropriety that undermines the public’s faith in government.”

Coleman faces a tough re-election challenge from Democrat Al Franken.

Coleman campaign spokesman Luke Friedrich replied that Coleman is paying fair market value “for a cramped basement bedroom.”

He also questioned Sloan’s independence, noting she often appeared as a guest on Franken’s Air America radio show.

“The only surprise is that it took Al Franken’s surrogate this long to file a politically motivated attack against Senator Coleman,” Friedrich said, calling her “a reliable attack dog for the Democrat Party.”

And the Minnesota Republican Party pointed out that one of CREW’s board members, John Luongo, had contributed $2,000 to Franken, while another board member, Daniel Berger, donated $44,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The GOP also noted that Sloan had worked as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s crime subcommittee when it was chaired by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who now chairs the DSCC.

“In the interest of full disclosure, CREW must acknowledge its close relationship to Al Franken, and explain how they can claim to be an independent group with its long history with Democrats and specifically Al Franken and Charles Schumer,” said Minnesota GOP Chairman Ron Carey.

CREW spokeswoman Naomi Seligman responded that prior to this complaint, the group had filed complaints against three other senators this year, all Democrats.

“The Republican committees use our work when we target Democrats all the time,” she said. “It’s only when we target Republicans that they turn around and try to discredit us.”

Seligman said that Sloan appeared as a guest on Franken’s show to discuss government ethics issues.

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AUSTIN — Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election campaign unveiled a new Internet ad Monday it is placing on Texas newspaper Web sites to differentiate himself from Democrat Rick Noriega on energy policy.

Cornyn campaign manager Rob Jesmer said Cornyn has a comprehensive energy policy that includes domestic exploration for oil while opponent Noriega has a “reckless plan” that opposes domestic drilling and relies on Iraq for oil.

On campaign stops, Noriega has suggested using oil in Iraq instead of domestic sources, but his campaign has said that was not a serious proposal. He also has advocated alternative energy sources.

“Noriega’s plan to drill for oil in Iraq is incredibly ignorant,” Jesmer said. “And his attempt to dismiss it as a joke is offensive on many different levels. There’s nothing funny about the war in Iraq or our dependence on foreign oil.”

Noriega has urged an end to the war in Iraq and has said spending billions of American dollars in that country is not solving U.S. energy problems.

Noriega called Cornyn “all talk and no action.”

“He may talk a good game in Texas, but back in Washington D.C., John Cornyn votes against incentives for renewable energy every chance he gets, jeopardizes Texas jobs, and refuses to vote for relief for Texas families struggling with record high gas prices,” Noriega said in a statement issued by his campaign.

Cornyn says he favors oil exploration in Alaska and offshore in the U.S. along with clean coal, nuclear and renewable energy such as wind and solar.

Noriega’s Iraq suggestion, even if it was a joke, may not be farfetched. Some U.S. oil giants are among the Western companies negotiating service deals to help Iraq increase its crude production, and those deals could lead to the companies getting a foothold in the country’s oil supplies, industry experts say.

That possibility aside, Cornyn is trying to point out Noriega’s adamant opposition to domestic drilling, said Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin.

“His plan is to drill in Iraq and not in America,” McLaughlin said of Noriega.

Cornyn’s ad, his first ad for widespread consumption before the November election, will be on the Web sites of the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Amarillo Globe-News and El Paso Times, his campaign said. The campaign would not disclose how many days the ad would run or how much was being spent. The ad urges viewers to celebrate “energy independence” this Fourth of July.

But Cornyn already has a promotion on the Internet. A recently released Cornyn video, a 2 1/2-minute piece titled “Big John” that was used to introduce him at the Texas Republican Party convention, was simply a “funny introduction video” and has not been placed anywhere as a campaign ad, McLaughlin said.

Nevertheless, it is making the rounds on the Internet and national Democrats are making hay of it.

The video shows Cornyn in a cowboy hat and fringed suede jacket riding a horse. Spoofing the old Jimmy Dean song, “Big Bad John,” a growly voiced cowboy talks about how Cornyn, a soft-spoken lawyer, showed Washington how things should be done.

The Noriega campaign has called that video “silly.”

Noriega’s campaign aired a television ad earlier this year during his Democratic primary campaign that emphasized his military experience and his legislative record on health care and education. The ad aired on some broadcast stations and cable outlets around the state.

Noriega, a Houston legislator, is a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army National Guard and spent 14 months in Afghanistan.

Click here to see the cowboy advertisement of Sen. John Cornyn on YouTube

Sonny Landham

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sonny Landham carved out a tough-guy reputation in a series of big-screen roles, from roughing up Sylvester Stallone to getting tossed out a window by Carl Weathers. He pulls no punches in his newest role: Libertarian challenger to a man known for political toughness, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Now 67 and living in northeastern Kentucky, the man who played Billy Bear in “48 Hours” and was killed by an alien in “Predator” admits his action-movie days are behind him. “I think I’m having wild action when I take two aspirin with my hot chocolate at night,” he quipped.

The actor known for his powerful physique, booming voice and his American Indian heritage says he’s serious about his longshot bid, because too many politicians are indifferent to voters’ problems.

Landham refers to McConnell, a four-term Republican, as “Boss Hogg” after the corrupt politician from “The Dukes of Hazzard” TV show. He bluntly called Democratic candidate and millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford an “elitist.”

Even President Bush is a target: “He took us into a war on lies,” Landham said, claiming the actual intent was “to put ‘Big Oil’ back into Iraq.”

To qualify for the November ballot, Landham must collect at least 5,000 valid petition signatures by Aug. 12. State Libertarian Party Chairman Ken Moellman said the petition drive began recently and he believes Landham will make it.

But the bid includes some campaign baggage that seems scripted for Hollywood, instead of socially conservative Kentucky. Early in his acting career in the 1970s, Landham bared it all in adult films.

Asked whether that could hurt him politically, Landham replied, “What can I do? That was a part of my life you cannot call back.”

But he does express regrets.

“If I was going to do it now — knowing that I’m going to have four children, knowing that I was going to run for office — no, I wouldn’t make that choice,” he said. “But at the time I made the choice of getting a paycheck, staying alive for your big break.”

Landham also served more than 2 1/2 years in federal prison after being convicted of making threatening and obscene phone calls to his ex-wife. The conviction was thrown out by a federal appeals court that found he committed no crime.

Libertarians, with their “live and let live” philosophy, look past his history.

“We look at the character of the man today, not what he did 30 years ago,” Moellman said, noting the actor “asked his Maker for forgiveness, and that’s all you can ask a man to do.”

He said Landham lives “a better lifestyle” today, residing in Ashland with his fifth wife and three of his children.

The cast of 1987’s “Predator” featured two future state governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. But the prospects of winning office seem far more remote for Landham.

Political scientist Michael Baranowski, of Northern Kentucky University, predicted minimal impact on the Senate race, though Landham could take some votes from McConnell.

“I’m not sure which is more of a hurdle for Landham, being a former porn actor or being a Libertarian Party candidate,” he said. “But if the race between McConnell and Lunsford is tight enough, the votes Landham pulls from McConnell might be critical.”

McConnell campaign adviser Scott Jennings said Landham won’t push the Republican incumbent off his message of how he has “delivered for the commonwealth time and again.”

This isn’t the first dabbling in politics for Landham, who struggled to get odd jobs after being released from prison. Now he still dabbles in acting, but Social Security checks and an acting pension are his main income.

He flirted with running for governor as a Republican in 2003, left the GOP and promised an independent run. He ultimately stayed out and backed Republican Ernie Fletcher, who won.

Landham is as blunt on issues as he is skewering rivals. He equates abortion with murder. He supports scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement. As for political correctness, he said, “PC is BS. Say what you mean, mean what you say.”

Moellman said such unscripted frankness will grab voter attention.

“Sonny is very upfront,” he said. “You ask Sonny a question, he’ll tell you the answer. He isn’t going to pull any punches, which is why I know this race is going to be a lot of fun.”