Anti-war strategists have long said the Democrats' road to Washington runs through Baghdad. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the party's only winning election came in 2006 -- the first time Democrats ran clearly against the war. That won't cut it this year, though, since voters saw the new Congress didn't oppose the surge enough to actually defund it. Now a stable of Democratic House challengers, led by Washington state's Darcy Burner, are promising a new tack.
More than 40 candidates have endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, a detailed 36-page strategy that reads like a "cross between a think tank report and a political platform," as the National Security Network's Ilan Goldenberg reported. Burner assembled the plan with input from Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, known as the "father of the Iraqi army" for leading the first trainings of Iraqi soldiers in 2003, to show voters how Congress will end the war.
The Responsible Plan begins the inevitable funding battle by forcing appropriations back into the "normal congressional budgeting process." It calls for legislation to ban permanent bases in Iraq, citing an Iraq Study Group recommendation.
For any C-SPAN fans out there, it endorses 15 different pieces of legislation, already introduced in Congress, to address the refugee crisis, regulate military contractors and restore a regime for accountability and human rights in military operations. It provides a sharp contrast to typical campaign rhetoric and to the vague, three-page Real Security plan that House Democrats circulated last cycle.
Of course, the House challengers have to prevail first, and Burner's race demonstrates the type of contest ahead, with Republicans running from Iraq and Bush.
Dave Reichert (R-WA) a former King County sheriff, has assiduously crafted a moderate image. He rarely talks about Iraq, though after a visit there last year he reaffirmed his support for the Bush policy and called on the administration to further "loosen" soldiers' "rules of engagement." But mostly he focuses on touting moderate votes and legislation back home.
Reichert recently teamed up with Democrats to fight media consolidation, bucking both Bush's FCC rules and Rupert Murdoch's attempt to dominate print and TV media in one city. The "cross ownership" ceiling is not exactly red meat in most of the country. The position pleases the moderate techies in Washington, however, and lets Reichert get near Ted Kennedy without alienating the Republican base.
Now, Reichert deserves some credit for fighting the current growth of media oligopolies. Yet when he was asked about this exact issue in a 2006 campaign debate, his entire answer was, "That's an issue that I'm not familiar with, and I'll have to pass on that question." It is a pattern. Many of his moderate moves turn out to be pretty empty upon closer inspection.
In fact, Reichert has reversed his vote on "moderate" bills a whopping 25 times this Congress. Why would a politician expose himself to charges that he was for a bill before he was against it?
According to an analysis of House procedure by local blogger Dan Kirkdorffer, Reichert often votes with Republicans on every procedural step for a bill, but if it is headed for passage anyway, he reverses himself on the final vote. The crass objective is to get credit from gullible reporters for backing some Democratic legislation.
Take the Democrats' renewable energy bill. Reichert voted with Republicans to thwart the legislation five times. On Feb. 27, he voted to kill it one last time; when that failed, he turned around on the same day and voted for the final bill, with only 16 other Republicans. It is duplicitous. Yet sometimes even Reichert is honest about his trickery.
Here's how he recounted the ploys to a gathering of GOP faithful, in a video that lit up the Evergreen State's blogosphere. Explaining "how things work back in Washington," Reichert confessed to his moderate shell game:
Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, 'Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.' ... In other districts, that's not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes. Because the big picture here is: Keep this seat, keep the majority.
Republicans may not like his votes on ANWR or "protecting salmon," Reichert added, but those come second to the larger GOP agenda "on protecting our troops, on protecting this country."
And that brings it all back, of course, to the Responsible Plan. There is an opening for Democrats to confront the phony moderates -- from Reichert to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- who back a failed strategy in Iraq. When they change the subject to bipartisanship, their duplicitous credentials are easily spalled with facts. When they mislead the public about policy, their honesty and judgment must be questioned. And when they cop to supporting more of the same in Iraq, Democrats can press a detailed security strategy for ending the war and refocusing our military against the priority threat of stateless terrorists. That's the responsible way to win.