The Terrorism Card
With Election Day looming, the president tries to put the focus on one big issue
Indeed, there are serious questions about the viability of either party's strategy. Many Democratic challengers running in the midterms are still uneasy about their party's stances on security issues. Many Republican incumbents, meanwhile, are distancing themselves from an unpopular president and the unpopular Iraq war, despite the GOP security offensive. "At some point, voters become calcified in their views about the war, the president, and Congress," says Amy Walter, a House analyst with the Cook Political Report."Debate in Washington is not going to change that."
"Less murky." A poll last month showed that 61 percent of Americans see Iraq as either a minor part in the war on terrorism or as completely unrelated. That helps explain why Democrats are becoming more aggressive in calling for a redeployment of troops from Iraq. "We have men and women dying in Iraq, and they're serving with no clear mission," says Patrick Murphy, a Democrat challenging Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in suburban Philadelphia. One top Democratic strategist says that last month's primary in Connecticut, where the antiwar Ned Lamont defeated Sen. Joe Lieberman, emboldened Democrats to more forcefully denounce the Iraq war. "The party is a lot less murky than it was a year ago on Iraq," says Lamont. "I think we can always be clearer."
But many Democratic candidates are worried about too much clarity. Jim Webb, challenging Virginia Sen. George Allen, rejects setting a timeline even to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, a position held by nearly all Democratic senators. "The Democratic Party ... continues to fall into the trap the Republicans set," Webb says. "They want Democrats to talk about specific dates for withdrawal so they could attack us." Like Webb, a secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, other Democratic challengers are emphasizing how their professional backgrounds give them terror-fighting skills. "People called me a no-nonsense prosecutor, and I want to be a no-nonsense fighter in this war on terror," says Claire McCaskill, challenging Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri.
Other Democratic candidates attempted to distance themselves from last week's Senate debate calling on Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld to resign. "Getting Rumsfeld to resign for the sake of saying 'I told you so'-I'm not interested in that," says Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war vet running for Congress in suburban Chicago. "I'm more worried about coming up with solutions."
Many vulnerable Republicans, meanwhile, are stepping up criticism of Bush and the Iraq war or attempting to ignore both on the campaign trail. Florida Rep. Clay Shaw, facing a serious challenge this year, visited Iraq last month but spoke little of his trip other than answering some questions for local media. Shaw is focusing instead on issues like healthcare and Everglades restoration.
It's Republican incumbents in conservative areas who embraced the White House last week. "Our opponents want this election to be a referendum on George Bush," says Dick Wadhams, Allen's campaign manager in red state Virginia. "But there's a real choice on the war on terror and Iraq, and the president succeeded in laying that out." A key Republican strategist explains that the terrorism offensive is intended to excite the party's base, not swing voters. But that raises more questions about how successful it will be in states and districts where Republicans are most vulnerable.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Angie C. Marek and Bret Schulte
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