Debating Democrats

Congressional correspondent Liz Marlantes blogs about what’s going on in the Senate: Here’s one of the biggest ironies about the position Democrats currently find themselves in on Iraq: they’ve somehow wound up having to argue two opposing points simultaneously. On the one hand, they’re trying to counter a “Democrats in disarray” storyline that makes them look weak, indecisive, and — most important for voters — unprepared to lead. Hence the parade of Democratic senators proclaiming how united they all are on the war: they all agree that something needs to change, and that the administration’s “open-ended” commitment is counterproductive, etc. But on the other hand, Democrats are now struggling to emphasize one internal division — namely, to draw a clear distinction between the proposal put forward by John Kerry and Russ Feingold that would mandate the withdrawal of US troops by July 2007, and the milder, non-binding approach drafted by Carl Levin and Jack Reed that calls for the beginning of a draw-down by the end of the year. Republicans have lumped the two Democratic plans together, labeling them “cut and run” and “cut and jog,” respectively. As a result, supporters of the Levin approach (who represent the vast majority of the caucus) have had to assert repeatedly that their measure does *not* set a timetable for withdrawal (as Kerry’s does). Privately, the strongest point of agreement among many Democrats at the moment is that this whole debate has been a political loser. As strategists from both parties have been noting all week, the issue that for much of the year seemed to be President Bush’s Achilles heel — and is still most responsible for the drag in his poll numbers — has somehow once again come back to bite the Democrats. “A few more weeks like this one,” one Democratic strategist wryly noted, and Karl Rove’s confidence that Republicans will keep control of the Congress may prove well-founded.