The Democrats' War Mandate

What Are They Going to Do About It?

Brian Doherty | December 4, 2006

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for severe change in policy in Iraq? And now that the Dems won with this supposed anti-occupation mandate, what are they prepared to do about it? What can they do about it? /p> p class="MsoNormal"> o:p> /o:p>Every single Democratic incumbent running for their congressional seat won this year—even though 81 House Democrats voted for the original Iraq war resolution (compared to 126 against), as did 29 Senate Democrats. The party certainly had no announced plan to bring the war to a conclusion pushed as an overall national strategy—and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head Rahm Emanuel seemed to be going out of his way to support less energetically, or not at all, antiwar candidates over ones who wanted to make stopping the war a primary issue. (He has now admitted he was wrong in underestimating how important it would be to the party to be seen as staunchly antiwar.)