The Democrat's Dance

Seven and a half month into the new Democratic control of Congress and their new strategy on ending the war is a sleepover. Are the Democrats really serious about ending the war?

No. Granted it is difficult to push through controversial legislation with a razor-thin majority but there are reasons that the Democrats do not want the war to end.

Democratic strategists are sure that the war is why they won control of Congress in 2006. They hope to leverage the same voter anger in 2008. If the war ends before 2008 then it will be ancient history. This means that Democrats will dance around the issue but will never force Bush to withdraw the troops. At the same time, Democrats will use the issue as a fund-raiser. Their all-nighter was accompanied by action parties which mainly raised funds.

This is also being used as a wedge to try to defeat marginal Republicans. I've gotten two anti-Pryce phone messages in the last two of weeks. These are similar to the anti-Pryce calls I was getting just before the 2006 election when Pryce was almost defeated.

All of this means that the Democrats have to make war support a Republican issue. According to a Newsweek article, Democratic leaders are discouraging alliances with wavering Republicans. A bipartisan effort to end the war would ruin the Democrats' plans.

This will also cause problems for the Republican presidential candidates. It is unlikely that an anti-war candidate will win the primaries but that means that the winner of the nomination will be running on Bush's record. Most of the Republicans want to distance themselves from Bush right now.

While the Democrats have every reason to want the war to continue, they have to appear against it. If the public senses that the Democrats have been continuing the war on purpose then they lose their advantage.

They also have to keep the anti-war left from calling for their heads. Cindy Sheehan already realized that the Democrats betrayed her and announced that she will run against Pelosi. This trickle could turn into a gusher as the Democrats' most active supporters bleed away.

Maybe this is why Nader is running again. As usual, he insists that there is no difference between the parties. If the Democrats have no intention of ending the war then he is correct and he could siphon off enough support to give the election to the Republicans.

Stunts like the all-nighter are supposed to make the anti-war left think that the Democrats really are opposing Bush. In the movie Chicago, the defense lawyer is shown doing a dance as he dodges difficult questions and eventually gets two clients freed. The Democrats are trying to do this dance now - distracting people with fancy footwork while approaching their real goal.

They may well fail. There are a lot of stumbling blocks. I can't imagine the anti-war left having enough patience to wait until after the 2008 election for the war to end. They expect success by the end of the year.

A worse nightmare for the Democrats is that Iraq might stabilize. Most of the frustration against the war comes from the nightly death toll. The networks tell us how many troops died in the last 24 hours. If none died or were injured then they list Iraqi fatalities. They never mention terrorists or insurgents killed.

What if that turns around? What if the tribes continue to make peace with the US and to turn against al Qeada?

The ultimate nightmare would be for Bush to fold and start withdrawing the troops. Everyone except John Murtha is sure that this will bring an increase in violence. This could turn public opinion around. The Republican presidential candidate would not be supporting the war, he would be running against genocide.

The Republicans may own the war but the Democrats would own the defeat and its aftermath. This could lead to a Republican sweep.

So the Democrats have to make a show of being against the war but they cannot afford to actually stop it.