| Now that it's official that Representative Rob Andrews will be challenging Senator Frank Lautenberg in the primary, people will be choosing sides. Some will fall in line because some party leader tells them to or because a patronage job is at stake. Others will choose based on the lame North/Central/South geography divide. Some might decide based on age, charisma or some other personality trait. And then there's that small sliver of the Democratic base that will actually decide based on the candidates' records and stances on the issues. This post is for them.
To begin with, it's worth pointing out that both candidates agree on the vast majority of issues. They're both left of center Democrats, so that's not much of a surprise. But they do have their differences.
On foreign policy, the difference is the most stark, so I want to focus on that a bit. In 2002, Andrews helped draft the legislation granting Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq: "At the request of President Bush, I have helped to form a small group of Members of Congress from both political parties. We share the conviction that our duty to protect the people of the United States requires us to remove the Iraqi government from power. We are working to write and pass a Resolution authorizing our nation to take any steps necessary to replace the Iraqi dictatorship with a government that will practice peace. He stood with Bush at the Rose Garden of the White House to announce the legislation.
"Yesterday, I joined with President Bush and a bipartisan coalition of Senators and House members to announce that we have approved the final text of the Iraq Resolution. I am honored to have worked closely with the President to develop this this bipartisan proposal because I believe that Saddam Hussein poses a very clear and present threat to the entire world." At the time, Frank Lautenberg was running for Senate and he said he too supported military action against Iraq after initially opposing it: Frank R. Lautenberg, the Democratic nominee for Senate, said today that he unequivocally stands behind the Senate resolution giving President Bush the authority to act against Iraq, as he and the Republican candidate, Douglas R. Forrester, spent the day focusing on the potential war. However since taking office, Lautenberg has consistently opposed Bush on the war and called for troops to come home, even while Andrews continued to support the misguided effort. Andrews and the rest of the New Jersey Democratic delegation are now unified in calling for a withdrawal of troops.
But that might be misleading. Last year I spoke with Andrews about his stance on the war, and although he is disappointed with the execution, he still believes that Iraq posed a threat to the United States -- even knowing in hindsight that they possessed no chemical or biological weapons. Although he wants to ensure that we get the intelligence right next time, he seems to have a considerably lower threshold for when he thinks war is justified. To over-simplify, he's considerably more hawkish than Lautenberg.
Below I created a table summarizing their stances on other issues, too. To try to be as fair as possible, I chose to compare how they voted on legislation that appeared in both the Senate and House during the same session. Of course, they agreed on much more than they disagreed, but there are some major issues on which they disagreed, and I highlighted those at the top of the table. Sadly, both Andrews and Lautenberg voted for the horrible legislation known as the "Military Commissions Act" which undermined both our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. I'm sure this isn't complete and is missing important issues, so if there are any important votes I'm missing, let me know in the comments or email me and I'll add them.
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