Flash-20 Democrats Desert Pullout!
While As Usual The Republicans Voted In A Block, None Favoring The Pullout, Also As Usual, The Democrats Split 20 Against It And 29 In Favor.
WASHINGTON - The Senate today easily defeated a Bill for troops to be out by spring of '08. Below is a list of the 20 Neo-Republicrats who voted against the pull out for you to remember next election. It is possible that some of these senators wanted a tougher bill, and rejected this one with that in mind, but some of the names are familiar as supporting the war from Day One. Some of the Senators against this pullout are those recently elected and without questioning each one, it is at this point difficult to determine their motivation.
Notice one thing however, which has been a theme throughout all of the voting and rhetoric these last five years; none of the "outspoken" Republicans claiming to be against the war voted for the pull-out. The Republicans still vote as a unit and the Democrats still are split, in this case, 40.8% of the Democrats voted against the pullout. Until the motivation of each is discovered, pinning down whether or not they will ever support a pullout is difficult. It is also difficult to tell if some who favored the bill by vote were merely grandstanding know in advance that it would not pass, but some like Durbin, Obama and others have been consistently in favor of a pull-out and Durbin never voted for the war in the first place (Obama didn't take office until 2005). No Republicans supported the pull-out although as many as 12 said they wanted our troops home just a few weeks ago and even visited the president to convince him to support a pull-out. On the positive side, here are those who supported the pullout.
All who supported the spring '08 Pull-out-Yea-29 (29 Dems):
Akaka D-HI, Biden D-DE, Boxer D-CA, Byrd D-WV, Cantwell D-WA, Cardin D-WA, Clinton D-NY, Dodd, D-CT, Durbin D-IL, Feingold D-WI, Feinstein D-CA, Harkin D-IA, Inouye D-HI, Kennedy D-MA, Kerry D-MA, Klobucher D-MN, Kohl D-WI, Lautenberg D-NJ, Leahy D-VT, Menendez D-NJ, Mikulski D-MD, Murray D-WA, Obama D-IL, Reid D-NV, Sanders I-VT, Schumer D-NY, Stabenow D-MI, Whitehouse D-RI, Wyden D-OR
Nay-67 (47 Republicans-20 Dems)
Democrats against the spring '08 Pullout:
Baucus D-MT, Bayh D-IN, Bingaman D-NM, Carper D-DE
Casey D-PA (weren't we encouraged to support him?) Dorgan D-ND, Landrieu D-LA, Levin D-MI, Lieberman D-CT, Lincoln D-AR, McCaskill DF-MO, Nelson D-FL, Nelson D-NE, Pryor D-AR, Reed D-RI, Rockefeller D-WV, Salazar D-CO, Testor-D-MT, Webb D-VA.
Abstaining/Not Voting
Brown D-OH
Dole-R-NC
Johnson D-SD
McCain R-AZ