Memo to Democrats On Iraq: The Post-Veto Strategy

[RiverStone]

David Sirota
3/28/07

President Bush today reiterated his insistence that he will veto the current Iraq supplemental spending bill. There is a decent chance this is a poker-style bluff - an attempt to stop the House and Senate’s success so far in moving through a bill that ends the war. I float this “bluff” idea not because I am plagued by wishful thinking, but because Karl Rove understands that the veto will make Bush the one “cutting off funds to the troops” - the attack the White House and the Republican machine have used to berate Democrats. This was, after all, one of the big reasons Democrats attached binding legislation to end the war to a supplemental spending bill in the first place: Because it will be very difficult for Bush to walk into his own right-wing attack line about “cutting off funds to the troops.”

But let’s assume for the moment that the president will follow through on vetoing the supplemental bill because it includes binding language to end the war. What is the post-veto strategy? Similar to analyzing last week’s "yes" or "no" vote on the supplemental in the House, we can only answer this question by gaming out the possible outcomes. This is perhaps more difficult than gaming out the House supplemental vote because in that instance, the answer about what Democratic leaders would do in the event that the bill was voted down was obvious (a decade’s worth of spinelessness and an outspoken faction of pro-war Blue Dogs makes clear they would come back with a "clean" supplemental that continues the war indefinitely). However, on the question about what to do in the event of a veto, we do have a bit of history to draw on.

THE OPPOSITE OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN OF 1995-1996

In the 1995 and early 1996, the federal government shut down after congressional Republicans and President Clinton could not come to a budget agreement. Politically, polls show Clinton came out way ahead, masterfully using his bully pulpit to beat the GOP into submission. At first glance, this seems to suggest any similar legislative-executive branch confrontation will be won by the president, merely because of the bully pulpit. But that is a specious conclusion when considering all the facts and applying them to the potential confrontation over Iraq.

First and foremost, Clinton was digging in on an issue - public spending on social programs - that Democrats have long held a wide advantage on in the public’s mind. Balancing the budget was also an issue at the time - and Democrats’ credibility on that subject was on the uptick, considering the success of Clinton’s high-profile, deficit-cutting inaugural budget.

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http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2007/03/28/memo-to-democrats-the-post-veto-strategy/