Cain Makes Inroads in Ga. Senate Bid

Isakson is not Cain's only target when it comes to abortion. Cain rattles off statistics about high rates of abortion in the black population and high percentages of abortion clinics in predominantly African American neighborhoods. In an interview on his campaign bus, Cain said he considers "plausible" a theory that the abortion rights group, Planned Parenthood, was formed to systematically lower the black population. "One of the motivations was killing black babies," he said, "because they didn't want to deal with the problems of illiteracy and poverty."

Abortion is the thorniest of issues for Isakson, a three-term congressman who has spent 26 of the past 28 years in elected or appointed offices. He was considered a good bet to win the Senate nomination in 1996 until he aired a television commercial, with his wife and daughter, saying he opposed a constitutional amendment banning abortion and trusted Georgia women "to make the right choices."

"It had a huge impact," said Jerry Keen, a Republican Georgia House member from St. Simons Island and former chairman of the state's Christian Coalition. "Without that, he would have won that race."

In this summer's race, Cain is hoping to keep Isakson below 50 percent of the vote and force a runoff. Cain and Collins, whose campaign has suffered from sluggish fundraising, have accused Isakson of casting 14 "pro-choice" votes, including supporting a measure to allow privately funded abortions on U.S. military bases abroad. Cain sometimes leads into his abortion critiques of Isakson by telling listeners that there are major differences between them, "and I'm not just talking about the color of our eyes."

Isakson, an understated campaigner in contrast to the charismatic Cain, has responded by saying that he "respects life." His Web site lists a string of antiabortion credentials, from sponsoring legislation to suspend distribution of the RU-486 abortion pill to presiding over the final debate on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Facing a persistent challenger, Isakson and his staff have tried to label Cain an outsider because he left Georgia after college and lived for many years in Omaha while running Godfather's. Cain, worth $5 million to $10 million, lives in a home that he bought five years ago outside Atlanta.

It was a return to the city where Cain attended segregated schools and where his father was a chauffeur for the chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Co. After segregation, Cain said he decided not to be an activist: "I walked into all-white corporate environments. . . . A few of us ran through that door and never looked back."

Both Cain and Isakson have sought to identify themselves with icons of conservatives in Georgia: President Bush and Zell Miller, the retiring Democratic senator from Georgia whose support of Republican policies and criticisms of the Democratic Party have made him a darling of the right.

The political novice hitting all the right notes in the Senate campaign is learning subtle lessons from the Miller playbook. Cain's campaign bus was stocked with peanuts packed in New Jersey, a bit of a symbolic faux pas on a tour of Georgia peanut country. But a Miller staffer climbed on board in Valdosta carrying a present with indisputable local appeal: packs of individually wrapped snacks labeled in big, bold letters: "Georgia Peanuts."