GOP aims to make Democrats pay politically for Iran vote

By Burgess Everett

It may be years before the political fallout of the Senate’s mostly party-line vote Thursday to preserve the Iran nuclear agreement becomes clear. But it’s already a defining campaign issue — and like the Iraq War and Obamacare votes last decade, looks likely to remain a stark dividing line in many election cycles to come.
Republicans are plotting to make Democrats pay dearly for backing an agreement the GOP argues hinges on an historic enemy of the United States playing nice. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to return to the floor next week to force Democrats to take more votes Republicans say they'll regret as soon as Iran violates the terms of the deal or sponsors terrorist attacks, which critics believe is just a matter of time.

After that will come the attack ads, national GOP officials say. It’s expected to be a key cog of Republicans’ electoral strategy: some GOP senators are already comparing it to Obamacare in its scope and potential to damage Democratic supporters politically.
“It will be very harmful to their chances,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
“I don’t know what else the Democrats could do to chase the pro-Israel community in the United States any further in the Republican direction,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former NRSC chairman. “This is the same mistake they made on the Affordable Care Act. They made this a partisan issue.”
Democrats acknowledge the political risk of the vote — 42 Democrats successfully filibustered a resolution to scuttle the Iran deal — but say Republicans are overplaying their hand. If the agreement succeeds in curbing Iran's nuclear program, the GOP effort will at the very least fizzle, they say, if not hurt Republicans for opposing a move toward peace.
Only one vulnerable Democratic senator is up in 2016, Michael Bennet of Colorado, who supported the deal. Most Democratic Senate challengers, however, have also lined up in favor of the agreement. Within minutes of Thursday's vote, the GOP's Senate campaign arm sent out news releases blasting Democrats who sided with the president.
The bigger political aftershocks may come in 2018, when a host of Democrats’ in conservative-leaning states will be up for reelection.
But the GOP strategy largely relies on the Iran agreement failing spectacularly. Democrats acknowledge they cast a risky vote but say that Republicans almost seem to be hoping for something bad to happen in order to reap the political benefits.
“What did Republicans do on the Affordable Care Act? They did everything in their power to undermine it so that it would fail and become a political issue for them,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who played a major role rounding up Democratic votes for the deal. “It’s one thing to play around with national healthcare, it’s another thing to play around with national security for political gain.”
In interviews, red-state Democrats who are up for reelection in 2018 and supported the deal acknowledged they didn’t make their reelection campaigns any easier by following Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s filibuster.
“If I wanted to simply play it safe, the decision would have been completely different,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.). “One of the biggest problems in this town is everyone puts their finger to the wind and says ‘which way is easy?’”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) accused Republicans of politicizing the Iran fight and said the GOP is misjudging its ability to use the vote against her.
“I believe that as time passes, it will become clearer and clearer that this was the right thing to do,” she said.
Red-state Democrats did not vote in lockstep. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was leaning toward supporting the deal this summer, only to encounter a torrent of opposition when he barnstormed his conservative state.
Manchin said when he tried to parry his constituents’ arguments against the Iran deal, he found that he “could not explain how we’re going to rein in a 36-year terrorist operation.” But he insisted he didn’t oppose the deal for political considerations in West Virginia, where opposition to most things associated with President Obama is sky-high.
“The smart move would have been for me to announce immediately I’m opposed to it,” Manchin said. “If you’re playing politics, it’s a no-brainer. Why would anyone put themselves through the agony I went through?”
Manchin’s deliberations stand in contrast to Republican senators facing voters next fall, many of whom came out against the Iran deal hours or days after it was announced in June.
Democrats say there’s an opportunity for them, too, to make something of what they call the GOP’s reflexive opposition to the agreement. They also point out that GOP incumbents running for reelection signed on to a controversial letter to Iranian leadership earlier this year that was seen as unprecedented congressional meddling in the president’s foreign policy.
“Voters will remember that Republicans were more interested in scoring political points than in having a serious discussion and their reckless letter to the Ayatollah made that absolutely clear,” said Sadie Weiner, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Still, even some of the most strident critics of the Iran deal seemed worried about appearing overly focused on the agreement’s politics. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has argued that the deal with Iran is a capitulation in a league with Neville Chamberlain’s strategy with the Nazis. But asked if Democratic opponents Andrea Zopp and Rep. Tammy Duckworth might regret their backing for the deal, Kirk excused himself from the conversation.
“I’m not going to make news today,” he said.