Suburbs Unsafe for the Combat Ready

Congressional Republicans have tried to engage certain voters with their "Suburban Agenda," a package of legislation focused on college loans, public schools, children's safety and other close-to-home issues. This Washington Post article suggests suburbanites are looking further afield. In several of this fall's tighthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifest congressional races, incumbents in suburban districts are in trouble because they supported the Iraq war, and in Illinois a female helicopter pilot who lost her legs in Iraq is threatening to take an open seat now held by retiring GOP dean Henry Hyde.

Since the Vietnam Era, the suburbs have been counted as the bedrock of "The Silent Majority," that segment of the population who are too busy (or self-absorbed) to turn out for political causes, but who tacitly support the current administration. The Iraq War has brought the fight out in the suburbs, however. This year July Fourth saw demonstrations, often led by that species of generic American called the "suburban mom" deep in the heartland. Nowhere is the trend more surprising, perhaps, than in Westchester County, the leafy suburban district north of Manhattan that sent six full buses to anti-war marches three years ago, and the home of , a protest group that holds weekly rave-ups opposing the war.