WASHINGTON – Aggressive to the end, Democrats opened two new fronts Friday in the battle for control of Congress, unleashing a costly televised attack against a Colorado Republican and airing radio ads on Christian stations favored by Republican listeners.
Republicans looked to President Bush and their proven get-out-the-vote operation to minimize their losses in next Tuesday’s elections, held at a time of widespread unease with the status quo.
“It was meant to be a little on the stealth side,” Democratic chairman Howard Dean said of the radio ads, part of an attempt to appeal to conservative voters who have long backed Republicans.
The television commercial, by the party’s House campaign committee, was aimed at Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a second-term Colorado lawmaker in an unexpectedly tight race for re-election. “She works overtime for special interests,” says the ad, which drew a swift rebuttal from her campaign.
The last-minute advertising underscored the extent to which the Democrats have been on offense and the Republicans on defense in the run-up to Tuesday’s elections. As many as 60 seats in the House and a half-dozen or more in the Senate remained competitive – almost all under GOP control – as Democrats sought to ride a wave of discontent with the war on Iraq to victory in the polls.
Bush campaigned without letup to prevent it.
In rural Missouri to help embattled Sen. Jim Talent, Bush invoked God’s name in defending his administration’s policy in Iraq. “I believe freedom is universal. I believe there’s an Almighty, and a great gift of the Almighty to each man and woman and child on the face of the earth is a desire to be free,” he said, recalling that thousands of Iraqis voted in free elections once they were freed from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.
Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview taped for airing Sunday on ABC, conceded the war may not be popular with the public. Still, he said, “It doesn’t matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right … . We’re not running for office. We’re doing what we think is right.”
A recent AP-AOL News poll suggested that about 38 percent of likely voters either have yet to make up their minds or could change their minds before casting their ballots. Of them, 51 percent favored the Democrats, 35 percent were partial to the Republicans and 14 percent were either undecided or they refused to say how they will vote.
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