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| Inside Report: Hillary's Detractors |
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| Will Democrats Keep the Faith? | |
| Turning Toward Iran | |
| Can Republicans Count on a House Snapback? |
June 20, 2006
The Centrality of Iraq for 2008 Democrats
By Jack KellyHillary Clinton was booed and John Kerry applauded at a major meeting of self-styled "progressives" last week. I suspect both were pleased with the responses.
Sen. Clinton was booed because she said it wasn't a good idea to set a firm deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Sen. Kerry was applauded for repudiating his vote to authorize the war.
Both were speaking at the "Take Back America" conference in Washington D.C. June 12-14, sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future. It and a gathering of liberal Web loggers in Las Vegas June 8-11 illustrated the widening gap between the political center and the Democratic party's loudest voices.
An unwelcome, for Democrats, by-product of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law is the increased importance of very liberal activists. That law sharply restricted contributions to political parties from fat cats. Democrats were far more dependent upon such contributions than Republicans were.
So those who can mobilize many small contributions through the internet, like Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (Daily Kos), are the new kingmakers.
What the Kossacks want above all is for America to get out of Iraq. The centrality of this passion is illustrated by their effort to purge from office Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), whose only deviation from liberal orthodoxy is his support for an American victory in Iraq.
Calls for withdrawal have taken on urgency since the U.S. Air Force interrupted a meeting being held by Abu Musab al Zarqawi in a safe house near Baquba June 7. We can still lose if we withdraw quickly, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) in effect said on the weekend talk shows.
Most Americans do not share this perverse passion. A majority thinks it was a mistake to go to war in Iraq, opinion polls indicate. But a majority thinks it would be a bigger mistake to leave precipitously.
Elected Democrats know this. Sen. Kerry promised at the "Take Back America" conference to introduce a resolution calling for withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of the year. It got just six votes when the Senate voted on it June 15. In the House the next day, 42 Democrats joined 214 Republicans in opposing a fixed deadline for withdrawal.
Hillary Clinton is a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, so she can position herself for the general election. The booing she received at the Take Back America conference could be her "Sister Souljah" moment.
Sister Souljah was a particularly obnoxious black racist who her husband criticized before a black audience during his 1992 campaign for president, thus endearing himself to moderates. By putting some distance between herself and the moonbats, Sen. Clinton burnishes her own credentials with centrists.
But though Ms. Clinton's nomination is likely, it is by no means assured. While the moonbats fume about her (mostly rhetorical) deviations from the left-liberal line, more moderate Democrats fret about her electability.
Ms. Clinton does not poll well, especially when paired against GOP moderates such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Though she has a famous name and a ton of money, she lacks her husband's political skills, and just isn't very likable.
History indicates this could be a problem. The last northern Democrat to be elected president was John F. Kennedy in 1960. He was likeable. But he still wouldn't have won without some creative vote counting in Chicago and Texas.
Sen. Clinton has a tough tightrope to walk. She cannot embrace the moonbats without harming, probably fatally, her prospects in the general election. But she cannot afford to offend them more, lest they coalesce around a candidate strong enough to beat her for the nomination.
That isn't John Kerry. But if Al Gore were to enter the fray, the moonbats would rally to him, and he has enough heft either to win the nomination outright, or to open the door for another, by destroying the aura of inevitability about Hillary.
Meanwhile, by driving the party ever leftward, "progressives" are reducing the value of the nomination for whoever ultimately wins it. The last Democrat to run on a platform calling for American defeat was George McGovern in 1972. He lost 49 states.
The only Democrat besides Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton to be elected president since 1960 was Jimmy Carter, who was an obscure former governor of Georgia until he won the Iowa caucuses in 1976.
Mr. Carter had basically camped out in Iowa for the two years previous, and bested bigger national names there. Interestingly, another southerner, former North Carolina senator John Edwards, currently is leading the polling in Iowa.
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