Tight Races in Va., Mo. and Tenn. Seen as Crucial; House Outlook Remains GrimRepublicans entered the campaign's final weekend yesterday desperately trying to keep control of the Senate, with three or four tossup races likely to determine whether the GOP can cling to power there even as it sees its hold on the House eroding.
Strong public opposition to the Iraq war continues to hurt Republicans in many key races, but the Bush administration struck a defiant tone, signaling that the election results will not influence its strategy. Tuesday's balloting might influence Congress, Vice President Cheney said in an interview with ABC News, "but the president has made clear what his objective is. It is victory in Iraq, and it is full speed ahead on that basis, and that is exactly what we are going to do."
Cheney was responding in part to sharp criticism launched in a Vanity Fair article by two of the Iraq invasion's strongest advocates: Richard Perle of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee and former Pentagon official Ken Adelman. Perle said the administration's war policy had become dysfunctional, adding: "You have to hold the president responsible. . . . I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."
With polls showing that the war may strongly influence many voters' decisions, analysts in both parties agreed that Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee are the keys to controlling the 100-member Senate, where Democrats need to gain six seats to claim the majority. Nonpartisan handicappers said few undecided voters remain in those advertisement-dre-drenched states.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301706.html
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