Antiwar Critics Spare a Senator in a Close Race

[Judi Lynn]

Antiwar Critics Spare a Senator in a Close Race
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: September 19, 2006

SEATTLE, Sept. 18 — Even as Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington has faced frequent criticism for having voted for the war in Iraq, her re-election campaign appears to be benefiting from a cold dose of pragmatism among many of her fellow Democrats.

After looking east to Connecticut, where another supporter of the war, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, lost the Democratic primary last month, many Democrats here say attacking Ms. Cantwell in Tuesday’s primary seems flat-out foolish because it could benefit the well-financed Republican challenger in November.

“Those people were looking for a reason to vote for her anyway,” said Hong Tran, an antiwar advocate running against Ms. Cantwell who has stayed in the primary race despite polling in the low single digits and raising about $40,000.

Cathy Allen, a longtime Democratic consultant here who is not involved directly in the race, said, “If anything, what you would succeed in is poking yourself in the eye.”
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/us/politics/19cantwell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Ediacara]

1. I think this is missing the point

Cantwell has never implied that being a war critic helps the terrorists. Lieberman has. That's the difference. No one in the media gets it.

[Fenris]

2. Yep.

World of difference between the two. Comparing the two is a night-and-day situation.

[Ediacara]

4. Totally

I could live with the sanctimonious lecturing, the hawkishness, and everything else. Except for this:

"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander in chief for three more years. We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

Which essentially tells me he thinks that I'm a traitor that helps the terrorists. Which means we are being reasonable targeting him and not targeting Cantwell.

[lvx35]

3. She's running great ads nightly, focusing on energy independence

And McGavick looks like such a twit in his ads:

"When I was a boy, I ran a skateboard through a window. I mowed lawns all summer to pay for the damage. That's why I'm all about personal responsibility"

Somehow I don't think the child labor bit is going to be a big seller here in Washington state Mike.

[EST]

5. Once again, they manage to miss the point.

While it is and was an important issue and one on which Lieberman is the victim of his own mental magic, the Iraq war is not the issue which sank his boat.

Cantwell has belatedly affirmed the obvious position that Sen. Kerry reluctantly embraced. While it does not absolve her of the responsibility for her disasterous vote, it does mbake a hell of a lot more sense, in light of her position on other issues. She is not NoMoJoe and her nose is not so brown.

We are not publiclowns: we are not pathetically loyal to party ideology.

[eridani]

6. Cantwell is NOT a frequent and public belittler of fellow Dems

Lieberman is. More centrist than I like, but I'd rather have 2/3 of what I want from a senator instead of the nothing that McGavick offers. Besides which, Alaska already has two senators and doesn't need a third.

[Duncan Idaho]

7. I beg to differ

Fairy tales and pipe dreams of the Dems taking both houses aside, if you voted for the Iraq war, you should be out on your ass, whatever side of the one party two-headed snake you speak from.

We all knew from day fucking zero that this war was wrong, no reason why these pinheads shouldn't have.