Pro-War Votes May Haunt Democrats http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/17/national/w110258D12.DTL By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Monday, October 17, 2005 (10-17) 20:45 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Potential Democratic presidential candidates who voted to give President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq could face a political problem — they supported a war that their party's rank-and-file now strongly view as a mistake. Their pro-war votes — cast three years ago — could haunt them as they seek early support among die-hard Democrats and gauge whether to launch formal candidacies for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. "For a lot of activists, this could be a threshold issue. They may be looking for somebody without any taint for prior support for the war," said John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Joseph Biden of Delaware, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina are mulling over running for the Democratic nomination. All voted in October 2002 for a resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq. They no doubt will be forced to explain their positions — both then and now — and in doing so could open themselves to attack from candidates who didn't support the resolution or didn't have to cast the politically tricky vote. The only other oft-mentioned potential Democratic presidential candidate in the Senate — Russell Feingold, D-Wis. — voted against the resolution. Other possible hopefuls, such as Govs. Mark Warner of Virginia, Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Tom Vilsack of Iowa, weren't in Congress. Primary races are all about which candidate gets the largest share of support from the party faithful. Public opinion polls show that Democratic loyalists overwhelmingly disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and believe the United States should never have gone into Iraq in the first place. That staunch opposition raises questions of whether Democratic primary voters will be comfortable supporting a candidate who at least initially backed the war they oppose. The situation facing Democrats who voted for the Iraq war resolution has been likened to Sen. Eugene McCarthy's 1964 vote in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, perceived as the vehicle that gave President Johnson carte blanche to escalate the Vietnam War. McCarthy, D-Minn., had become a war critic by the time he announced his intention to challenge Johnson for the Democratic nomination in 1968. But McCarthy didn't pay a political price for his Gulf of Tonkin vote. In fact, McCarthy was such a vehement foe of the war that he was on the razor's edge of the opposition. That contributed to Johnson's decision not to seek another term. The race for the 2004 Democratic nomination produced conflicting lessons about how support for the Iraq war could affect a candidacy. Two months before the Iowa caucuses, polls showed Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., vying for the lead in a crowded Democratic field. Then, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a TV ad in Iowa criticizing Gephardt's work with the Bush administration in drafting the Iraq resolution. It showed Gephardt, then the House minority leader, standing alongside Bush in the White House Rose Garden. The ad has been credited with helping to sink his candidacy. Even so, Dean's anti-war candidacy flamed out after being the early favorite. And Democratic voters ended up looking past Kerry's support of the resolution when they chose him as the party's nominee. Democratic strategists point to that as they play down the possible impact of the Iraq resolution vote on the 2008 Democratic race. They note that the primary season is more than two years away. Voters likely will focus on the candidate's current positions on Iraq, a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops, and a future vision for the military and its veterans, they say. Democrats, strategists say, likely will mull questions such as: Did candidates who voted initially for the war continue voting to give the president billions of dollars to continue operations? Did they press for a withdrawal strategy? What was their position as the war dragged on with no end in sight, casualties climbed and the price tag soared? "It's going to be about what did you do since you voted for the war," said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. Still, Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, said discussions of how candidates voted on the Iraq war resolution vote will occur as potential candidates rally supporters and try to raise money early on. "This could be an issue — but one of many issues," Brazile said.
It is called . . .not selling out your principles for political expedience than again . .. that it assuming they compromised their principles otherwise. . they waffling after the fact Rocket River
And I suppose that the Republican party is a big throbbing dick? "We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are p*****s. And Kim Jong Il is an *******. p*****s don't like dicks, because p*****s get ****ed by dicks. But dicks also **** assholes: assholes that just want to **** on everything. p*****s may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can **** an ******* is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they **** too much or **** when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a p***y to show them that. But sometimes, p*****s can be so full of **** that they become assholes themselves... because p*****s are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us **** this *******, we're going to have our dicks and p*****s all covered in ****!" But seriously, why the hell is the Democratic party a vagina? And why the hell would being a vagina be negative thing? If being a "p***y" means you don't go around killing tens of thousands of innocent people, detaining thousands of people with no due process of law, and screwing over the average American for the sake of corporate America then I guess I'm a p***y. Your comment not only hints at an underlying misogynistic attitude, but a pretty callous approach to international ethics.
That's the Screen Actors Guild. mc mark Proud SAG member since 1995 And I loves me some George Carlin!
Actually, it's from Team America World Police, not George Carlin. They call them the Film Actors Guild so they can get the cheap "F.A.G." acronym joke in the movie.
I really hope Dem. voters don't hold it against the candidates. I think it was a mistake but by 2008 it will be 6 years since the vote with many other issues to deal with. If the Dems are going to vote down a potentially good candidate because of one mistaken vote then the party really will be not much more than a one issue party and a issue that has been moot since March 2003.
I don't think it will be. In the end, the primary will come down to whichever candidate seems the most likely to win in the general election. If energizing the base, or being strongly anti-war were critical to winning the primary, Kerry wouldn't have won. But he did, because he seemed most likely to win. Since the Dems won't be up against W. again, the war votes probably won't be too big a deal.
For wavering against their conviction. For "supporting" something out of political reason and now they are trapped. I respect Howard Dean, I have no respect for John Kerry. The republicans took a strong position - a misguided and ill-conceived one, but instead of saying going into Iraq was the wrong thing, the dems just went along. Fine, don't use the word vagina, call them spineless. Clearly, Bush is as spineless as well...frankly, I'm now an independent. Neither party is worthy of any kind of praise at this point.
I don't think people understand the vote here. If they had to do this all over again, they should vote YES again. This wasn't a vote to go to war. It was a vote to authorize Bush to use force if necessary. Even if you don't want to go to war, if you think Saddam Hussein was flaunting international inspections, you have to vote yes. The only way to force Hussein to cooperate was to threaten force - if the President doesn't have that ability, Hussein could have done anything he wanted and know there was no threat. What Bush did with the power - not focusing on international or public support, ignoring other solutions, etc - was screwed up. But given the situation at the time, the Senate did the absolute right thing giving Bush the necessary authority. Kerry talked a lot about this in the campaign, and its why he never wavered on that vote even though he was against the war. He even mentioned that if he were President, he'd want that authority too.
You don't hand a drunk driver the keys to his truck. Anyone who claims they voted without knowing Bush was 100% definitely going to war is A) a liar B) cripplingly naive C) been slamming down turpentine like Ted Kennedy hits whiskey.
You raise an excellent point, as there was no formal declaration of war by Congress and the vote only was supposedly to give Bush ability to follow the War Powers Act. However; we all know that many democratics voted for this vote - which we all knew would be a defacto green light for Bush to go to war, and that indeed, he WAS PLANNING on going to war. So in a sense, it was a vote for war, as we all knew this was the only vote that would occur before hostilities began. The truth to me is that they voted yes because to vote "no" under a popular president would have resulted in a potential backlash and loss in seats. This had nothing to do with Presidential Authority and everything to do with public perception - so I can't really agree on the face value of what the vote meant.
I agree completely. There was no way to know at the time the Bush administration was so corrupt and incompetent and would abuse the authority to such an extent. Here is who will be haunted in 2008: Republican candidates who do not admit the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. They may get pass in the primary, but their candidate in the general election better make it clear Bush messed things up. IMO, Bush has forced the 2008 candidate to run away from him on Iraq. If whoever it is does not, he/she will be mercilessly pounded by the Dems because the voting public clearly believes the invasion was a mistake. This article has it all wrong.
