WASHINGTON (By
Tom Curry, MSNBC)
July 12, 2007
—
The 2008 campaign has gotten ugly.
Look no further than the doctored photo of Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine
Republican, sent out this week by the Democratic-linked group Americans
Against Escalation in Iraq.
Under the headline “Will
Toothless Senator Collins Finally Change Her Tune?” the group, in a
press release Wednesday, doctored the official photo of Collins,
blackening her teeth and leaving her with only one, (the right maxillary
central incisor, for any dentists out there).
It was a face that only a
cosmetic dentist — or a Democrat out to defeat Collins next year — could
love.
No surprise that Democrats are
gunning for the Maine Republican as she seeks her third term: President
Bush got only 44 percent of the vote in her state in 2004.
If Senate Democrats are to reach
the filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats — which seems feasible at this
point — they’ll need to oust Collins.
Collins up against tough
foe
Her Democratic opponent Rep. Tom
Allen is well-funded, with more than $1.7 million in cash on hand as of
June 30. The Collins campaign said that it had $2.3 million cash on
hand, as of June 30.
On the Iraq issue, Collins has
been under fire from Democrats for months; the assault went on this week
with a new TV ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Collins,
who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2002, is distancing
herself from Bush.
Collins worked this week with
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., on an amendment to the defense authorization
bill that, she said, would “clearly change the mission in Iraq; it would
wind down the combat mission and instead have our troops focus on
counter-terrorism operations against al Qaida, border security and the
training and equipping of Iraqi troops.”
The Collins-Nelson proposal
would require Bush to “immediately begin” the shift of U.S. forces to
their new limited missions and set as a goal March 31 of next year for
completing that transition.
Troop reduction to
follow changed mission
The amendment does not specify
the number of troops to be pulled out of Iraq, but she said “the
majority of the mission right now is combat, so by changing the mission
the result is a significant draw-down in troops.”
Could the U.S. commander in Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus live with this proposal?
“I doubt it, based on the
conversation I just had with Secretary Rice” replied Collins on Tuesday,
laughing. “It seems to me the administration wants to continue to stay
the course and pursue the current strategy for at least two more
months.”
Collins said her amendment
differs substantially from the leading Democratic idea offered by Sen.
Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Sen.
Jack Reed, D-R.I., which require the withdrawal of U.S. troops to begin
within 120 days.
“That’s the part of their
amendment that’s problematic for me,” Collins said. “I like the idea of
having a goal of next year. I like the change in mission, but I’m still
concerned about what the ramifications would be of mandating a
withdrawal starting in 120 days.”
She said it is wiser to “leave
it up to the military” to decide the timing and magnitude of the troop
exit. “But by changing the mission clearly you’re paving the way for a
significant but gradual drawdown of troops,” she said.
“To me the common thread in all
these proposals is a redefinition of the mission and a rejection of the
president’s policy,” said Collins.
In Maine,
Allen’s campaign manager Valerie Martin said “Iraq is the dominant issue
in this campaign. It is where you can see the clearest contrast between
Tom Allen and Susan Collins. Tom Allen is aggressively fighting to end
the war and bring the troops home.”
Allen voted against the 2002
resolution to use force and voted in May to end funding of the war.
As for the Collins-Nelson
proposal, Martin said, “It is hard to see this as strong leadership. She
could have voted for tough timelines months ago.”
Maine has had a tradition of
Republican senators (including Sen. Olympia Snowe and former Sen.
William Cohen) even as it trends Democratic in presidential races.
In fact since 1988, Maine hasn’t
voted Republican in a presidential election or elected a Democratic
senator.
Mirror image of Collins
In some ways, the Democratic mirror image of Collins is Louisiana Sen.
Mary Landrieu, who, like Collins, is seeking her third term next year.
Louisiana is a state which Bush
carried with 57 percent of the vote, a place where there’s a tradition
of having Democratic senators even as the state trends Republican in
presidential elections.
Like Collins, Landrieu has often
supported Bush in the past. In 2005, according to Congressional
Quarterly, Collins voted with the Bush administration’s position 62
percent of the time, but Landrieu was bit more supportive, backing Bush
64 percent of the time.
At the moment, there’s one
significant difference between Collins and Landrieu: while the Maine
Republican faces a well-funded foe, the GOP has yet to find a candidate
to oppose Landrieu.
On Iraq Landrieu, like Collins,
is supporting an amendment offered by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., that
would require Bush to adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group
– including refocusing troops on counterterrorism rather than
door-to-door patrols of Baghdad and other cities.
Mulling over timeline for troop
cut
But Landrieu said, “I’m open to consider the parameters of the Levin
amendment” with its requirement that Bush begin reducing the number of
U.S. forces in Iraq within 120 days.
“The public clearly wants a
change in direction in Iraq — not just a change in message,” Landrieu
said. “The president has resisted it, despite all the evidence to the
contrary.”
Landrieu was chagrined that the
president opposed a measure offered this week by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.,
which would have required a one-to-one ratio between the time troops
spend at home bases and the time they spend in Iraq.
“The president himself has said
the country should be prepared for a marathon – but he has set our
troops on a sprint’s pace that cannot be sustained,” she said. “So he is
the one that is being not completely honest with American people about
what it is going to take in terms of time and treasure to fight this
war. Until he starts putting some smarter strategies on the table and
stops blocking all the smart strategies that we put out there, then I’m
not going to believe his rhetoric any longer.”
She spoke not in terms of
withdrawal dates or of a funding cut-off but in terms of “salvage.”
“The American people would like us to try to salvage what
we can, to win what we can to protect this country and to develop a
smart strategy to do so. And every effort made by Democrats, even
moderate, more conservative Democrats is being thwarted by this
administration.”
