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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Politicians who voted against Bush's Iraq resolution were supposed to pay a harsh political price. Instead, they're thriving on the campaign trail.
Nov 2, 2002 | Twenty-three senators and 133 congressmen voted against Bush's Iraq resolution in October, authorizing the president to strike against Saddam. And in not a single case, contrary to Washington's conventional wisdom, does it appear to be hurting any of their chances for reelection. It might actually be helping them.
The late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., whose antiwar stance was considered politically perilous given his close reelection fight against Republican Norm Coleman, actually got a boost in the polls after voting against the war. While he was trailing slightly before the vote, a mid-October poll from the Minneapolis Star Tribune had him running at 47 percent to Coleman's 41 percent.
In October, when MoveOn, an organization founded to oppose the impeachment of President Clinton, launched a fundraising drive through its PAC to raise money for antiwar members of Congress in tough reelection campaigns, $1 million poured in from 25,000 donors in 48 hours. That's now up over $2 million, and the money has been distributed to Wellstone's campaign, as well as to Reps. Rick Larsen and Jay Inslee, both Washington Democrats; Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., and Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Calif. Congressional delegates from across the country who voted against the resolution report unprecedented shows of support and thanks from their constituents.
"I've been an elected official for 20 years," says Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "I've cast thousands of votes, and I would put this as one of the top votes when it comes to what I call street-corner reaction."
"People who don't know me seek me out and thank me for that vote -- a broad spectrum of people who self-identify as Republicans or veterans. Women of course feel very strongly about this, African-Americans -- I went to a Korean-American reception last night and I didn't expect they would bring it up, but it's a big issue for them," Durbin said. "I do train stations here [to meet] suburban commuters. I must have seen 4,000 people, and exactly two came up and disagreed with me on Iraq. I can't tell you how many people stopped in the rain and took off their glove and said, 'I want to thank you for that vote on Iraq.' It meant a lot."
Durbin's Republican opponent, Jim Durkin, has tried to use Iraq against the senator, calling him an "appeaser." But a recent poll taken by Research 2000 shows Durbin leading by 18 percent.
"I was in church a couple of weeks ago right before the vote was cast," Durbin continues. "I went up to take communion; I was kneeling down and a guy stops next to me in the aisle and says, 'Senator Durbin, stick with Senator [Robert] Byrd [D-W.V.] on Iraq.'"
Of course, all politicians claim their constituents' support, but Durbin's comments are echoed by other antiwar politicians. And while poll numbers for congressional races are harder to come by, most report that their vote has only helped to shore up support. "It's been an amazing response on the sidewalk," says Inslee. "On the ferryboats I ride, there are people coming up to pat me on the back and telling me they appreciate my vote. That hasn't happened in the last four years. There's a very strong reaction from people who feel very strongly about this issue."
"We had an unprecedented number of e-mails, phone calls and letters on this issue," says Joel Barkin, spokesman for Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. "I would say that almost a thousand to one were against voting in support of the resolution. The congressman believes that in fact this country as a whole does not support this resolution."
How can that be? After all, the polls show that a majority of Americans are behind Bush's Iraq policy. A Pew Research Center survey released last week has 55 percent of the public supporting military action against Saddam Hussein.
But while such polls roughly measure the drift of public sentiment, they don't measure its intensity. "Polls are a reflection of breadth," says Wes Boyd, president of MoveOn. "We've seen polls on the Iraq resolution and administration policy, and depending on how they're worded, you get a lot of different readings." For example, in the Pew poll, only 27 percent of respondents favor attacking Iraq without our allies' support, and only 48 percent believe the president has adequately explained his reasons for war. Such polls, says Boyd, "indicate to us that the support the administration hoped was there is paper-thin, that when you probe it a little bit, the view looks very different. That's why we took up the campaign."
