CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE IF WE STAY IN IRAQ FOREVER, BUT THEY WANT BUSH TO SAY WE'RE BRING THE TROOPS HOME... "SOON"

Today I noticed that Minnesota's rubber stamp Republican senator-- one of the leaders of the WINO coalition-- has reached a new lowpoint in voter job approval. According to the brand new SUSA poll, Norm Coleman's approval rating is now 43% by far his lowest ever, and widely considered incurable. Panic stricken Republican incumbents, who have rubber stamped ever single move the Bush-Cheney regime has taken in the last 7 years-- like Coleman, Susan Collins (R-ME), John Warner (R-VA), John Sununu (R-NH), Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM), Miss McConnell (R-KY), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK)-- are now pleading with Bush not to change policy but to at least start talking as though he were going to change course in Iraq.

Some conservative activist leaders, fearing voter anger with the Iraq war, want President Bush and GOP leaders to begin emphasizing that U.S. troops will be “leaving Iraq” to give Republicans cover as they head into a tough political landscape in 2008.

To assuage an angry public, the activists argue that the White House soon needs to articulate clearly that the war will end.

That tactic will help Republican presidential and congressional candidates focus on the domestic issues that could energize the base and win over independents, they say.

By talking openly about the war’s conclusion, Republicans could blunt criticism about supporting an open-ended conflict in Iraq while continuing to attack Democrats for “surrendering” by supporting a specific date for withdrawing troops from Iraq, the activists contend. Pointing to an end to the war will also help reshape the debate about what happens to Iraq after the U.S. leaves, an area that conservatives feel has been overshadowed by Capitol Hill’s continued focus on whether to withdraw troops from the region.

The Bush Regime's chief of ideological purity, bathtub boy Grover Norquist, is asking Bush to just throw in the word "leaving" now and then to confuse the kind of people who watch Fox-TV (the GOP base) "The one-paragraph explanation of what we’re doing in Iraq has to have the word ‘leaving’ in there,” said Norquist. “If Bush would move to ‘leaving,’ then other people, including the MoveOn.org people and the [Democrats], move to a more extreme position than you have, because they have put themselves in the anti-Bush position." And then you can drown it all in a bathtub-- like New Orleans.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said voters would see right through any contention by Bush that the U.S. would leave Iraq without setting a timeline for withdrawing troops.

“What you find now is a lot of Republicans who are talking the talk but not walking the walk,” Van Hollen said. “What we hope voters will do is hold them accountable and say, ‘If you think we really need a change in direction in Iraq, which we’ve argued that we need, then you also have to vote that way back in Washington.’”

Van Hollen, whose DCCC has outraised his Republican counterpart gigantically, may be able to put as many as 50 House races into serious contention in 2008. Likely losers next year will be Republicans who have consistently voted to stay the course, occupy, and escalate. Among the most vulnerable House members are:
John Doolittle (R-CA)
Robin Hayes (R-NC)
Chris Shays (R-CT)
Joseph Knollenberg (R-MI)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Bill Young (R-FL)
Mark Kirk (R-IL)
Mike Ferguson (R-NJ)
Randy Kuhl (R-NY)
James Walsh (R-NY)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Mark Souder (R-IN)
Michele Bachmann (R- MN)
Deborah Pryce (R-OH)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)
Tom Reynolds (R-NY)
Don Young (R-AK)
Mean Jean Schmidt (R- OH)
Ralph Regula (R-OH)
Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
Barbara Cubin (R-WY)
Jon Porter (R-NV)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Ralph Regula
Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Vernon Buchanan (R-FL)
Dean Heller (R-NV)
Steve Chabot (R-OH)
Heather Wilson (R-NM)
Phil English (R-PA)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Mike McCaul (R-TX)
Charlie Dent (R-PA)

If you think we left someone off the list of most-endangered Republican House members, please let us know in the comments section.