Senate map initially was map of choice, but GOP congressmen coming around to House map, PI reports. - Franklin might do it again (the flag you recall)

Today's PI reports:

As the man with the leather couch once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And a map is just a map.

The difference, of course, is that a cheap smoke can be had for $2. The going rate on congressional districts is something over $2 million. They are major but fragile investments, and their occupants never rest easy.

Late Tuesday, the Republican leadership of the Senate dipped into the ominous topic of redistricting. Their proposed map of Georgia's 13 congressional districts had a distinct, blue-chip pedigree. It was version No. 22 of a map that had floated up and down the Potomac since December. All seven of Georgia's Republican congressmen have signed off on it.

But an hour earlier, the Republican leadership of the House had stolen the thunder with a congressional map of its own. The House map put Republican congressman Tom Price in the same district as GOP colleague Nathan Deal. And Republican incumbent Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg in the same district with Democrat Jim Marshall of Macon. And swept Democrat John Barrow into the same congressional district as Republican Charlie Norwood.

A wrecking of Democratic careers was expected. Putting Republicans in jeopardy was not.

Suspicious minds immediately leaped to an unkind thought: This was a map a governor might propose, if he were trying to send a message to congressmen who had nagged him into taking up the potentially divisive issue.

Overnight, phone lines burned between here and Washington. BlackBerries turned blue from overwork.

But by Wednesday morning, everyone was reading from the same script. The governor's people let it be known that Sonny Perdue hadn't come within a football field's length of the House map.

Congressmen in Washington agreed. "We feel quite comfortable that no one's trying to undercut the delegation," said a spokesman for Westmoreland, who has tangled with Perdue on several occasions.

Bobby Franklin of Marietta, the chairman of the House reapportionment committee, declared that he was the sole author of the House map, which was drawn with no regard for incumbency. He's tackled sticky problems on his own before. His was the initial design that led to the current state flag.

Franklin said he has had no conversations with the governor or members of Congress about redistricting — though this was something he didn't sound particularly happy about.

Even Franklin's superiors portrayed Franklin as something of an itinerant philosopher. "Bobby drew this on his own — without input from me or the Speaker," said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simon's Island.

"Bobby's map was not drawn with any end in mind. It was just a beginning. I think it was a good exercise," Keen said.

And yet.

On Wednesday, even as it was denied, a revised version of Franklin's map was being passed around. Price was separated from Deal. Barrow was separated from Norwood.

But Westmoreland and Marshall remained paired.

And nine of the congressional districts went for Bush by at least 60 percent. On paper, that's better GOP performance than the map endorsed by the Senate and the G-7, one Republican insider conceded.

So, yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But no matter who rolled the thing, it's still shaped like a torpedo.