GOP starts to see things Reid’s way on war

Thursday, May 17, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Senate's growing impatience with President Bush's Iraq war strategy can be seen not only in the maneuvering by Majority Leader Harry Reid. It is also apparent in the evolving positions of Nevada Sen. John Ensign and other Senate Republicans.

Just three months ago, Ensign declined to return to Washington for a Saturday vote expressing the Senate's displeasure with Bush's open-ended troop surge. Ensign called it political posturing by Democrats. He chose to play golf in Nevada instead.

Ensign joined a majority of senators, primarily Republicans, on Wednesday to support a plan that would begin to assert oversight of the war by imposing benchmarks on the Iraqi government and withholding economic development aid if those targets are not met.

The Republican-backed plan won crossover Democrats and offered a modest alternative to the one backed by Reid, which failed because it was considered too extreme for all but 29 Democrats. It called for cutting military funds to ensure troop withdrawal by April 1.

Reid appeared pleased even in defeat. The Democratic plan got twice as many votes as a comparable bill last year, while the Republican legislation agreeing to benchmarks and penalties was the first of its kind.

"Republicans are beginning to realize the current path in Iraq is unsustainable," Reid told reporters after the vote. "At least Republicans are now recognizing they've got to give the president something."

Democrats on both sides of the Capitol are chipping away at Republican support for Bush's war strategy and solidifying their own. Last week nearly 40 percent of House members voted to get out of the war, surprising even their leadership. Public opinion is on Democrats' side as polls show most Americans want the war over.

Vote by vote, Democrats are forcing their fellow party members as well as Republicans to choose whether to stand by the Bush administration, and potentially face a voter backlash next year at the polls, or join them in beginning to draw down troops.

Republicans know that every vote their senators take on the war provides campaign fodder for the 2008 election, while drowning out action on other issues. "I would prefer not to talk about Iraq every day," one Republican leadership aide said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell complained Wednesday that after 30 votes on Iraq since Democrats took over in January, Congress still has not produced a troop funding bill Bush would sign.

But Democrats led by Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plan even more Iraq votes, a strategy reinforced during daily conference calls, first reported in The New York Times, with a coalition of labor and anti-war groups.

Every morning at 10:30, staff from the Democratic leadership offices is on the line with representatives of nearly a dozen groups, including powerful moveon.org, that make up the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

The congressional officials disclose their strategy, while the groups plot ad campaigns, community protests and other activities in the field, participants say.

One of the groups, Americans United for Change, had radio ads ready before Wednesday's votes. It is trying to pressure Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio to reconsider his position before the next Iraq vote.

"Bad votes plus pressure really does work," said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change and a former communications director of the Democratic campaign arm in the Senate. "We're just going to club them."

But pressure from the groups cuts both ways. Moveon.org sent Democratic leaders a letter recently insisting that any war-funding bill also contain troop withdrawals and warned that moveon.org would oppose Democrats if they yielded to Bush, the Times reported.

Another coalition group, Win Without War, expressed disappointment Wednesday that only 29 Democrats voted for the Reid-backed bill. "Members of the Senate have to understand how strongly we feel on this issue and how relentlessly we are going to move," said Tom Andrews, national director of the group and a former Democratic congressman from Maine. "Until we get a majority, it's not enough."

But Reid and others see the strides being made. Bush signaled his willingness to accept Iraqi government benchmarks last week after the showdown with Congress, when he vetoed a war-funding bill with withdrawal language.

Ensign said he has long supported a political as well as military solution to the war, pointing to a December op-ed column he co-wrote with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., calling on Iraqis to devise an agreement to share oil revenue.

Since Bush's veto, Ensign has been seeking ways to get a bill the president can sign.

"It's a step toward compromise," Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said. "Sen. Ensign has said all along we do need more of a political solution."