Verdict latest chapter in '06 campaign story
Iraq a key issue in many US races
WASHINGTON -- The guilty verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial became the latest in a string of dramatic developments that could influence tomorrow's elections, as Democrats and Republicans launched a barrage of ads and get-out-the-vote efforts in a campaign dominated by views about the Iraq war.
A final round of polling indicated that Democrats could pick up more than the 15 seats necessary to take control of the US House, but many of the closely watched Senate races are well within the margin of error, including those in Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Montana.
In a frequently contentious edition of NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday, the heads of all four congressional campaign committees made their party's closing arguments. Senator Elizabeth H. Dole, the North Carolina Republican who oversees her party's effort to retain control of the Senate, said "Democrats appear to be content with losing" the war.
"To pull out, to withdraw from this war is losing -- no question about it," Dole said.
"You should take that back, senator," interjected an angry Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat overseeing his party's effort to gain control of the House.
Another Democrat on the NBC panel, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, rebutting what he called the Republican Party's "kneecapping, name-calling strategy," said the only people who think the Iraq war is going well "are the president and his coterie of advisers."
He said that Democrats have a plan to make 2007 the year the United States stops policing a civil war and a "good number" of US troops are pulled "out of harm's way."
The decision that Hussein should be hanged for crimes against humanity was the latest development that could influence the midterm elections, from the congressional page scandal that led to the resignation of Representative Mark Foley , a Florida Republican, to Senator John F. Kerry's comment that suggested US troops are uneducated, to an editorial slated to appear today by the Military Times media group calling on Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign.
The White House, after being on the defensive for months about the difficulty of the Iraq war, seized on news about Hussein's verdict to suggest that the action is a positive sign for the effort to stabilize Iraq.
"It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government," President Bush said at the airport before flying to Nebraska and Kansas on a campaign swing for Republican candidates two days before the election.
"The man who once struck fear in the hearts of Iraqis had to listen to free Iraqis recount the acts of torture and murder that he ordered against their families and against them," Bush said in brief remarks.
The White House rejected suggestions that the US government had a role in the timing of the verdict. The Senate heads of the Democratic and Republican campaign committees said they did not think the development would sway many voters.
"I don't think his conviction makes much of a difference in this election, even though it's a very good thing that it happened," Schumer said.
Dole also discounted the impact of the verdict, saying, "This will, I think, be received as the right thing, and, you know, I don't expect that it's going to have that much effect, one way or the other."
In another potential factor in the election, pastor Ted Haggard, who resigned last week as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which says it represents 30 million people, said in a statement yesterday that "I am a deceiver and a liar" with a history of "sexual immorality."
A number of congressional races, including one in Haggard's home base of Colorado Springs, are expected to be influenced by whether there is a large evangelical turnout. A gay prostitute who alleged having a sexual relationship with Haggard has said he went public because he wanted to influence the elections and especially a Colorado ballot initiative against same-sex marriage.
As has been the case for several weeks, analysts continued to predict that Democrats will retake the House but said the Senate is too close to call. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report said Democrats can expect to pick up 20 to 35 seats in the House, more than the 15 necessary to take control.
In the Senate, Cook said, Democrats are poised to pick up four seats, and possibly five or six. The Democrats need six to gain control of the Senate.
Schumer said yesterday that Democrats are "on the edge" and declined to predict whether his party would win control. "I wouldn't open up the champagne or do the high-fives, but we are feeling very good," he said.
The latest round of polls indicated that a number of key contests are tightening.
A survey by McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC indicated that Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican, leads his Democratic challenger, Sheldon Whitehouse, 46 percent to 45 percent, with 9 percent undecided. Chafee has emphasized his disagreement with Bush on the Iraq war and other issues.
The McClatchy /MSNBC poll's other findings included: in Montana, Republican Senator Conrad Burns and his Democratic challenger, Jon Tester, are tied at 47 percent; in Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill leads Republican Senator James M. Talent, 46 percent to 45 percent; and, in Maryland, Democrat Ben Cardin leads Republican Michael Steele 47 percent to 44 percent. A Mason-Dixon Virginia poll shows Democratic challenger James Webb leading Republican Senator George Allen 46 percent to 45 percent.
A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday showed that, overall, the Democratic advantage in House races had dropped to 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, down from 50 percent to 39 percent two weeks ago. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Saturday gave the Democrats a six-point edge.
The White House also yesterday sought to deflect criticism about Bush's war performance published in a Vanity Fair article. The article quotes several former Bush advisers, including onetime speechwriter David Frum. The White House, in a press release, quoted quoted Frum as saying that his concerns were old news.
(Correction: Because of an editing error, a photo caption in early editions yesterday accompanying a Page One story on the congressional campaigns gave a wrong party affiliation for the panel headed by Senator Elizabeth H. Dole. She is head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.) 