Time is getting close for the Election. Here is an article from the NYT on the technical aspect of it. Confirms your fears, John.
September 21, 2002
G.O.P. Gains From War Talk but Does Not Talk About It
By ALISON MITCHELL and ADAM NAGOURNEY
[W] ASHINGTON, Sept. 20 ? Senior Republican Party officials say the prospect of at least two more weeks of Congressional debate on Iraq is allowing their party to run out the clock on the fall election, blocking Democrats as they try to seize on the faltering economy and other domestic concerns as campaign issues.
At the same time, Republicans said that as they entered the final six weeks of contests in which control of Congress is at stake, they did not want to be perceived as exploiting the talk of war for political gain. They said they were urging candidates not to do anything that might give Democrats ammunition to turn the war issue against them.
The emerging dynamic has produced growing if quiet optimism among Republicans that they will be able to turn back the Democratic drive to take control of the House, if only because Democrats are running out of time to make their case.
Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who once led his party's campaign arm in the Senate, said, "I do believe the issue of terrorism and Iraq will be very much on the mind of voters going in to Election Day."
Mr. McConnell noted that Republicans traditionally had a strong lead on national security issues.
Scott Reed, a Republican consultant, said: "The secret to the election now is to beat the clock. Every week, you can hear the ripping noise of another page of the calendar coming off the wall. Another week has gone by. And there's only six more to go."
Democrats, in contrast, are voicing frustration with the turn of events, even as they note that six weeks can be a long time in politics.
"Iraq is the only thing we're talking about right now," Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, recently said before Democrats finally decided that a swift vote on military action against Iraq was better for them.
If Congress did not act soon on Iraq, Mr. Breaux said: "It means we probably won't get to do anything else. And there are a lot of issues that need our attention."
A striking reminder of how the war talk has drowned out issues that Democrats believe work in their favor came on Thursday, when the Dow Jones average sunk to 7,940. That was the lowest it had been since last July, when many Democrats believed that the nation's fixation on a plummeting market and reports of corporate malfeasance were setting the stage for Democrats to win control of both houses of Congress.
Asked today if the latest dip on Wall Street drew the kind of coverage the last one did, a senior Democratic strategist responded with a glum e-mail message: "Not at all. War, war, war."
Republicans say the Iraq issue will not guarantee that they win control of the House and Senate. Several noted that they had made a point of rebutting Democrats who had tried to raise Social Security or prescription drug coverage as an issue.
Strategists on both sides said it was highly unlikely that the fate of any Congressional election would swing on a vote on the Iraq resolution. As of now, it appears that the resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein will pass with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The significance of the war debate, Republicans say, is that, by crowding out the issues Democrats wanted to talk about, it changed a race that had appeared to be shifting toward the Democrats in midsummer.
Several Republicans said the issue of corporate accountability, which had once been central to Democratic efforts, appears to have faded. The Iraq debate has also lifted Mr. Bush's poll ratings, and even Democrats said Congressional candidates could benefit because of that.
Still, Republicans said that any candidate perceived as using the war for political purposes was running a risk. "People do not view this as a partisan issue," said David Winston, who conducts polls for the House Republican conference, "and they do not want the political folks here in Washington treating it like a partisan issue."
The tension between the two conflicting forces ? the satisfaction with the political climate, set against the concern that Republicans not be seen as using a war to manipulate political races ? has been clear at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
In recent days, the White House has handed out to crucial Republicans in Congress a one-page summary of a published poll from its Office of Strategic Initiatives, which is run by Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, to underscore the president's wide and growing support.
"Americans say President acting to protect nation while Democrats playing politics," the document said.
On the other hand, Mr. Rove and Ken Mehlman, the White House political director, met with senior Republican Congressional leaders recently to draw up the party's political themes for the closing weeks of Congress, and barely mentioned Iraq.
For the most part, Democratic and Republican leaders said, candidates were steering clear of the issue, though there are notable exceptions. One is in South Dakota, where Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, is facing a strong challenge from Representative John Thune.
The Thune campaign mobilized military veterans to criticize Mr. Johnson's 1991 vote against authorizing Mr. Bush's father to wage the Persian Gulf war. The Johnson camp countered with veterans deploring that Mr. Thune was using war as a political cudgel. Mr. Bush's father entered the fray at a fund-raiser for Mr. Thune, where he said it was critical for Congress to support the president during a time of war.
In some other tight Senate races in conservative states, Republicans are not raising Iraq directly but focusing on military might and patriotism. In South Carolina, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee planned to start running a new television spot on Saturday upbraiding Democratic candidate Alex Sanders for not supporting a constitutional amendment against flag burning. "Burning the American flag, the flag our soldiers carry in to battle," the advertisement intones.
In Minnesota, Norm Coleman, the Republican challenger, has been attacking Senator Paul Wellstone by raising questions about his votes on national defense.
Still, Republicans say it is important not to cede the field on domestic issues, particularly because they expect the Democrats to hammer at the economy and issues like health care in a late campaign barrage of TV advertising directed at the relatively few seats in play.
"We need to keep talking about the economy and Republican ideas to further the economy," said Representative Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican close to President Bush.
Beyond that, Republicans acknowledge that many Democrats will neutralize the Iraq issue by supporting Mr. Bush. Representative Lindsey O. Graham, the Republican Senate candidate in South Carolina, said he would not be able to use Iraq against his opponent because he expected that "wherever I'm at, that's where he's at."
"If I said, Hang them by their feet, he'd say, Hang them by their feet," Mr. Lindsay said. "Ain't going to be a difference."
Democratic strategists said today that they were confident that after the vote on Iraq, the ground would shift back to domestic issues.
"Obviously the Republican strategy is to prevent campaigns from ever getting back to a domestic message," said James M. Jordan, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
nytimes.com |
