Immigration and Iraq driving '06 races

'Too much Tancredo'
Republican strategist Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strong supporter of the Senate-passed bill, said, “As long as Reagan and Bush are the face of the party, the party will survive…. You turn on Spanish TV and you see too much Tancredo and not enough Bush, not enough Reagan.”

He added, “We had an election on this in the Republican party in 2000. There were two guys running (for the GOP presidential nomination) as pro-immigrant, pro-reform people, McCain and Bush. There was a guy running against them and that was Buchanan.” He noted that while McCain and Bush won elections and now hold office, Buchanan didn’t win. “I’m not sure it’s the political winner some people think it is,” he added.

Meanwhile on Iraq, Democrats are arguing that their proposal for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops is simply what the Bush administration is planning to do anyway by year’s end.

Last week Senate Republicans trumpeted the defeat of two Democratic proposals which would have set a date for withdrawing troops.

Frist charges 'defeatism'
Majority Leader Bill Frist said setting a date for withdrawal “would be a dangerous policy, a reckless policy, and a shameful policy.”

He added, “The spirit of these amendments is the spirit of defeatism and surrender.”

But in the New Jersey Senate race, Democrat Menendez  — who voted for a withdraw-by-next-year amendment offered by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Russ Feingold, D- Wisc. — seems unfazed by the Republican “defeatism” rhetoric.

Menendez is going on the offensive on Iraq with his new ad.

“This administration and its allies have taken the wrong position time after time. They were wrong on Iraq, wrong on siding with Big Oil,” Menendez says in the ad. “My opponent supports George Bush’s war. I couldn’t disagree more.”

In their debate Sunday, Kean said he opposed “setting an artificial timeline” for withdrawing American troops because “it puts them in harm's way and puts people in this country in harm's way.”

Some cross party lines
It’s simplistic to see this as a story of party-line contrasts: some congressional Republicans have deep misgivings about the Iraq operation, while some Democrats oppose any timetable for withdrawal.

Two weeks ago, when the House approved a resolution declaring that the United States should not set an arbitrary date for withdrawing troops from Iraq, 42 Democrats voted for it, while three Republicans voted against it.

A few centrist and conservative Democrats are still sounding hawkish on Iraq, notably Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., in a primary battle with Ned Lamont, an anti-Iraq war challenger.

Lamont skewered Lieberman in a new TV ad Tuesday, with video of President Bush’s face. Coming from Bush’s mouth was Lieberman’s voice uttering lines such as, “We are now at a point where the Iraq war is a war of necessity.”

On immigration, going against the partisan grain is Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., D-Tenn., who is running for the Senate.

He is airing a radio ad making a connection between illegal immigrants and the risk of terrorists slipping across U.S. borders.

The Democrat reminds the radio audience that he voted for the House Republicans’ immigration bill. “In Congress, I put party aside and voted for the toughest immigration plan: to get control of our borders,” Ford says.

No Democrat has won a Senate seat in Tennessee in 16 years, but Ford’s immigrant stance may help him get closer to that goal.

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