U.S. congressional elections in 2006: Campaign Issues

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The following relates to Campaign Issues for the U.S. congressional elections in 2006.

A Vote for Democrats is a Vote for Terrorism
On October 30, 2006, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney commenced to put forth a "coordinated message" "that essentially said a vote for Democrats is a vote for terrorism," Ed Kilgore wrote November 1, 2006, at TPM Cafe Blog.

"If you elect the Democrats they'll tax you into the poor house, and on the way, you'll meet a terrorist on every corner, and when you try to run away, you'll stumble over an illegal immigrant," President Bill Clinton said October 29, 2006. 

Of Necessity, Republicans Embrace the War in Iraq
On June 21, 2006, "there was little sign of such nervousness ... as Republican after Republican took to the Senate floor to offer an unambiguous embrace of the Iraq war and to portray Democrats as advocates of an overly hasty withdrawal that would have grave consequences for the security of the United States. Like their counterparts in the House last week, they accused Democrats of espousing 'retreat and defeatism.'

"That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on [June 21st], Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest liability into an advantage in the midterm elections." (Emphasis added.)

No Withdrawal from Iraq
According to "White House officials", the "central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam."&mdash;Jim Rutenberg and Adam Nagourney, New York Times, June 22, 2006. 

Also see Exit Strategy from Iraq, embolden the terrorists, and stay the course.

Karl Rove's plan to make the election about the War on Terror
On Friday, January 20, 2006, President George W. Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, then still under investigation in the Valerie Plame leak case, "vowed" "to make the war on terrorism a central campaign issue" for the November 2006 elections, the Associated Press reported:


 * "'Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world. And Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world,' Rove told Republican activists. 'That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.'"

Related SourceWatch/Congresspedia Resources

 * 110th United States Congress
 * U.S. presidential election, 2008 / U.S. presidential election, 2008: Campaign Issues
 * U.S. House of Representatives
 * U.S. Senate
 * voter outreach

Current Coverage

 * 2006 Senate Elections News, US Politics Today, IDP Group, Inc..
 * Election 2006, Polling Report website.
 * Election Polls 2006, Rasmussen Reports website.

Articles & Commentary

 * "Rove: Security will be focus of 2006 campaigns. GOP strategist say Democrats have a 'pre-9/11' worldview," Associated Press (CNN), January 20, 2006.
 * Joe, "Rove is back at it," AMERICAblog, January 20, 2006.
 * Jim Rutenberg and Adam Nagourney, "G.O.P. Decides to Embrace War as Issue," New York Times, June 22, 2006.
 * Judd Legum, "Bush Not Leaving," Think Progress, August 21, 2006.
 * Mr Populist, "GOP Big Lie For 2006 Elections: 'We're Tough on Terror'," Daily Kos, August 26, 2006.
 * Patricia Wilson, "Cheney: Early Iraq pullout 'ruinous' to US security," Reuters, August 28, 2006.
 * Editorial: "Our Agora: The American Legion and the public square," Salt Lake Tribune (Utah), August 28, 2006.
 * "Cheney Brings His Alternative Universe to Reno," Desert Beacon, August 28, 2006.
 * Julian E. Barnes, "Bush Shields U.S., Cheney Says. The vice president says 'sound policy decisions' by the president, and a vigilant government, have deterred terrorist strikes since 9/11," Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2006.
 * John Amato, "Rumsfeld says war critics are Nazi appeasers," Crooks and Liars, August 29, 2006.
 * E.J. Dionne Jr., "Slowly Sidling To Iraq's Exit. Many GOP Candidates Part Company With Bush," Washington Post, August 29, 2006.
 * Ann Scott Tyson, "Rumsfeld Assails Critics of War Policy," Washington Post, August 30, 2006.
 * Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, "Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist. Blunt Rhetoric Signals a New Thrust," Washington Post, August 31, 2006.
 * Robert Dreyfuss, "A Higher Power. James Baker puts Bush's Iraq policy into rehab," Washington Monthly, September 2006. re Iraq Study Group
 * Steve Gilliard, "The last, desperate gasp," The News Blog, September 1, 2006.
 * "Bush Setting Up Next Terror Speech," Associated Press (Forbes), September 1, 2006.
 * Allen L. Roland, "Americans No Longer Support the Big Lie," OpEdNews, September 2, 2006.
 * Sridhar Krishnaswami, "Iraq pullout would be like handing it over to terrorists: Bush," PTI (DNA India), September 2, 2006.
 * Partial Transcript: "Team Bush Ramps Up Rhetoric on Iraq and War on Terror," Beltway Boys/Fox News, September 3, 2006.
 * "Bush compares Bin Laden to Hitler" (and Lenin) "in a speech to US military officers," BBC, September 5, 2006.
 * Bill Hutchinson, "Condi uses Civil War to slap Iraq critics," New York Daily News, September 5, 2006.
 * Robert Parry, "Election 2006 & World War III," consortiumnews, September 7, 2006.
 * Jim Abrams, "Senate: No Prewar Saddam-al-Qaida Ties," Associated Press (Forbes), September 8, 2006.
 * "Rockefeller: Bush Duped Public On Iraq. CBS News Exclusive: W.Va. Senator Says Invasion Unnecessary Even If Saddam Would Still Be In Power," CBS News, September 9, 2006.
 * Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson, "Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'. U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking," Washington Post, September 10, 2006.
 * Judd Legum, "Cheney Ignores Senate Intel Report, Cites Zarqawi As Evidence of Iraq/Al Qaeda Connection," Think Progress, September 10, 2006. Includes video and transcript.
 * Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza, "In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal. Millions to Go to Digging Up Dirt on Democrats," Washington Post, September 10, 2006.
 * Monroe Anderson, "Just in time for elections, Bush campaigns on fear," Chicago Sun-Times, September 10, 2006.
 * Andrew Sullivan, "The Rove Campaign," The Daily Dish Blog/TIME, September 10, 2006.
 * Alex Koppelman, "The Olbermann factor," Salon, September 11, 2006: "The MSNBC maverick gives Salon the countdown on his anti-Bush orations, battling with Bill O'Reilly, and the nauseating truth about cable news." re Keith Olbermann
 * Gretchen Peters, "Where Is Osama Bin Laden? Five Years After the 9/11 Attacks, There Are Few Explanations About Why He Has Not Been Caught," ABC News, September 11, 2006.
 * Douglas Turner, Editorial: "GOP leaders unleash the rhetoric of war," Buffalo News (NY), September 11, 2006.
 * Billmon, "The Sixteen Acre Ditch," Whiskey Bar, September 11, 2006.
 * Dan Froomkin, "Everything's Political," Washington Post, September 11, 2006.
 * Michael Abromwitz, "Bush Says 'America Loses' Under Democrats. White House Talk Heats Up As Polls Show Tight Races," Washington Post, October 31, 2006.
 * Ed Kilgore, "Where's the Outrage?" TPM Cafe, November 1, 2006.
 * William Rivers Pitt, "Blood in the Gutters," truthout (OpEdNews), November 1, 2006.