Ensign must keep his party together

Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Nevada Sen. John Ensign doesn't like to think about it this way, but a Senate vote expressing opposition to President Bush's planned surge of troops in Iraq could have cost his party money.

A popular conservative radio commentator pledged to withhold financial support from Ensign's National Republican Senatorial Committee if any Republican senators go "south" on the war. Within days, more than 30,000 listeners and blog readers signed the pledge.

Ensign needs money, and lots of it. He has taken on the difficult job of trying to get Republican senators reelected in 2008, and has reportedly set an ambitious $120 million fundraising goal. If signatories each withheld, say, a relatively modest donation of $100, the total could amount to a $3 million loss.

Days after the pledge was posted online, Ensign took to the airwaves, joining the host, Hugh Hewitt, on his nationally syndicated radio program to calm the Republican base.

On Tuesday, in the heat of the Senate battle over whether to even allow a debate on the bipartisan resolution against the surge, he stood up at the Republicans' weekly policy luncheon and implored fellow senators to instead send a message supporting the troops.

On Wednesday he took to the floor reminding colleagues that the war is part of "a struggle of biblical proportions."

His efforts may have paid off. Virtually all the Republican senators, even those who unequivocally oppose Bush's surge of 21,000 troops - 48,000 when you include support personnel - stuck with their party: If Democrats wouldn't let Republicans' pro-surge resolution go forward for debate, Republicans wouldn't let the anti-surge one happen, either. Procedural gymnastics halted what was to have been the first comprehensive debate on the war since fighting began four years ago.

By Wednesday evening, when it was clear Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, had abandoned efforts for now, Hewitt posted a congratulatory note to Republicans on his blog, saying that pledge signers "are free to resume contributions to the NRSC."

One senior Republican aide who said he checked the Web site that night, noted with confidence that the threat would now "die down."

Longtime Senate observer Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report questions whether there was ever any real money involved in the campaign. Still, she said a PR blitz of that kind can be annoying to someone in Ensign's position, especially when it comes from within the party and on such an emotional issue as the war.

"This is kind of the test," Duffy said. "When you move into a role like this you're a target for other people's agendas, and Ensign is that guy right now."

Ensign has taken on what by most accounts is a tough job. As committee chairman, he is in charge of trying to keep Republican Senate seats in 2008, when 21 seats are up, almost twice as many as Democrats have to protect.

Voters turned Republicans out of power in Congress last year, and the wide-open White House race is now siphoning off the precious dollars and resources he needs.

If Ensign is successful - and Republicans overtake the Democrats' slim two-seat majority in the Senate - he will be left in the awkward position of having knocked Nevada's political patriarch, Reid, out of power.

But Ensign has long wanted to rise up in Republican leadership, and this role offers a chance. He wants to turn the party back to the free-market, conservative roots that got him first elected to Congress on the Newt Gingrich revolution of 1994.

On the war Ensign has been constant. He supported going into Iraq in 2003, and has little tolerance for dissenters - refusing to meet when war veterans showed up unannounced at his office to protest the war.

Ensign's office and a senior Republican aide said the senator did not let the threat of lost campaign cash influence his thinking - just as the liberal moveon.org ads against the war don't sway him.

When Ensign took the hot seat on the radio, he refused to cave in to Hewitt's demand that the committee not spend its money on senators who went against the surge.

"You can't pick one vote and say if you don't vote here, we're not going to support you," Ensign said on the show. "We have to look for people who are with us the vast majority of the time."

Later in a talk with reporters, Ensign conceded the attack from the right was "not something we wanted to see." But he remained confident "we will be able to raise the funds to support our candidates."

The campaign office is now hiring a blog-savvy communications worker to handle the online activists, something Democratic campaigns were skilled at in 2006.

At the close of his floor speech Wednesday, Ensign reiterated his belief that the surge plan should go forward as "our best chance at getting this right."

"There are always uncertainties in war," he said. "Let us all pray, for all our sakes, that this new way works."