Weariness with iraq at center of congressional race between veterans

Saint Patrick Murphy is the only Iraq war veteran soldier in United States Congress, so when he argues for a swift backdown of U.S. Troops, people tend to listen.

But potato, a Democrat, is now hearing a dissenting voice in his territory in southeastern Pennsylvania. The Republican Tom Manion, a former marine whose only son was killed in Iraq, is challenging Murphy for his seat. Manion's message: Don't pull out U.S. Military unit before the war is won.

The competition between potato, 34, and Manion, 54, is a barometer of the emotional debate over Iraq - the costliest and deadliest crisis awaiting the next U.S. President and United States Congress. Even as a weakening economy dominates voters' concerns, the $600 one million million war is still refueling passionate argument and swaying votes up and down the ballot.

Like Manion, the Republican presidential campaigner John McCain, 71, has staked his campaigning on staying in Iraq as long as it takes, contempt many polls screening that two-thirds of Americans think the war was a error. The Democratic candidate Barack Obama, 47, made his name as an early opposition of the war and has vowed to withdraw troops in 16 calendar month, even as armed forces experts insist that increased troop degree have improved the state of affairs. Polls show a bulk of Americans think the troop surge is succeeding, even if they oppose the war.

The struggle "remains the posting child for discontentment with Bush, but the populace wants it both ways," says Saint Andrew Kohut, manager of the Pew Research Center in Washington D.C.. "They want to be out of Iraq, yet polls suggest people are aware or sensitive to the costs of acquiring out in the wrong way."

That paradox is why discontentment over the war may play out in unexpected ways in Nov. An Aug. 19 Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll found voters only narrowly prefer Obama's solution for Iraq over McCain's, 47 percent to 42 percent. More Americans - by a margin of 12 points - trust McCain to "deal wisely with an international crisis," the poll shows.

That said, the news last week that the United States and Iraq were close to a final agreement on the eventual withdrawal of U.S. Combat forces complicated matters for McCain, who has said he would stay in Iraq for 100 years if need be. McCain may have trouble persuading Americans to spend $10 billion a month on the war while the domestic economy is battered by a mortgage crisis and soaring energy costs.

Suburban Philadelphia, an erstwhile Republican stronghold where Democrats have dramatically expanded their rolls since the last election, is a good bellwether of Americans' conflicting emotions over the war.

Two years ago, Murphy eked out a win with 50.3 percent of the vote in a district that covers northeast Philadelphia and an expanse of suburbs and farms. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in the largest part of the district, Bucks County, because of dissatisfaction with President George W. Bush, the economy and the war. Murphy is favored to hold his seat, say the Cook and Rothenberg political reports.

Murphy was an army captain in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004, when violence escalated after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled. In his first congressional term, he has championed veterans' issues and co-sponsored with Obama failed legislation to bring the troops home.

"As someone who served in Baghdad with the 82nd Airborne, I can tell you that what's needed in Iraq is a surge in diplomacy, not an escalation of force," Murphy said at the time. His aides declined repeated requests to interview him.

Manion, who retired from the Marines as a colonel and works as an executive at Johnson & Johnson, never served overseas and says he wasn't interested in politics before his 26-year-old son was killed by sniper fire in Anbar Province last year.

"He called me from Iraq and said the surge is what we need," Manion says of Travis, a marine lieutenant. Manion says policymakers should take their cues from troops on the ground like his son, not from a war-weary public or pollsters.

"The last thing we need is more sons and daughters going back in five years because we didn't do it right," Manion says.

Last week, Manion was shaking hands at the Middletown Grange Fair, a summertime gathering where neighbors show off farm animals and enjoy cotton candy and carnival rides.

Deborah Rodrigo, a 51-year-old homemaker, is a Democrat but said she was leaning toward McCain. "I was against going in there in the first place, but we went and made a mess, and I feel pulling out now would leave a vacuum," she said about Iraq.