The Democrats' War Mandate

What Are They Going to Do About It?

Brian Doherty | December 4, 2006

(Page 3 of 14)

/p> p class="MsoNormal"> o:p> /o:p>Thinking that the newcomers might be a better bellwether of Democratic seriousness over change in Iraq, given the sitting party members checkered and uninspiring record on the matter, I checked out the pre-election statements of all 21 Democrats who beat incumbent Republicans for House seats. In my estimation, in which I tried to err toward giving them antiwar props, I’d place 38 percent of them as solidly for getting the troops out as a high priority, and an equal 38 percent for some variation of sure, the troops need to leave, after everything in Iraq is all cleaned up and hunky-dory. And 24 percent—nearly a quarter of them—didn’t seem to be publicly for any serious change in Iraq at all, even if they might pay lip service to the notion that Bush has bungled things. One of our Democratic freshmen, Tim Walz of Minnesota, went so far as to accuse his Republican opponent Gil Gutknecht of “calling for an irresponsible partial removal of American troops.” /p> p class="MsoNormal"> o:p> /o:p>So, if the American people really have an overwhelming desire to see Bush’s Iraq plans turned around, it’s not clear that voting Democrat was a means intelligently fitted toward that end. Then again, what the people want to have happen now in Iraq is as filled with ambiguities as trying to suss out the “Democratic Party” as a whole’s position on Iraq. This set of recent poll data from multiple sources finds, from Opinion Research Center, 63 percent opposed to the war but only 33 percent wanting full withdrawal; 51 percent, via Pew, who think starting the war was a mistake, but only 48 percent who say bring the troops home; and even within the realm of bringing the troops home, unambiguous majority support for a schedule by which to do so, or what we expect the situation in Iraq to be before we can safely leave, is as hard to find as a street in Baghdad unscarred by improvised explosions. To boot, the Chicago Tribune