New Hampshire Senator John Sununu Votes in Favor of Expanding Military Detainees’ Legal Rights

  Yesterday the senate voted on legislation that would have given military detainees the right to be tried in US federal courts. One of my senators, Republican John Sununu voted in favor of the bill. The bill received 56 votes, four short of cutting off debate and sending the bill for a vote.

  I am disappointed in Sununu for siding with the enemy and trying to grant them rights that apply to Americans. We are under no obligation to provide rights guaranteed to Americans under the constitution to the people who despise us for that very constitution. Just ask John McCain if he ever received a trial when he was a POW.

   However, I do understand WHY I believe he did this, and it isn’t because he believes it is the right thing to do. Sununu is up for re-election in 2008 and the Democrats view his seat as one of the most vulnerable in the race. Especially after the disastrous election result for New Hampshire in 2006. National Democrats see the blue wave that washed over New Hampshire last year and believe they can capitalize on it in 2008. And they probably can, unless the residents of New Hampshire WAKE UP and realize the liberties we have lost and the tax increases and toll increases we have endured since that election if the fault of tax and spend state Democrats. If New Hampshirites realize that than Sununu’s seat may be safe. And maybe we can oust our liberal governor, but I am getting off track here. As I was saying, Sununu’s seat is in danger and the Democrats are trying to paint him as a rubber stamp to the president. It is for this reason that he voted for this bill. He is trying to distance himself from the president, and show New Hampshire he is not beholden to the president.

  This is a strategy designed to bring the moderates, and maybe even some of the left to his side. This is not going to happen. Former Democrat governor,Jeanne Shaheen, who lost a senate bid to John Sununu in a very close race, recently announced she is running for the Democrat nomination against Sununu. All the polls show Shaheen ahead of Sununu, and nothing that Sununu does will ever woo voters away from Shaheen.

  That is where Sununu’s problem lies. Nothing he can do will bring Democrat voters to him, they are a lost cause, it is a futile effort for him to try. But by trying to do so he is also alienating himself from Republican voters. Republican voters are already upset at him because he was the first Republican senator to call for Alberto Gonzalez to resign. Republican voters saw this as Sununu being a turn coat. They now see him break with the president on the issue of detainee rights and this cannot help him with Republican voters. He probably figures this will not hurt him with Republican voters because they have nowhere else to turn, so he is not afraid of losing them.

  Sununu is trying to walk a fine line in a desperate attempt to hold onto his job, and it is this tightrope act they may keep Republican voters from going to the polls and casting a vote for him. Showing Independent and moderate voters he doesn’t always side with the president by voting for this bill may actually backfire on him and end up costing him the election.

  Other Republicans that voted in favor of this bill are:

Olympia Snow, ME

Chuck Hagel, NEB

Richard Lugar, Ind

Gordon Smith,OR

Arlen Spector, PA ( who  was a co-sponsor with Patrick Leahy, D-VT)