Fourteen Senators Face Voters for the First Time since Authorizing Iraq War

[razors edge]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1104-27.htm

The conventional wisdom is that the key result in the Senate elections this Tuesday is whether enough Republican incumbents can be defeated in order for the Democrats to re-take the upper house of Congress. Even more important, perhaps, is whether the fourteen incumbent senators seeking re-election who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq will be punished or rewarded for their fateful decision. This will be the first time they have faced their electorate since their October 2002 vote which gave unprecedented authority to President George W. Bush, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations Charter, to invade a sovereign nation on the far side the planet at the time and circumstances of his own choosing

In the two previous election cycles, the overwhelming majority of pro-war incumbents were easily re-elected. This year, however, with a solid majority of Americans recognizing that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was wrong, the results could be very different. Virtually all of the Republicans – as well as such Democrats as Clinton, Lieberman and Cantwell – still defend their decision to authorize the invasion. Other senators, mostly from the Democratic side of the aisle, have acknowledged that, knowing what they know now, they would not have voted to go to war.

[Eric J in MN]

1. It's unlikely that any Democratic Senators...

...will be voted out on Tuesday.

Republcans like Rick Santorum on the other hand, will be.