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Politics

Some call it flip-flop, others say it's growth

With her opinion on the Iraq war changed, it's unclear what Brown-Waite's motive is - if she has one.

By ELENA LESLEY
Published October 15, 2006

In the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when images of flaming twin towers still seared the minds of Americans and restaurants started hawking "freedom fries," U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite went a step beyond renaming a greasy snack.

She announced that she would introduce legislation allowing family members of servicemen buried in France and Belgium - countries opposing an Iraq war - to shuttle their exhumed loved ones back to the United States.

It's hard to imagine the congresswoman bringing forth that kind of legislation today. She, like others, has begun to question the U.S. role in Iraq.

Just weeks before the election, and against the backdrop of her congressional mentor Mark Foley's resignation, Brown-Waite is striving to remold her political image. Supporters say her views have evolved; detractors cry that she's backpedaling.

And even though analysts haven't pegged her seat as vulnerable, Brown-Waite, like other Republican candidates, is approaching Nov. 7 cautiously.

"In the current environment, there's no question that every Republican officeholder is in trouble," said Adrienne Elrod, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "A lot of vulnerable incumbents are trying to distance themselves" from the national party.

That includes Brown-Waite, said her Democratic challenger, John Russell.

He constantly charges the congresswoman with "dancing around issues," which he illustrates with a jig.

It's true that she has modified her position on the war.

In February, Brown-Waite wrote a column for the Times saying it was disingenuous for liberals to criticize the war while claiming to "support the troops."

"That's kind of like saying, 'I believe in birth control, but I left the condoms at home,' " she said during a breakfast with local journalists.

But when she met with the Times editorial board recently, Brown-Waite's opinion on the subject resembled those of the liberals she had once disparaged.

Asked if she still thought that "the war in Iraq is a war of which every American should be proud" - a statement she had previously written on a questionnaire - Brown-Waite seemed uncertain.

Searching for a decisive answer, editors repeated the question several times. Finally, Brown-Waite replied that she was proud of the troops.

In taking back another statement, the congresswoman was much more direct.

"I admit my mistake," she said of her previous prediction that U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by now. A deadline for adequate training of military and domestic police should be imposed on the Iraqi government, she said, and if the Iraqis fail to meet it, the United States should begin withdrawing troops.

"I am very concerned with the growing reports of crippling corruption within the Iraqi government," Brown-Waite wrote in an April letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Military and civilians returning home said the Iraqis will bleed us dry as long as we supply the money."

But when she returned from a tour of Iraq just a couple months earlier, Brown-Waite lauded progress in the country and complimented the enthusiasm of U.S. troops.

"We need to stay longer," she said. "We're just trying to get them to the 20th century ... forget the 21st."

These days, she's less impressed with the progress being made in Iraq.

"The minute you get something done, the insurgency comes and blows it up," she said during the recent editorial board meeting.

Russell called this "flip-flopping," but others said the congresswoman, like everyone else, molds her views and opinions over time.

"She's pretty independent-minded," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from South Florida. "She stands up for what she believes in, and if she changes her view, it's because she's carefully evaluated" the issue.

Whether she's distancing herself from the party or refining her opinions, Brown-Waite, like many other Republicans, has tried to focus on local issues in her district.

"All elections are local," she said at a Citrus County political forum Thursday.

She seems to believe it. Brown-Waite reminded constituents of how she helped bring a new veterans clinic to the county and praised her local office for its responsiveness to citizens' concerns.

Among the biggest problems in Congress, she said, is that representatives don't go back to their districts enough.

"I don't ever want to start acting like those people up in Washington," she said, explaining why she returns to her district every week.

But as much as Brown-Waite highlighted her local influence, she couldn't avoid national issues. Tensions flared Thursday as soon as Russell took the stage, with Democrats and Republicans taunting each other and the candidates.

One member of the local Republican Executive Committee became so unruly that concerned bystanders called the Sheriff's Office.

"It's humorous when national Republicans try to say local issues will decide races," Elrod said. The rising cost of gas, flaws in Medicare Part D and fumbling in Iraq "all affect people's daily lives."

Luckily for Brown-Waite, experts think her seat is relatively safe.

But Russell, who has run an aggressive grass roots campaign, has said all along that he can beat her.

And now he has Foley.

The disgraced former congressman, who sent sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to underage congressional pages, was Brown-Waite's friend and colleague.

Though she now calls him a "sick individual" and a "fractured personality," there was a time when she considered Foley a mentor.

Russell has seized on the uncomfortable alliance.

"When the time was ripe for telling authority, did Brown-Waite do something?" he asked the Citrus audience, insinuating that the congresswoman knew of Foley's behavior before it was made public. "No, she looked the other way."

He continued to say that if Brown-Waite wasn't already a witness in the investigation, she should volunteer herself.

After the forum, as people funneled out the door, Russell pointed them to a poll on his Web site that reported that he and Brown-Waite were running neck and neck.

"And that was before Foley," he added, grinning.

No one knows how fallout from Foley will affect Brown-Waite's race, but Elrod said it won't help that she is "part of a party whose leadership decided to protect one of their own instead of children."

This, on top of growing disillusionment with the Republican Party, will make 2006 a year for Democrats, Elrod said.

Whether it will be a year for Russell, analysts are doubtful.

But Brown-Waite probably won't tell too many more inspirational stories about troops in Iraq or, like she did in 2004, send out Christmas cards of herself mugging with the president.

"Republicans are trying desperately to focus voters on local issues," Wasserman Schultz said. "But they can't run away from the fact that the American people are totally frustrated with the war in Iraq."

Elena Lesley can be reached at elesley@sptimes.com or 564-3627.

[Last modified October 15, 2006, 07:28:38]