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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Many leading Democrats can't seem to make up their minds on Iraq. And some insiders suggest that might be on purpose.
Feb 26, 2003 | The Feb. 27 New York Times headline says it all: "Political Memo: Bush's War Success Confers an Aura of Invincibility."
Except that this headline was from 1991.
Given the actual results of the 1992 election, claims that George H.W. Bush was "close to unbeatable" -- made at the time by the president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs -- seem to illustrate the tired but true cliché that one year is a lifetime in politics.
Still, the senior Bush's image as conquering hero, however ephemeral, illustrates one of the many dilemmas faced by Democrats today, who largely have decided that it's safer to be with George W. Bush than against him. "Everybody would prefer to have a multination force go in," Terry McAuliffe, Democratic National Committee chairman, told Salon last week, "but if the president decides that it's critical for our society that we do it alone, unilaterally, then that's his decision and we'll support the president."
This all creates a dilemma for Democrats -- particularly the Democratic presidential candidates who were trying to court the party faithful at a DNC conference last weekend. Democratic primary voters, for one, are far more antiwar than the electorate as a whole. The pending war creates tensions not only between Democratic primary voters and the swing voters Democrats need in order to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004, but also between important constituencies within the party. So while some Democrats seem to be scrambling to take a side on the Iraq issue -- voting for the Iraq war resolution last October but slamming the way the Bush administration is threatening to use it, for example -- they might actually know what they're doing.
Usually wishy-washiness is regarded as a negative; with this war it may actually be smart politics.
Democratic officials hope that none of this will mean much come Election Day, of course. "By the time we get to the 2004 election we're going to be dealing with the aftermath of Iraq; it's not going to be what people are going to go vote on," McAuliffe says. "They're going to vote on the total picture of George Bush, both on foreign policy and domestic." But Harold Ickes Jr., former deputy chief of staff for President Clinton, disagrees that the issue will go away soon. "There's no bigger issue than war and peace," he told Salon. "It will trump everything. It will even trump the economy. This is a very profound issue being debated in the country. People are going to die and everybody knows that. This is not going to be an easy enterprise."
Democrats oppose the war far more than either Republicans or Independents, or the nation as a whole. According to a CBS News poll conducted on Feb. 5 and 6, when asked if they approve or disapprove of the U.S. taking military action against Iraq to try to remove Saddam from power, the nation as a whole supported the idea 70 percent to 21 percent. Republicans supported it strongly, 88 percent to 6 percent, and Independents supported it fairly strongly as well, 70 percent to 20 percent. In contrast, Democrats supported it 53 percent to 36 percent. The numbers are even more starkly antiwar in the first state where votes will be counted. A Zogby poll from January of likely Democratic voters in next year's Iowa caucus indicated substantial support -- 84 percent to 13 percent -- for a candidate who believes that before the U.S. takes any military action against Iraq it needs more evidence, more inspections, and more international support over a candidate who urges action now.
So the Democratic candidates have an immediate problem. And it was excitedly highlighted by Public Opinion Strategies, the firm of top Republican pollster Bill McInturff, less than a week before the DNC meeting. The basic premise is that Democratic primary voters are so liberal on the issue of Iraq, it seems unlikely that any candidate could win that party's nomination without alienating him- or herself from the swing voters he or she would need during the general election. Swing voters support having U.S. forces take military action to force Saddam Hussein from power 63 percent to 30 percent, while "core Democrats" -- liberals representing more than a third of those very likely to vote in the primary -- oppose it 43 percent to 51 percent.
