New polling shows Iraq impact on Senate races

Congress doesn't make policy
But voters know that neither Corker nor Ford will be in charge of Iraq policy come January when the new Congress convenes.

And neither candidate has called for cutting off funding for the operation as have 18 House Democrats. So whether it is Ford or Corker holding that Tennessee Senate seat come January, Americans troops will stay in Iraq, at least for a while longer.

But at least the Tennessee election offers voters a chance to vote for someone not of Bush’s party and thus to strike an anti-Bush blow, even though Ford is one of the House Democrats who share responsibility for the war because he voted for it in 2002.

In the Senate races where, according to recent polls, the Democratic candidates are ahead, they have thrived mostly by not offering a specific plan for withdrawal of American soldiers or a specific date for de-funding the operation.

In some ways, the 2006 election has the feel of another mid-term election which took place in wartime, the election of 1950. As with Bush, the public had turned sour on a feisty, brashly confident president. And that year Republicans were the minority party capitalizing on public fatigue with a war that seemed to have no clear cut victory in sight. Even though President Truman and U.S. soldiers were defending a nation that was the victim of a unilateral attack, Americans by Election Day, 1950 were growing weary.

That year, the Republicans gained 28 seats in the House and five in the Senate.

Iraqis fighting Iraqis for Iraqi reasons
Despite the horrific images in the past weeks of carnage in Iraq, and despite the natural tendency of Americans to pay attention to the sons, nephews, and high school classmates they know who’ve been killed in Iraq, the brutality and bloodshed have been building for more than a year and it is mostly Iraqis who’ve been killed by other Iraqis.

As Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted Monday in a memo, “Iraqis are fighting Iraqis for Iraqi reasons, not to influence elections or force the U.S. out of Iraq. This has built up for more than two years….By late 2005, civil fighting had reached the point where Sunni vs. Shi'ite clashes had become more important to Iraq's future than attacks on the (American-led) Coalition.”

A fascinating swimmer against the tide on Iraq is Republican Mark Kennedy in Minnesota. Although Minnesota was not one of the states Mason-Dixon surveyed for Tuesday’s batch of polling, other polling has shown Kennedy trailing Democratic candidate Amy Klobuchar.

With somber orchestral music playing what sounds like a requiem behind his voice, Kennedy looks directly at the camera in his new television ad and says, “None of us likes war, and we’ve made some mistakes in Iraq. We’re facing an enemy that must be defeated. Leaving Iraq now will create a breeding ground for new attacks on America. That’s the harsh reality.”

Kennedy approves austere message
He implies that Klobuchar wants to negotiate with jihadists in Iraq. “You can’t negotiate with people who want to kill you,” he says, adding “I approve this message even though I know it may not be what you want to hear.”

Klobuchar did say in her Meet the Press debate with Kennedy, “We need to change course — not do anything radical, not bring all the troops home right away, but to pursue a diplomatic and political solution.”

Despite being written off by many observers because Klobuchar appears far ahead, this race is worth watching to see if Kennedy’s austere message persuades voters that he deserves a seat in the Senate.