 "Obama's war plan rattles Senate nominees")
President Barack Obama's plan to strike Islamic State militants is ruffling the usual left-right politics in several races that will decide control of the US Senate in mid-term elections on November 4.
Republicans who have criticised the president on a variety of issues for months have tamped down their rhetoric and, frequently, are avoiding taking a clear stand on his proposal. Some of the nation's most endangered incumbent Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed skepticism to portions of Obama's plan, saying they fear a new plunge into a new Middle East war where supposed allies can become enemies.
Others want to talk about something else, or are trying to avoid talking about the issue at all.
"I'm having a hard time seeing this as a game-changer," said William A. Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton White House adviser. "A lot of people who would have said 'hell no' to the president's speech were cheering him on."
Republicans have made attacking Obama and his policies the cornerstone of their Senate campaign, especially as they target Democrats in states the president lost in 2012. They had in recent days stepped up their attacks on the president's foreign policy, hoping to further tie vulnerable Democrats to an unpopular leader.
Despite that rhetoric, several Republican Senate candidates appear wary of taking detailed positions on the president's proposal to fight Islamic State militants with air strikes and US-armed Syrian rebels, but not American ground troops, since he laid it out in a televised speech Wednesday night.
New Hampshire Republican Senate nominee Scott Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, sharply criticised Obama's leadership in an interview yesterday. But he declined to say whether he would vote to authorize more military intervention in the Mideast.
"I would need to listen to the generals on the ground and get their input and guidance as I have in the past," he said. "When you're ... Making a decision to send people into harm's way, you need to have all the facts and I don't have those facts.
Republicans who have criticised the president on a variety of issues for months have tamped down their rhetoric and, frequently, are avoiding taking a clear stand on his proposal. Some of the nation's most endangered incumbent Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed skepticism to portions of Obama's plan, saying they fear a new plunge into a new Middle East war where supposed allies can become enemies.
Others want to talk about something else, or are trying to avoid talking about the issue at all.
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The complexities, leading to mixed and cautious responses from both sides, mean the issue might not matter much at all come Election Day, when Republicans need a net gain of six seats to take control of the Senate. The Nov. 4 vote is called a midterm election because it falls halfway through a president's four years in office. The vote will take place in a political climate that is deadlocked in partisanship worse than at any time in modern American history.
"I'm having a hard time seeing this as a game-changer," said William A. Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton White House adviser. "A lot of people who would have said 'hell no' to the president's speech were cheering him on."
Republicans have made attacking Obama and his policies the cornerstone of their Senate campaign, especially as they target Democrats in states the president lost in 2012. They had in recent days stepped up their attacks on the president's foreign policy, hoping to further tie vulnerable Democrats to an unpopular leader.
Despite that rhetoric, several Republican Senate candidates appear wary of taking detailed positions on the president's proposal to fight Islamic State militants with air strikes and US-armed Syrian rebels, but not American ground troops, since he laid it out in a televised speech Wednesday night.
New Hampshire Republican Senate nominee Scott Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, sharply criticised Obama's leadership in an interview yesterday. But he declined to say whether he would vote to authorize more military intervention in the Mideast.
"I would need to listen to the generals on the ground and get their input and guidance as I have in the past," he said. "When you're ... Making a decision to send people into harm's way, you need to have all the facts and I don't have those facts.