Michelle Nunn embarks on low-key introduction to Senate campaign | www.myajc.com

PERRY — Michelle Nunn’s political baptism arrived at age 6, when she passed out fliers at the Piggly Wiggly advertising the long-shot U.S. Senate campaign of her father, Sam Nunn.

That grocery store is closed now, and “The Flying Nunn” RV from 1972 has begotten a red minivan that is taking Michelle Nunn and her family across Georgia to make her debut as a candidate.

The road ahead is daunting: an attempt to break Republican dominance in statewide politics and capture a U.S. Senate seat as a Democrat.

As she took her first steps down the campaign trail last week, Nunn, 46, began in Middle Georgia, where fond memories of her father remain. But Sam Nunn was part of a dying breed, the conservative Southern Democrat, which has only dwindled since he left the Senate in 1997.

Michelle Nunn’s challenge is to build her own identity while wedging herself into the doors her family name opens. Her early campaign stops were intended to shape her image as a bridge-builder and show off her career leading the multinational volunteer service organization Points of Light, with a minimal focus on politics.

The political attacks have arrived anyway and will only escalate over the next 15 months. Republicans tried to paint her as an ultra-liberal before she even joined the race, and primary foe Branko Radulovacki, an Atlanta psychiatrist, distinguishes himself as the Democrat who doesn’t have the “Washington insider anointing.”

“I’ve spent 25 years trying to find and support and mobilize and inspire the best in people,” Nunn said. “And in the political arena, people are tending to … find what’s wrong, what’s the underbelly. And so that’s an adjustment for me.”

Her performance will be closely scrutinized across the country. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee celebrated her as a top recruit and declared Georgia as one of six 2014 races that will determine which party controls the Senate.

Nunn’s campaign trumpeted poll results last week from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling showing her tied or ahead of all the Republican candidates, but the same poll gave President Barack Obama a 54 percent disapproval rating in the state.

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