In little more than a year, Tammy Duckworth has gone from a casualty in Iraq to a congressional candidate at home, her campaign a symbol of the partisan battle being waged at the highest reaches of the U.S. House.
By seeking the west suburban 6th Congressional District seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Wood Dale, Duckworth joins a host of military veterans running as Democrats for House seats in GOP-leaning districts, seizing upon war as a chief campaign issue. Duckworth, who lost her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up in the helicopter she was piloting, calls the Iraq war "a mistake." "Nobody in Congress right now has the perspective that those of us who've served in Iraq have," Duckworth said Friday |