Ohio Republican Rep. 
Deborah Pryce will not seek re-election next year, potentially making it even harder for Republicans to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Echoing words from President Bush’s political guru Karl Rove, who’s leaving the White House, Pryce said: “There is never a good time to leave a job you love, but for me, the right time is now.” (She’s pictured left on election night 2006. She won her seat to the House by a mere 1,055 votes.)
The Democrats have a 231-202-seat majority in the House and two seats are vacant.
Ohio was the scene of a ferocious battle between presidential candidates in 2004, with Bush winning by a narrow 118,601 votes, and most experts believe it will again be a toss-up state in 2008 at all levels. “Democrats have reason to feel even more upbeat about their prospects in an open seat,” according to the Rothenberg Political Report which keeps close tabs on congressional and presidential races and was the first to report her retirement.
Pryce is not the only Republican retiring after 2008. Two Illinois members of Congress also are planning to retire next year, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Rep. Ray LaHood. But Hastert and LaHood won with 60 percent of the vote or more, a sign those races will likely be difficult for Democrats to win.
(Picture: REUTERS/Matt Sullivan)
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Iraq withdrawals “off the table”: Republicans
Thu Sep 6, 2007 7:07PM EDT
By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell
My comment (Reuters story below): What’s really happening is that Bush and Republicans will do anything to delay pullout until after Bush leaves office. While he started the war, Bush does not want the defeat on his watch. The Republicans running for office in 2008 don’t want the withdrawl before the November election or else they’ll get tagged with the defeat. Without the Democrats pull off a political and media miracle, the Republicans will blame all on those defeatist Democrats who would not support staying the course and fighting for victory. Unless there appears someone or some group with tremendous leadership ability and media charisma with guts to pull us out soon of the mess Bush made, U.S. soldiers, American citizens and the non-combatant Iraqis get screwed (even more).
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading Republicans in Congress on Thursday declared that troop withdrawal legislation should be scrapped because the United States has made significant progress in the Iraq war, just as Democrats were resuming efforts to bring soldiers home.
“It should be off the table,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said of Democratic attempts to pass legislation to force President George W. Bush to withdraw some of the 168,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and wind down the combat mission there.
The Republican hardened stance followed months of speculation that September could usher in cooperation with Democrats on trying to craft a new Iraq policy. In recent months a small but growing number of Republicans have said it is time to develop a bipartisan strategy to bring troops home.
Democrats pointed to a new report that said the Iraqi army was improving to bolster arguments for starting to withdraw U.S. forces
- Posted by Al