Ad targets McConnell's support of war
2007-07-14
Source: Courier-Journal
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rss feedHours after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN that Kentuckians are "overwhelmingly" behind the Iraq war effort, sponsors of a new ad campaign attacked him for being out of touch with the state.
A coalition of groups opposed to the troop surge began airing new ads in Louisville and Lexington yesterday targeting McConnell for his support of President Bush's war policies.
The ads are in addition to other anti-McConnell ads that began airing in Kentucky this week, sponsored by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
"His constituents are absolutely fed up with his out-of-touch, reckless policies," said Aniello Alioto, Kentucky field director of the Iraq Summer Campaign, a national effort opposed to the troop surge and run under a coalition called Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. The coalition is sponsoring the new ads.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ads against him and three other Republican senators and the new anti-surge coalition ad are "a political exercise," McConnell charged in a statement.
"For me, it's about protecting Americans," he said.
A Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll in February found that 52 percent of Kentuckians wanted McConnell to oppose the Iraq troop surge now in place. Forty percent said he should support it. The rest were undecided.
But on CNN yesterday, McConnell responded to a question about pressure from constituents this way: "My constituents are overwhelmingly on the side of Gen. (David) Petraeus and the effort. We are the home of the 101st Airborne. We also have Fort Knox.
"We've been on the point on the war on terror, and my constituents are overwhelmingly proud of the fact that we haven't been attacked here again since 9/11. And they believe correctly that it's because we've been on offense. So it's not a question of constituent pressure."
The senator's claim of overwhelming support for the war is off, said Donna Carter, 47, of Louisville, a grocery store meat clerk. Most of the people she talks to are "opposed to continuing (the war) and want some solid, concrete answers about when this thing is going to be over with � and whether we solved anything or whether it was just a waste of money and lives," she said.
Carter has a nephew in Iraq but is opposed to the war.
"There were no weapons of mass destruction, and we are trying to help people who don't want our help," she said.
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