With the Democratic Party winning majorities in both houses of Congress, the 2006 midterm elections presented a clear and unambiguous mandate for a change of course in Iraq. Both of New Hampshire's seats in the House of Representatives swung from Republicans to Democrats for the first time in the state's history. All of this indicates that the people of New Hampshire strongly oppose the course of the war.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., seems not to have gotten that memo. Instead of representing the people of his state in the Senate, he has been sending mixed messages while continuing to toe the party line on Iraq. For example, in his column published in the Concord Monitor on Jan. 18, he said that "changes in tactics make sense, but they can be implemented without a significant increase in U.S. troop presence."
That sounds good, but what did he proceed to do after that? He has consistently voted for the troop surge, and against having an open debate in the Senate about the president's troop surge.
This kind of double-dealing is exactly what the people of New Hampshire don't want. They deserve a well-defined position from Sununu. The only problem is, he has taken to not speaking to the press very much anymore. In fact, as covered this month in the Washington Post, when reporters recently approached him near the U.S. Capitol, he literally turned and ran away rather than answer questions on his positions (or lack of positions). This has earned him nicknames like "Sprinting Sununu" and "The Fastest Senator In Washington."
While it was certainly an amusing incident, it belies something quite concerning. His refusal to talk to the press means that either he is trying to have it both ways on Iraq by brownnosing the Republican leadership or that his positions are so convoluted that even he cannot explain them. Pandering or incompetence, pick your poison. Either way, it does not bode well for the people of New Hampshire that this is the man representing them.
The pandering theory suggests that Sununu has voted for the troop surge, despite its unpopularity in New Hampshire, because he is trying to get into the good graces of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has consistently argued for increased troop levels in Iraq. This is because Sununu has apparently been mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain (one of the Republican frontrunners for the 2008 presidential election). If this is true, then Sununu is shirking his duties as a representative of the state of New Hampshire in the interest of his own political ambitions.
The incompetence argument is as follows: Sununu knows he is in electoral trouble but does not know what to do about it. He is a part of a vanishing breed of New England Republicans in the Senate (read: Lincoln Chafee). This would explain some of his anti-surge rhetoric, and explains his votes down partisan lines, as he believes that is the only way to keep the campaign money flowing from the Republican establishment.
In either case, things don't look good for the people of New Hampshire. Both theories lead to the same conclusion, which is that the senator needs to shape up his act and begin actually representing the interests of his constituents. He is up for reelection in 2008, and if he doesn't make a major change in his position on Iraq, the people of New Hampshire, as well as Dartmouth students, need to work to elect someone who will have the people of this state in mind when voting on the Senate floor.
The Granite State has a long tradition of being independently minded, and it deserves a senator with some of that independent spirit. Unless the "sprinting senator" starts standing up for the people of this state and saying no to the stay-the-course mentality on Iraq, we should, as the saying goes, throw the bum out.
