The Daily Background
| Senate escalation supporters struggle to hammer out a competing resolution
by Arlen Parsa
With support for the President’s escalation plan in Iraq at anemic levels both among the public and in Congress (public support for the President on Iraq has sunk to 26% the latest CBS/CBS poll indicates), Senate Republicans are apparently having trouble “cobbling together” some sort of resolution which even supports the escalation in the meekest of manners.
Apparently the charge- or more appropriately put, whimper- towards supporting the President is being led by (you guessed it), John McCain. Gee, what a maverick he is, supporting the President so tirelessly like that, when it’s an unpopular thing to do.
But even the McCain resolution, which is co-sponsored by GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, is not exactly what you’d call bold. Says Graham: “It has two goals… Number one, let General (David) Petraeus and the troops know we support them … Number two … make the statement that we realize you cannot win in Iraq just through a military surge.“
While Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to support the resolution, his own whip- Senator Trent Lott- is refusing to say how he feels about it, according to The Politico, Tuesday.
Says the New York Times today, “In advance of a possible Senate vote on the resolutions, Republican senators now appear widely divided over how to proceed. In trying to head off the resolution supported by Senators Warner and Collins, allies of the White House appear to be trying to muster at least the 41 votes they would need to prevent a vote on the measure under Senate rules.”
It seems nearly impossible now that they will be able to gather as many as 41 votes to wage an effective filibuster.
Recent statements made by Democratic leadership in the Senate such as Harry Reid (Majority Leader) and Chuck Schumer (New York, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair) have indicated that as few as 20 Republicans support the President’s escalation plan- out of a total of 49 Republicans in the Senate.
Update: Political Wire has some more key quotes from powerful Republicans.
Is there any sort of option that I can produce because of this website furthermore? That would beamazing easily might