War weighs on GOP candidates

WASHINGTON — Election day is more than a year away, but Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is already facing a barrage of attack ads, protesters at her local offices and a strong Democratic challenger. It's a far different environment than in her last race for reelection, when her popularity was soaring and she won a commanding 58% of the vote.

The one-word explanation for the change: Iraq.

As Congress wrestles with Democratic proposals to withdraw U.S. troops and limit the war in Iraq, the home-state pressure on Collins and other Republicans helps explain why an increasing number of GOP lawmakers now seem ready to veer from the party line.

The 2008 campaign season is starting to take shape for congressional candidates, and many Republicans see warning signs that the steepest price for the administration's Iraq policy may be paid not by President Bush, who will not be on the ballot, but by the GOP lawmakers who will be.

In New Hampshire, a recent poll found Republican Sen. John E. Sununu trailing one possible Democratic challenger by a double-digit margin.

In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman raised about $300,000 less in the second quarter than his best-known Democratic challenger, comedian Al Franken.

In Oregon, approval ratings for Sen. Gordon H. Smith did not improve after he switched positions and called for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Republicans say they hope passion about the Iraq war will cool by the time 2008 ballots are cast. But they acknowledge that if the election were held tomorrow, the war would be a ball and chain around the GOP ankle.

The party was hobbled by antiwar sentiment in the 2006 midterm election, when Republicans lost control of Congress. If the politics of the war do not change, Republicans fear, their hope of regaining control of Congress in 2008 will not be realized.

"Do we hope Iraq is not an issue by election day? Sure," said Rebecca Fisher, spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "But can we guess where we will be next year? No way."

The political fallout from the Iraq debate is hard to gauge, analysts say, because it will hinge in large part on uncertain developments in the war and whether Bush changes course.

That is why more Republican senators, after standing by Bush for years, are now trying to reshape policy well before election day arrives. Last week's Senate debate on defense policy featured a who's who of Republicans facing reelection in 2008 signing on to proposals designed to signal their dissatisfaction with the course of the war.