HERE AND THERE: CONGRESS CONVENES
Tuesday night, we noted that Fox News was claiming that the White House had given its blessing on changing positions about Iraq to those House Republicans facing serious Democratic challengers in Subtly, Some GOP Candidates are Changing Their War Message:
Nevertheless, Washington insiders say that while the national party is talking tough, the White House has discreetly given GOP incumbents facing potential defeat in November its blessing to distance themselves from President Bush and his Iraq policy if necessary.
“The WhiteHouse aides read the polls, too. They know they’re not going to win if people vote strictly on Iraq … and they will have to make the compromises needed,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “That’s smart politics.”
“It serves [some GOP candidates] well to distance themselves from a very unpopular president and unpopular war,” said Evans. “But let's keep in mind here, that they are distancing themselves from the president from an image perspective, but they are still more than happy to have Bush come in and raise money for them.”
While MN-01 voters have yet to see President Bush raising money for Gutknecht, the distancing "from an image perspective" seems part of the mix. Gutknecht's Baghdad conversion experience is mentioned as an example in the Fox article.
In a widely circulated piece, IPS analyst Jim Lobe examines the topic of "Republican Control of Congress in Peril." Lobe observes:
Iraq and the public's loss of confidence in Bush's management of the war there are viewed by the political pros as the Republicans' biggest liability going into the election. According to the latest polls, nearly two-thirds of voters say they disapprove of his handling of Iraq.
In recognition of the damage inflicted on his party by the situation in Iraq, Bush and his top aides launched a major new campaign last week, in anticipation of the 5th anniversary of the "9/11" attacks by al Qaeda on New York and the Pentagon, to highlight the risks that a quick withdrawal from that country would pose to the larger "global war on terror".
But more bad news from Iraq, such as a gloomy Pentagon report released here Friday and fierce new fighting by U.S. and western soldiers against resurgent Taliban forces in Afghanistan -- as well as the fact that the death toll for U.S. troops and military contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the past five years has just surpassed the 2,973 people killed in the 9/11 attacks themselves -- pose serious risks to the White House's strategy.
Indeed, a New York Times/CBS poll conducted two weeks ago found that, for the first time, a majority of voters see the war in Iraq as distinct, if not a distraction, from the broader anti-terror effort, a key Democratic theme in this year's campaign and one that contradicts the thrust of the administration's new offensive.
Like so many reporters before him, Lobe includes Gil Gutknecht's name in the list of runaway Republicans:
All of these considerations have put many Republican incumbents, particularly those considered "moderate" in a party that has moved ever more to the right under Bush, in a difficult position. In order to survive Democratic challenges, many of them have been trying to distance themselves from the president -- particularly on Iraq.
To date, the most significant defectors have been Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays, formerly an enthusiastic supporter of the war, who last week came out in favour of what is increasingly the Democrats' consensus position -- setting a timetable for withdrawal that would begin before the end of this year, and Minnesota Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who, as recently as July, accused Democrats during a fiery debate on the House floor of "go(ing) wobbly" on Iraq.
Gutknecht was never considered a moderate. Indeed, before his trip to Iraq, Gutknecht's most recent break with the White House was over immigration policy. Gilknecht has worked with immigration reform groups in the First and brought in Colorado's Tom Tancredo for a public forum in 2005
And yet immigration policy, which had been touted as a major theme for the Rpeublican mid-term election strategy, is being abandoned for the mythic Republican terror advantage. The San Francisco Chronicle editorializes:
Immigration reform always figured to be a problematic campaign cry for Republican candidates this year. The party is hopelessly splintered on the issue. Republican leaders in the U.S. House hoped a series of hearings on immigration staged around the country this summer would motivate voters, but the combative affairs produced little political advantage for anyone.
President Bush and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a likely presidential contender in 2008, favored a route to legal residency and citizenship for undocumented workers, conservatives in the House of Representatives were unbending in their push to turn illegal aliens into felons and to enact harsh measures to seal the U.S. border with Mexico. Strategists who have worked to woo Latinos to the Republican Party warned that demonizing undocumented workers would backfire at the polls and damage the party's future.
With time running out on the chance to pass immigration legislation this year and midterm elections only two months away, GOP leaders jettisoned the heated border security rhetoric in favor of an old standby: the war on terror. The architects of fear have decided that 9/11 and terrorism are still the most effective way to solidify their base and win over independents.
Indeed. Visit Gil Gutknecht's campaign web site; visitors must dig deep into archived statements to the media to find anything about immigration policy on his web site. There's a column about his trip to Iraq, however.
Meanwhile, Tim Walz has issued position papers on both topics.
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