David Sirota: Memo to Dems on Iraq: The Post-Veto Strategy

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6412

Memo to Dems on Iraq: The Post-Veto Strategy
by David Sirota | Mar 29 2007


snip//

STANDING GROUND WITHOUT APPEARING INTRANSIGENT

Bush will, undoubtedly, try to turn the situation around, most likely by touring the country and appearing in districts of Blue Dog Democrats to invoke the names of national Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and criticize them for supposedly "cutting off funding for the troops." This is the simplistic, post-9/11 strategy from his homeland security campaign in the lead-up to the 2002 mid-term elections: Attack Democrats who are perceived to be politically vulnerable in 2008, in the hopes that they will submit to voting for a "clean" supplemental bill - one that funds the war indefinitely while eliminating any binding provisions to end the war (As an aside: Blue Dog Democrats love to tell everyone how "strategic" and "smart" they are, but the ones who have publicly equivocated or worse, made statements supporting the "clean" supplemental option, are actually the stupidest politicians I've seen in a long time because their actions have made themselves into bigger targets than they need to be; Had they simply fallen in line earlier, the White House would be less likely to try to peel them off with hardball tactics).

The beauty of the situation, however, is that a majority of Congress will now on record supporting the current supplemental with its binding antiwar provisions, meaning a majority of Congress has already taken whatever political "hit" they will take, and there's no real political incentive to back off. If you've already voted for something you think you are going to get attacked on, even if you turn around and vote for something far weaker, you are still going to get attacked for your original vote. That's Politics 101, and every politician in Congress who's ever run a television ad knows that. Democrats standing their ground and demanding an end to the war is no longer risky, both because of public opinion, and because they are already on record making such demands.

The question, then, is how to stand ground without taking on the Gingrich 1995 problem of appearing intransigent, caustic and prematurely triumphalist. You may recall that in the lead up to and during the government shutdown, Republicans ran around bragging about the situation as a supposed success. "We'll let the government shut down," boasted one leading Republican lawmaker at the time. "This is not a game over whether the government is going to shut down. This is our maximum point of leverage to insist that parts of the revolution are executed."

We have to avoid that kind of thing. Rhetorically, declaring the passage of the supplemental with its binding antwar language a success is great; Declaring Bush's veto a "success" is terrible. Even if his veto is a political success in isolating Bush, it is not a success in terms of either ending the war, and more generally, gridlock is never perceived as "success" by the public.

But even more important than just the language and PR of the situation will be the legislative strategy. How do you stand legislative ground while appearing flexibly disposed to "getting something done?"

more...

[CTyankee]

1. My sense is that the ground has shifted and the underlying argument is no

longer the timeline. That's a given, in reality. What I am hearing now is the suggestion that anything the Dems want to do constitutes "losing" the war. McCain is talking about this now. Look for words like "defeat" and "lose the war." They figure that Americans don't like gridlock but they also don't like to think we lost any war.

So why don't we just declare victory and leave? We did, actually, "win" the war. What we are losing is the occupation and I don't think the American public is particularly intrested in "winning" a long occupation that has no hope of success.

[papau]

2. out with timetables completely -in with training/supplies requirement that can't be waived

cute - and excellent!