GOP Senators Turning

[Nbadan]

Defection number 1:

Friday, December 08, 2006
GOP senator criticizes Iraq war in emotional speech

WASHINGTON (CNN)

-- In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Sen Gordon Smith, a moderate Republican from Oregon who has been a supporter of the war in Iraq, said the U.S. military's "tactics have failed" and he "cannot support that anymore."

Smith said he is at, "the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up the same bombs, day after day.

"That is absurd," he said. "It may even be criminal."

Smith said he has tried to quietly support President Bush during the course of the war -- and doesn't believe the president intentionally lied to get the U.S. into the war -- but now recognizes, "we have paid a price in blood and treasure that is beyond calculation" for a war waged due to bad intelligence.

Moved this week by the findings of the Iraq Study Group, Smith said he needed to "speak from my heart.

"I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the way on terror more intelligently than we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way," he said.

CNN

I'm not particularly sure what price Smith is paying for our dying servicemen and women, but it should be no surprise to anyone that Smith is up for re-election in 08 in Oregon.

[exstatic]

After the changing of the guard in 94, there were a series of defections by Dems to the GOP in both the House and Senate. Wouldn't surprise me at all if that happened after the new Congress is sworn in, especially endangered species like moderate Republicans. They're pretty much marginalized in a party increasingly driven by the Christian base.