Unexpected vote alters schedules

WASHINGTON – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton rushed to Washington on Saturday afternoon to join in the Senate fracas over an Iraq war resolution after telling a New Hampshire audience hours earlier that she would rather lose support for her presidential bid than apologize for her vote in 2002 authorizing the military action.

Under mounting pressure from antiwar Democrats to apologize for her support for the U.S. invasion that she now says was a terrible mistake, the New York Democrat renewed her vow to end the war if she is elected president. But she refused to repudiate her vote, as former Democratic senator John Edwards has done.

“Obviously I would not vote that way again if we knew then what we now know,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said during a town meeting in Dover. “But I have to say that if the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from. But to me the most important thing now is trying to end this war.”

For Clinton and other presidential aspirants, Saturday posed a logistical challenge in trying to straddle the competing demands of a congressional debate over the course of the war and the early critical phase of the 2008 presidential campaign. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to hold a procedural vote Saturday on whether to consider a nonbinding House resolution critical of President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq forced them to scramble their campaign schedules to register votes of little consequence. The Senate fell four votes short of the 60 required to proceed to a floor vote on the resolution.

Clinton scrubbed one scheduled stop in New Hampshire, but went ahead with the Dover town meeting before returning to Washington for the vote. In the Senate chamber, she sat composed and quiet in the back row.

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden (D) had planned to spend the day in Iowa, but instead remained in Washington for the vote. Of all the Senate’s presidential hopefuls, he was the only one to speak before the vote. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hurriedly departed a campaign stop in South Carolina to cast his vote before hustling to a campaign appearance in Richmond, Va., and then boarding a plane to San Diego. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., belatedly voted against moving to a debate on the war before rushing for a plane to Orlando, Fla., where he was to address religious broadcasters.

And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of his party’s front-runners for the 2008 nomination, did not bother to show. In Iowa, McCain defended his decision to stay away from Washington in defiant terms, condemning the Senate Democrats for scheduling a rare Saturday vote on what he described as a political charade. He ridiculed the action as a “purely political stunt” that was “insulting to the public and our soldiers” in Iraq.

Other Republicans joined in deriding the unusual session as grandstanding by Democratic presidential candidates mollifying the party’s left flank.

“We’re not working,” fumed Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “We’re having a political, theatrical debate that does more harm than good. There are a lot of people who are working on a Saturday, not us. We’re trying to jockey for political position among ourselves for ‘08.”