As the House voted Thursday on more than $100 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq, the eyes of war critics were on Democratic members who supplied the margin of victory for the funding.
Despite misgivings about the war, 86 Democrats combined with 194 Republicans to pass the funding, as the House OK'd it by a vote of 280 to 142.
and other anti-Iraq war groups were fuming at House Democratic leaders.
In an e-mail to its members, Moveon.org said, “Democratic leaders were facing the president down on summer funding for the Iraq war. But they just blinked.”
Moveon.org said Democratic leaders “gave up on real timelines to end the war, which were key to progressive support. This is a failure of leadership.”
The future of the 232-member Democratic House majority hinges partly on whether anti-war groups such as Moveon.org decide to support primary challengers to Democrats who voted ‘yes’ on funding.
The effect of primary challenges
Will anti-war activists force Democratic incumbents to spend money to defend themselves in primaries next year — or could the party actually get stronger candidates as a result of contested primaries?
Which will face Republican attack ads for voting against the Iraq funds?
Anti-war leader Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said Thursday no one should assume that any Democratic incumbent who voted for war funding is immune from a primary challenge.
“The depth of anger is so deep,” Kucinich said.
Here’s a look at four key House Democrats and their votes:
Five-term veteran Shelley Berkley, who represents Las Vegas and environs, said Thursday afternoon, “My district is pretty evenly divided. I haven’t done polling, but according to other polls it’s apparent that more than 50 percent now oppose the Iraq war in my district or in Nevada.”
So her vote for the additional finding will go against the wishes of the majority of her constituents, but she explained, “I’m on record as saying I’m not going to leave the troops stranded. As angry and dismayed as I am with the Bush administration having created a debacle, I’m not going to take it out on the troops.”
She predicted, “By September, there will be enough Republicans who will have expressed their concern to the president; it will be a bipartisan effort to moderate his position.”
She also forecast that “as we get closer to election time, more and more Republicans will see that Mr. Bush is not on the ballot, they are.”
And what about the potential threat of a Democratic primary challenger against her? “I don’t foresee that happening. I’ve been very candid about my position.”
She recalled, “I was in anti-Vietnam war protests in college.” She said the U.S. exit from Iraq, when it happens, “will be much more complex than the helicopter on the roof of the embassy” — a reference to the Saigon evacuation in 1975. “This is very complex. It is so much more complex than just ‘get out tomorrow.’”
Freshman Tim Walz of Minnesota’s Second District is a former high-school teacher and political novice elected last November in an upset win over Republican Gil Gutknecht. Walz represents a district that President Bush carried by four percentage points in 2004.
“I’m going to vote for it,” Walz said of the Iraq funding. “What’s become very apparent to me is the president’s reckless disregard for the troops — he’ll play the brinkmanship to the end, until they fall over the brink."
He added, “Having been in the National Guard, I say to those who say, ‘you have to vote no, you have to draw this out,’ there’s a process here and there’s the Constitution. If I thought that a 'no' vote would end this tomorrow in a responsible manner, of course I’d go in that direction.”
But, he argued, what a ‘no vote on funding would do is cause shortages in supplies. “There’ll be no bullets for live fire exercises for the training,” he predicted.
Could there be back in his hometown of Mankato, Minn., another high-school teacher or political novice getting ready to challenge Walz in a Democratic primary due to his vote on the war?
“It’s possible — and I would encourage them to do so if they want to get into the leadership position where you have to make this vote," he said. "For me, it might be some easy personal salvation to just say no, but the reality of this is we have a president who has gotten us to this point. A ‘no’ vote does not de-fund the war or even if it would, it would it would not stop it. And I have an obligation to find a real solution.”
Freshman Jerry McNerney of California’s 11th District, who represents a district that President Bush carried by nine points in 2004, is a ‘no’ vote.
“The president has said basically, ‘give me everything I want and nothing I don’t want and I’ll sign the bill.’ That’s not acceptable to me or to a lot of people and that’s not why I was elected,” McNerney said in an interview a few hours before Thursday night’s funding vote. “We need to bring accountability to the war, end the war, and re-deploy the troops. I don’t think we should give the president a free hand.”
Will Republicans say in next year’s campaign “McNerney refused to fund the troops”?
He replied, “They’ll say whatever they can say that works. We’ll see. I don’t know. We’ll get funds for the troops; we’re not going to abandon the troops. That isn’t what this is about.”
Does that mean he’ll vote ‘no’ partly because he knows the bill will pass anyway?
“I don’t know if it will pass or not. I’m voting to end the war. The president vetoed our spending plan and he cut off the finds for the troops when he did that,” McNerney replied.
Carol Shea-Porter, another first term Democrat, scored an upset win last year over Rep. Jeb Bradley in New Hampshire’s Second District.
“We tried to get the president to accept some kind of reason in this war. I’m not giving him a blank check. Too many people are dying; there’s been too much destruction. There’s been zero accountability. He’s asking us in Year Five of the war to continue the same. So I’m voting ‘no’ this time. I support the troops and you have to say ‘no’ if you support the troops.”
Like McNerney and Walz, Shea-Porter represents a district that Bush carried in 2004. And like them she is the target of a National Republican Congressional Committee one-week radio ad buy launched Thursday, accusing them of having “been strong-armed by Speaker Pelosi.”
