Cheney returns to his base for campaign

[Ron Burgundy]

Cheney returns to his base for campaign

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press WriterFri Nov 3, 9:18 PM ET

Right about now, vice presidents often start running for president. Dick Cheney is campaigning for something else: a Congress that stays on the Republican side.

In Rocky Mountain West districts, where the GOP never used to even contemplate losing, Cheney is stirring and reassuring the base. His slogan might as well be "Two More Years!"

That's the amount of time left in the Bush presidency, and its power will be shaped mightily by Tuesday's midterm elections. Democrats are confident they will win the House, maybe the Senate.

Cheney has raised $40 million for Republicans in 117 campaign stops. He has stumped for the GOP in almost 60 House and 20 Senate races. The rest of his campaign visits have aimed to benefit gubernatorial candidates, state parties or the national party. In this final campaign week, his main mission in bedrock Republican territory has been to remind voters to care.

So he described local races in national terms.

"When you cast your vote on Tuesday, you're doing more than choosing a candidate for your representative," Cheney told a rally of 650 supporters at a Colorado Springs resort Friday night. "You're going to cast a vote for which party will have a majority in Congress for the next two years."

In an interview with ABC News, Cheney said that the administration plans to go "full speed ahead" with its policies in Iraq, despite sagging public opinion about the war.

Downplaying what voters say about the war, he told ABC: "It doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. ... We're not running for office."

Like his boss, Cheney is in his last stand. At 65 with a history of heart trouble, he insists he will not run for president. So Cheney's goals are to keep the Congress Republican — and the White House strong.

"It's more clearly a Bush message than it is a vice president separating himself from his president," said Timothy Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and author of a book on the vice presidency. "That was something Gore had to do from Clinton and Nixon had to do from Eisenhower. This is a clear message from Cheney: Support your president."

Or else, Cheney says, Democrats will raise taxes and weaken national security. It is a Bush message, but Cheney often says it in darker, starker terms than the president.

He warns of a Congress run by weak Democrats, picking on their votes against warrantless wiretapping, harsh interrogation of terror suspects and other tactics the White House backs.

Such talk, as Cheney has acknowledged, is why some cast him as the Darth Vader of the administration. But his approach plays well to conservatives. They could use the boost.

Polls suggest the public is fed up. The body count in Iraq and the congressional scandals at home have taken a toll, mainly on Bush and on many Republicans who are on the ballot.

So the GOP is spending time and money on races it didn't have to sweat before.

Enter Cheney, a presence without flash. He's the president's adviser, a former defense secretary, White House chief of staff and House Republican whip. He is at home in the West.

Earlier Friday, at a hangar at Fort Carson, Cheney stood with the troops. His speech was a similar defense of the administration's war policies, minus the overt attacks on Democrats.

"You can be certain of this: The president will not relent in tracking the enemies of the United States with every legitimate tool at his command," Cheney told soldiers and families.

About 4,000 troops from the post are returning home from Iraq; 3,800 others remain there.

Sarah Feinberg, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said her party's candidates can counter Cheney just fine.

"He has this angry message focused just on his base," she said. "We have Democratic challengers who are talking to the entire district about mainstream priorities, like middle-class tax cuts and cheaper prescription drugs. Republicans are desperate to rally their base."

In Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming — all the places on Cheney's agenda — Republicans are in unexpectedly tight House or Senate races.

Colorado Springs, right next to Fort Carson, is an example.

At the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, this is a conservative land, the home of the military and evangelical Christians. The signs at the local airport say "Welcome Home Troops."

Yet Democrats are waging a competitive fight for the district's open House seat. Democrat Jay Fawcett and Republican Doug Lamborn are essentially tied, according to one recent poll.