<p>For Dr. Paul Broun, the fourth time was the charm.</p><p>After three failed runs for office, Broun is finally fulfilling his dream of heading to Capitol Hill after edging out the GOP front-runner by just under 400 votes in a runoff.</p><p>Broun's win blindsided Georgia's Republican establishment, which had lined up behind the well-funded Jim Whitehead, a former state senator.</p><p>But Broun said he wasn't surprised in the least.</p><p>"I don't consider it an upset because I believed all along we would win it," Broun said in an interview at his home in Athens before heading to Washington to be sworn in as Georgia's newest congressman.</p><p>"I truly believe I am where I am today by divine intervention."</p><p>A Christian conservative who said the Bible guides his day-to-day life, Broun is also a firm believer in limited federal government. He made that clear in his first vote as a congressman Thursday night when he broke ranks with most members of his own Republican Party and supported a Democratic amendment barring the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana cases.</p><p>Broun explained that for him it boils down to states' rights.</p><p>Although this is the first elected office Broun has held, he has a distinguished political pedigree. He's the eldest son of the late state Sen. Paul Broun, a moderate Democrat whose name now adorns the highway looping around the college town he represented for 38 years.</p><p>The elder Broun was known for being courtly and reserved. He favored abortion rights and gun control. He practiced his Episcopalian faith quietly.</p><p>His son has called abortion a "holocaust" and worked as a volunteer lobbyist in Washington in the late 1980s for Safari Club International, which represents gun owners and hunters. Broun peppers his remarks with references to his faith, a fiery brand of Southern Baptism.</p><p>But it wasn't always that way. Broun, 61, is currently married to his fourth wife, Niki. He filed for bankruptcy in 1982. He has said that God helped him turn his life around.</p><p>Broun said he and his father were close, despite their vast political differences.</p><p>"It made Thanksgiving dinners pretty interesting," he said.</p><p>Broun attended the Medical College of Georgia and lived for years in Americus, where he counted Jimmy Carter's mother, Lillian, and other members of the Carter family as patients. Broun's parents were prominent Carter backers, traveling the country as part of the Georgia governor's "Peanut Brigade," whipping up support for Democratic primaries.</p><p>The younger Broun staked out his own path early, becoming a Republican in South Georgia long before such a label became fashionable. He mounted two unsuccessful bids for the 3rd Congressional District as a member of the GOP. He drew even more widespread attention when he launched a bid for the United States Senate in 1996.</p><p>Democrat Max Cleland, then Georgia's secretary of state, went on to win that race. But not before Broun drew fire for suggesting that Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, was using his wheelchair for political gain.</p><p>"(He) plays that wheelchair up to the nth degree. He just shows people that wheelchair going and coming...It's certainly worth a lot of points," Broun was quoted as saying at the time.</p><p>Broun apologized for the remark, saying he had expressed himself poorly. Through a spokesman, Cleland declined to comment on Broun's recent election.</p><p>"Every single campaign teaches you something," Broun told the AP. "I believe losing campaigns teach you even more than the winning ones."</p><p>For now, Broun is hastily assembling a staff and hopes to hit the ground running. The 10th congressional district in northeast Georgia has been without a representative since Rep. Charlie Norwood died of cancer and lung disease in February.</p><p>One of the key issues Broun will face on Capitol Hill is the looming problem of Iraq.</p><p>Broun, a former U.S. Marine, supports the Bush administration troop surge, which he said needs more time to work.</p><p>But don't expect him to be a rubber stamp for the president. Broun said he wants to repeal Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education initiative, and calls Bush's former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "a disaster."</p><p>"We've cut our military to the muscle and bone and we need to rebuild it," he said.</p><p>And his libertarian streak could end up irking social conservatives. Asked during the campaign about gay marriage and euthanasia, he said they appear to be issues that ought to be handled by the states.</p><p>Still, Broun's religious conservatism runs deep. He argues that there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution and said he will fight to tear down the artificial wall that's been constructed around some issues, like school prayer.</p><p>And he's an ardent supporter of gun rights. Nineteen animal heads peer down from the wall in his sunny foyer _ ranging from white-tailed deer to a moose. His garage contains the life-sized stuffed carcasses of a lion he shot in Africa and a brown bear from Alaska. Asked how many guns he owns, Broun said he's lost count.</p><p>For several years now, Broun's medical practice has consisted only of house calls, which he said is a throwback to the "Andy Griffith-Beaver Cleaver" days when doctors actually spent time with their patients. It was good preparation, he said, for campaigning _ the travel, the listening and the problem solving.</p><p>He said he hopes to continue practicing as "an inoculation against Potomac fever."</p><p>"Voters chose me because I am not the candidates of the special interests and the political bosses," Broun said. "I can't forget that."</p>
