Arguably, waffling on the war is what is costly for Republicans. In June Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, cautioned other Republicans not to go wobbly. A month later he went wobbly himself. After returning from Iraq, he declared that the U.S. lacked “strategic control” of the country and called for a limited troop withdrawal to “send a message” to Iraq’s government. In November the six-term congressman watched independent voters abandon him as he lost by more than 5% to Democrat Tim Waltz. Meanwhile, in a neighboring congressional district, Rep. John Kline, another Republican facing a stiff challenge for his seat, didn’t waver. He ended winning enough support from independents to defeat FBI “whistleblower” Colleen Rowley by 16%. ~Brendan Miniter

Arguably, Brendan Miniter is an embarrassing hack.  Let us consider the case of the unlamented former Congressman from the Fighting First of Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht.  He was rated the third-most conservative member of the House and had consistently won re-election with at least 55% of the vote in every cycle except 1996 when he got 53%.  In 2002 and 2004 he enjoyed a little Bush boost and won 61% and 60% of the vote respectively.  In 2006 something changed and he wound up losing 47-53 in a district that gave Kerry only 48% of the vote.  As a Republican incumbent, you don’t usually drop 13 points in two years as a six-term Congressman in a predominantly Republican district unless you did something to really anger your voters.  It turns out that old Gil had run up against his Contract With America pledge to serve no more than 12 years and was nonetheless running for re-election in ’06, so evidently his voters weren’t so thrilled with him breaking one of his original pledges.  Then there was also the general anti-GOP mood in the country, and antiwar sentiment in Minnesota generally is likely higher than it is elsewhere–all of this couldn’t have helped Gutknecht.  To attribute Gutknecht’s defeat to his belated shift towards disengagement from Iraq is not real political analysis, but the most opportunistic invention.  If anything, distancing himself from the President on Iraq earlier might have helped, but if it was his term limits pledge violation that brought him down his positions on Iraq would have been irrelevant.  To take other examples where positions on the war didn’t help even the most principled antiwar Republicans: Hostettler and Leach were both against the war from the beginning, which should have made them immune to antiwar resentments, but they nonetheless suffered from the general anti-GOP backlash in their home states.

Miniter’s citation of Rep. Kline‘s victory is similarly misleading, since it suggests that Kline’s large margin of victory had something to do with his position on Iraq.  Kline had made no term limits pledge and had only been serving since 2002 in any case, so he was suffering no backlash from his core supporters.  He had consistently won 53-57% of the vote against a DFL candidate pulling 40-42%, which reflected the strengthening of the Republican character of the district after reapportionment.  This is a district that has been, with the exception of the interruption of the Clinton years, reliably Republican going back to the days of FDR.  It would take monumental blunders for a Republican incumbent to lose in this district.  It is doubtful that Kline’s supposed steadfastness on Iraq was what secured his re-election–it was gerrymandering that won him this race. 

I might as well cite Steve Pearce’s re-election in New Mexico’s heavily Republican Second as proof that the Iraq war is wildly popular and the administration is beloved by one and all.  That would make as much sense.  And Miniter gets paid to write this stuff?