|
I have suggested before that Johnnys Sununu and McCain are Best Friends Forever, and that the elder has been cultivating the younger for the past few years for the express purpose of securing an easy victory in the Primary.
Two recent events have thrown their relationship into choppy waters, however. First, the Granite State's turn to the indigo, assisted by constant attention to the phonejamming saga, has helped take Sununu from a guy facing a reasonably tough re-election bid to one of the most vulnerable Senators from either party. Second, McCain's politically-driven "surge" idea has pretty badly blown up in his face, now that Bush is actually insane enough to endorse a similar escalation.
What will Sununu do (do)? Stick it out with Straight Talk and hope for favors down the road, or split with him for fear of being flushed down Bush's historic disapprovals?
I think Johnny's stuck, so he's stalling. Read the excerpt below (WaPo) and ask yourself, "Which one of these highly endangered Republicans is not like the other?":
Two Senate Republicans with potentially tough reelection contests in 2008, Minnesota's Norm Coleman and Maine's Susan Collins, returned from recent trips to Iraq saying they did not think sending more troops was a good idea. Branding the U.S. war effort "absurd," Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) made waves in early December with a speech questioning the continued presence of troops.
< snip >
Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who also is up for reelection in 2008, said the president's new plan must address "not only the security needs of large cities like Baghdad, but also the very significant internal changes that need to take place in Iraq to assure long-term stability." ...
Sununu declined to say what he thinks about more troops, but one of his colleagues from the Northeast, Maine's Collins, said she was flatly opposed to the idea after discussing it with commanders and Iraqis during a trip with McCain, Graham and Lieberman.
I say that as long as our public servant declines to offer his opinion on a matter in which US lives are in the balance, we continue to highlight that fact to help usher in better representation.
Update: Jonathan Singer over at MyDD has a list of the 2006 voting records for all Senators up for re-election in 2008. Guess who voted with the President 90% of the time? (Compare that, e.g., to Maine's Collins who clocks in at 79%) Says Singer: "Judging by these numbers, John Sununu and Wayne Allard, more than any other Republican Senators up for reelection in 2008, are out of touch with their constituents."
|
