Protesters: No-Show Or Go-Slow

By Silla Brush

(US News)  MANCHESTER, N.H.--Pinning down Sen. John Sununu's schedule back home, antiwar activists grumble, is a real headache. He's one of their top targets right now; the idea is to put enough pressure on Sununu this August recess to persuade him to break with President Bush's Iraq war policy.

So far, Sununu has been avoiding the activists, but now, finally, they've found him, speaking before 50-odd members of the Manchester Republican Committee at the William H. Jutras American Legion Hall. He is struggling in the polls and is up for a grueling re-election battle next fall, but Sununu does his best to sound upbeat: "2008 will look a lot different than 2006"; Iraq has "certainly improved over the last six months"; and "no one will outcampaign me."

Sitting squarely in front of the senator: Indiana native Aaron Corn, an organizer for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. The senator wraps up his stump speech, makes his way for the door, and then doubles back for a few questions: border security, trade policy, health insurance.

He leaves without fielding a single question from the crowd about Iraq. There are no signs, hecklers, bullhorns, cameras, bloggers, and, nope, no protest rally. "We debated it," Corn says of a rally, "but decided not to." The reason? The senator might be more receptive to "dialogue" and "behind the scenes" pressure.

Nuance. It's a far cry from the protests of the Vietnam War era. Or even the rallies in New York and Los Angeles in the run-up to the Iraq war that turned out thousands. Antiwar activists and Democrats say this is the crucial month to turn up the heat on Republican lawmakers. A decisive moment looms--the Iraq progress report from Gen. David Petraeus is due in September--so the strategy is to win over enough Republican votes in the Senate in particular to pass a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

But out in the field, it turns out, the strategy calls for nuance--small events, canvassing, online videos, local media, paid advertising, constituent requests for meetings on the war, and daily grass-roots organizing. Translating all of that into votes on Capitol Hill may be a very tall order.

Tom Matzzie, Washington-based head of the "Iraq Summer" campaign, is undaunted. "The tone is of civic engagement instead of protest," says Matzzie, whose group is targeting 40 Republicans in the House and Senate, many of whom will also surely be targeted in 2008. Matzzie says his group is not staging large protests because to do so would play into Republicans' hands by making the politicians look moderate in comparison. And "we want [Sununu] to know it's his constituents doing this, not rabble-rousers from D.C.," adds New Hampshire field director Tim Liszewski.

Headquartered on K Street, Washington lobbyists' home, the campaign war room is a mix of disillusioned Iraq war veterans, liberal 20-somethings, and grizzled political campaigners. Thirty staffers blast out E-mails to the media and coordinate about 100 field organizers nationwide.

Tara McGuinness, deputy campaign manager, keeps head shots of her top prizes--Sununu, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, among others--pinned to her wall. On her table: a copy of Ending the War in Iraq, a recent screed by 1960s antiwar protester Tom Hayden.

A session each morning includes a roundup of field work and chatter on potential strategies--should activists wear bulletproof vests or helmets to mock New York Rep. Randy Kuhl, who said he would consider "packin'" after a run-in with protesters? (The word, Kuhl says, was misinterpreted.)

The campaign is independent from, though certainly not discouraged by, the Democratic Party, and it brings together a broad array of left-leaning interest groups, including advocacy group USAction and the Service Employees International Union. The campaign has $12 million budgetedroughly half from MoveOn.org and SEIU and the rest from high-roller Democrats.

Headquarters keeps close tabs on everything from the number of yard signs distributed (26,600 and counting nationally) to the number of times a volunteer has bird-dogged a target (115 times). The campaign has posted more than 200 videos on YouTube--viewed tens of thousands of times--including one of activists asking for a public meeting with Sununu.

But some of the recent events in New Hampshire and Maine drew only a dozen folks. One recent New Hampshire morning rally was positively a bust. Attendance? Zero. An event outside Collins's office in Bangor recently drew 14 people to hear Mainers Craig and Kathie Cote talk about son Jeremy, who is serving in Iraq. "I'm outraged with her," Craig said of Collins. A few cars honked, volunteers held signs, and a local radio reporter held out a microphone.

Organizers point to few signs of progress. A poll they put out showed their Republican Senate targets in trouble, with an average of only 37 percent of voters saying they'd re-elect the GOP incumbents. And a handful of Republican senators have voiced their frustration over the war, including Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Still, frustration doesn't necessarily beget votes.

Among those senators, only Snowe has actually supported legislation calling for troop withdrawal. "I think she was kind of on the fence before we were able to give that last little push," says Justin Costa, the Maine field director. Not surprisingly, Snowe's office says there were many reasons for her vote.

Sununu, standing in the parking lot after the Manchester event, says he accepts the activists' "right to express their viewpoint," but he's critical of some of their tactics. "Look, the advertising campaigns that have been run here are funded by big labor," he says. "Everyone understands that. And I think it's unfortunate that they seem very focused on politicizing an issue like Iraq."

Skepticism. Public-opinion watchers, at least in New Hampshire and Maine, are skeptical about the group's impact. "If anything," says Andrew Smith, head of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, "the [television] commercials might have some impact, but the protests are probably having little or no impact."

Amy Fried, a University of Maine politics professor, echoes that thought but also notes that strategy must be tempered by the "niceness factor" in Maine's politics. Rowdy protests might not work, she says, because "people have to be each other's neighbors at the end of the day."

The summer campaign will culminate on August 28 with rallies dubbed "Take a Stand" in every targeted state. The goal in Manchester: attendance of 700 to 1,000. Organizers have invited all of the Republican targets to come. Count Sununu and Collins out. In fact, only one target, Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, says he'll attend.

The campaign was slated to end in September, but now organizers will keep going at least through December. "We're going to stick around until the war ends," Matzzie says. Influencing the outcome, though, may be another matter.