WASHINGTON – Washington state’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Mike McGavick, stepped up efforts to distance himself from President Bush by accusing the president of failing to understand voter frustrations about the Iraq war.
“President Bush isn’t getting our frustrations. It’s time to be decisive – beat the terrorists,” McGavick says in a new TV ad running this week. “Partition the country if we have to and get our troops home in victory.”
The new ad, which is running statewide, follows recent comments by McGavick that he would have voted against the Iraq invasion if he’d known there were no weapons of mass destruction. McGavick also urged Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The president on Wednesday repeated his support for Rumsfeld, saying he was doing a “fantastic” job.
The new ad is the strongest yet, and takes on Bush directly. McGavick praises two other Senate candidates – Libertarian Bruce Guthrie and Aaron Dixon of the Green Party – for having “the guts to say what they think” about the war. Both Guthrie and Dixon oppose the war and have called for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
McGavick’s spokesman, Elliott Bundy, said the Iraq ad was not intended to boost Guthrie or Dixon – although it is highly unusual in political advertising to favorably cite an opponent.
“We’re simply making the point that of the major candidates in this race, the only one with a position that is vague is the incumbent,” Bundy said, referring to freshman Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.
In the ad, McGavick says Cantwell is “vague” about the war and notes that she voted to authorize the use of force in 2002 and generally supported the war for three years after that.
“And now suddenly, she’s become vague?” McGavick asked.
Cantwell campaign spokeswoman Katharine Lister called McGavick’s charge off base.
“Everyone knows that Senator Maria Cantwell has been calling for a change in course in Iraq … and our campaign doesn’t need to spend millions to explain the consistency of her position,” Lister said.
She accused McGavick of flip-flopping on the war by criticizing Bush after saying for months that he supports the president’s policies.
Cantwell and McGavick have had seven joint appearances or debates, Lister said, “and in every one he has listened to her call for a plan to change the course in Iraq. For him to say her position is vague shows how desperate he is.”
After refusing to do so, she began criticizing the war effort earlier this year amid a near- rebellion from anti-war Demo-crats, who protested at campaign events and accused Cantwell of enabling Bush on the war.
Cantwell managed to get two of her strongest anti-war critics to abandon their own Senate campaigns and join her team, paying one of her former critics $8,000 a month to be her outreach director to the left wing.
Cantwell voted against a specific timetable to bring troops home, but she has said she would have voted against the war if she had known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Bundy, the McGavick spokesman, called Cantwell’s stance evasive.
“It is hard to tell what the senator thinks – where we should go in Iraq and what we should achieve,” he said.
Still the McGavick ad is remarkable less for its criticism of Cantwell than of Bush, and indicates the depth of opposition to the war in the state. Polls indicate that more than 60 percent of Washington residents disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war, and a majority support immediate withdrawal of troops.
The ad is especially striking because Bush has vigorously defended the war – and attacked Democrats – with increasing force in recent days.
A White House spokesman declined to comment Wednesday, but Republican leaders have said privately that White House officials are disappointed in McGavick’s overall effort, noting that he trails Cantwell by double digits in most polls. Republicans say McGavick has not been forceful enough in criticizing Cantwell, and has hurt himself by criticizing the war and refusing to put more of his personal fortune into the race.
McGavick, a former chief executive of Safeco Corp., has lent his campaign $2.5 million – far below the $10 million Cantwell spent of her own money to win the seat in 2000.
The ad was produced before Kerry and Bush began trading barbs over the war this week. Kerry apologized Wednesday for “a botched joke” about Bush’s Iraq policies that led Bush and fellow Republicans to accuse him of insulting U.S. troops.
Bush said Wednesday he wants Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain with him until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of his administration.
“Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them,” Bush said.
On Iraq, Bush said the military has not asked for an increase in U.S. forces beyond the 144,000 already there. He said U.S. generals have told him “that the troop level they got right now is what they can live with.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
