SOURCE:FOSTER'S DAILY DEMOCRAT

It took a week, but the local press finally reports on Seacoast citizens lobbying their junior Senator.

Sending a message: Citizens tell Sununu funds should be spent at home, not on war

By GRETYL MACALASTER

Article Date: Friday, May 2, 2008

PORTSMOUTH — About 15 area residents turned out at Sen. John Sununu's office recently to present a new report from MoveOn.org that shows New Hampshire voters think federal money would be better spent on domestic issues instead of the war in Iraq.

It was a motley crew. In addition to representatives from MoveOn and Seacoast Peace Response, members of the Seacoast Anti-pollution League, Democracy for America, the NAACP and Veterans Against the War were on hand to share the results of the poll.

....According to the new opinion survey conducted by Voter Roll Call of Verona, N.J., and paid for by MoveOn.org, of the approximately 600 registered voters surveyed in New Hampshire, 46 percent said they thought pulling out of Iraq would help the economy a "great deal."

When given a choice, 65 percent would invest funds here in the United States, while 27 percent would continue to put that money into the Iraq war, according to results handed out at Sununu's office.

...

"The main thing ... is we have got an economic crisis ... and people in the Granite State recognize we simply can't afford to fight this war," Timothy Horrigan, of Durham, said.

Portsmouth resident Kathleen Somssich asked that Sununu reconsider the nation's commitment in Iraq. Her son is an officer whose unit is being "stop-lossed," and who will soon be headed back to Iraq after already serving 15 months there. Somssich said she believes there is a direct correlation between the recession and the war.

Somssich's situation pretty much writes "farce" to the assertion, a favorite of Cheney, that the troops on the ground, having volunteered, are responsible for their own fate--a point to which the Senator's staff had no retort.

According to the National Priorities Project, for the money being spent on the Iraq War, New Hampshire could give 564,093 people health care, fund 263,328 Head Start places for children, provide 205,402 scholarships for university students or provide 11,157 affordable housing units.

They took our names and promised a response from the Senator, who was down in Washington for votes. His apparent support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, indicated by his voting for cloture, which nevertheless failed, seems to have been one of those election year ploys in which the junior and senior Senators' votes were cast to cancel each other out.