Iraq Divides Clinton and Obama in Electability War

Now that John McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee, the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is increasingly focused on who can beat him.

Team Obama is psyched about several hypothetical "head-to-head" surveys – which are often unreliable – that show him faring much better against the hawkish Arizona Senator. The trend is evident in a battery of recent polls, and Obama aides have been blasting reporters with a CNN segment on the results. So Clinton dispatched her top aides to discuss the darker side of electability this week. Pollster Mark Penn made Hillary's case in a conference call and 1,100-word memo, but since current data does not support her electability, he issued predictions instead. His five key points were:

The GOP Attack Machine Will Redefine the Democratic Candidate; Hillary Has Withstood That Process.

Sen. McCain Will Run on National Security; Hillary Wins That Argument.

Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In.

The Resiliency of Sen. Obama's Coalition Will Be Tested; Hillary's Coalition Is Stronger.

Current Poll Numbers Don't Tell the Story of What Will Happen: Sen. Obama Routinely Underperforms While Hillary Overperforms. (emphasis added)

Plenty of pollsters are known for bluster over data, so maybe Penn should get candor points for not even mentioning numbers in his five points. In a charitable comparison of the campaigns' arguments, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza concludes that "the central difference in the electability appeals by the two campaigns is temporal." You know, like one appeal is based on today's data, and the other is based on a crystal ball. Cillizza continues:

The Obama campaign argues that the way to best understand who is the more electable is to look at current polling and past results to see who leads the likely Republican nominee and who is better able to lure crucial independents to the Democratic cause. The present is what matters, says Obama. For Clinton, it's the future that's the issue. Sure, they argue, Obama may be ahead right now, but Republicans have only begun to define him, a process that would strip away much of his independent support and leave him on the losing end of a race against McCain.

But wait -- for the vast majority of this campaign, Clinton aides touted her huge lead in past and current polls as proof of her "inevitability." Most independent pollsters and journalists swallowed that line, reporting items like this: "The conclusion drawn by the polling experts appears to be: Forget about Iowa being close, Clinton's inevitable, she's going to be the Democratic nominee." (That's from December.)

So at a minimum, reporters and pollsters must acknowledge that the Clinton Campaign has abandoned the case it pushed for over a year. Instead, it is now asking everyone to trust their predictions over current polls, past polls or their past arguments. We can't just ignore a massive shift in the central political argument for their candidate.

But that doesn't mean they are completely wrong, either.

There are two key issues in the "new" Clinton case: First, their explanation of the huge favorability gap is basically correct, and our political class should digest that reality. Second, their national security argument is wrong, and it offers an arresting reminder of the political and substantive problems with Clinton's foreign policy.

Penn told reporters that Obama's favorability ratings are temporarily inflated:

...time and time again the GOP attack machine redefine[s] the Democratic candidate. Hillary has withstood this process. She's lived through it. The attack machine has been built and honed over decades – it is formidable.. she has withstood this type of attack...

From a pure PR perspective, this is undeniably true. Clinton's negative ratings stem from a decade of sustained, presidential campaign level attacks on both her and her family. Obama has yet to receive such attacks -- he did not even face a viable opponent in his Senate race -- and his toughest Right Wing assault so far was an unfunded effort to lie about his Christian faith. If he is the nominee, sure, he could run a unifying campaign drawing a larger majority than Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter ever built. But his negatives would still rise like every other Democratic nominee in the modern era. If reporters and voters don't get that now, however, and Obama wins the nomination, then get ready for a spate of summer hand-wringing about the "surprising" spike in his negatives.

Then there is the security argument, where the Clinton Campaign reveals it is ready to repeat the mistakes of Kerry 04. On this front, Penn's memo is breathtaking:

Based on what they know of her and her experience, voters believe Hillary is fully ready to be commander in chief. She will be strong and right...The Republicans will not be able to play the national security card against Hillary Clinton, like they are now doing against Senator Obama, and that makes her a fundamentally stronger candidate against John McCain. (emphasis added)

Got that? The campaign that "knows the Republican attack machine better than anyone" actually thinks their candidate is magically immune to the GOP's first line of attack.

Of course, either candidate will face a withering assault on security, "patriotism" and the Democratic passion for "protecting of rights of people who want to kill us" -- as a Fox pundit put the question to President Bush this weekend. The key difference is that Clinton is wedded to the "yes-but arguments" that failed Kerry. (The Nation's Ari Berman has more on this today in "Clinton Running Like It's 2002.") Take her Iraq defense in the last debate:

I believe that it is abundantly clear that the case that was outlined on behalf of going to the resolution -- not going to war, but going to the resolution -- was a credible case. I was told personally by the White House that they would use the resolution to put the inspectors in. I worked with Senator Levin to make sure we gave them all the intelligence so that we would know what's there. Some people now think that this was a very clear, open-and-shut case. We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors. We had evidence that they had a lot of bad stuff for a very long time, which we discovered after the first Gulf War. Knowing that he was a megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do. So I think I made a reasoned judgment. Unfortunately the person who actually got to execute the policy did not. (emphasis added; transcribed by The New York Times.)

So even today, she sees a "credible case" for the war, but she is also against the war. She made a reasoned judgment, but Bush did not. And when facing Iraq criticism, she mentions Osama bin Laden.

Yet for this entire campaign, while many focused on Obama's style and charisma, he advocated the policy and political imperative of challenging the fundamental premises of neoconservative foreign policy. He says it in every stump speech. (It's a huge applause line.) He hammered on the point in his speech on Super Tuesday -- an important choice since the televised address was one of his largest media opportunities to reach new voters:

And if I am your nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq, because I didn't -- (cheers) -- or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran, because I haven't -- (cheers, applause) -- or that I support the Bush-Cheney doctrine of not talking to leaders we don't like, because I profoundly disagree with that approach. (Cheers, applause.) And he will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it's okay for America to use torture, because it's never okay. That is the choice in this election. (Transcribed by The Federal News Service.)

That is not only the most powerful argument for winning -- providing a strong, clear contrast instead of the Democratic doubletalk of 2004 -- it also prioritizes policy leadership on the campaign trail, not blurry pandering. Even apart from Iraq, when is the last time you heard a top Democrat lean in to confront Republicans on torture and Iran, rather discussing the issues on defense?

Most of the time, electability is a parlor game for insiders, who shift from (irrelevant) past polling to the titillating speculation of (even less reliable) projection polling. But this week's debate could be more meaningful, since voters can weigh Clinton's blunt claim that her war record would fare better in November. The Clintons have long eyed McCain warily -- the former president even said he "might be the most electable" Republican in a December interview on ABC. (The clip is still the second most popular item out of 166 videos on McCain's YouTube channel.) And Clinton was probably right.

Now Democrats are girding for a battle against a formidable but flawed political figure. McCain's shortcomings are well known, as an unrelenting advocate of the failed Rumsfeld plan in Iraq and the failed Bush approach to global terror. Given a clear alternative, Americans just might elect someone else.

Update: Nation reader SRJENKINS debunks another line from Penn:

Current Poll Numbers Don't Tell the Story of What Will Happen: Sen. Obama Routinely Underperforms While Hillary Overperforms.

Is going from the inevitable candidate to almost being out of the race called "overperformance" these days? Let me go check my dictionary. Or going from, "Is this guy serious?" to contender, underperformance?

Comments (30)

1. the national security "debate" can only favor clinton if the media, and likewise most americans, believe that our current foreign policy is actually working in our favor.

   how can the authorization of torture, secret detention and warantless spying indicate that we're following the law, and not succumbing to blind stupidity?

   on the other hand, if obama is so anti-war, which he claims to be, i want to see him pull the troops ASAP if he is elected. and i want him to say that he's going to do that.

   Posted by darladoon at 02/12/2008 @ 2:34pm

2. clinton, btw, missed the FISA vote today. obama voted "no".

   Posted by darladoon at 02/12/2008 @ 2:35pm

3. The Dem candidate has to preempt the GOP surrender-monkey melody & hang Cheney/Bush failures around McC's neck right from the get-go, on all fronts, Iraq prominently, relentlessly. Plus the disastrous economy. ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. Always backed up with a pragmatic specific alternative. Unlike sleepy John Kerry.

   Either Dem candidate can do it. Obama can do it far more convincingly, and more calmly, and therein lies a good part of his electability edge over Billary. Then there's the hatred issue, of a man's skin, to which no one can explicitly appeal (although Billary continue to come close). And the personal hatred issue, irrational or not, that Billary carry, which Obama does not, nor does McC. Bottom line: Obama has the best chance of winning in Nov.

   Posted by sloper at 02/12/2008 @ 2:56pm

4. It is not an ISSUES strategy that is going to beat McCain, it is a VOTERS strategy that will.

   Hillary will only be able to get partisan Democrats to vote for her in November, whereas McCain will appeal to independents and some Republicans because of his stands on campaign finance reform, immigration, and torture. Hillary will also motivate the Republican base to turn out in record numbers to oppose her based on the partisan bickering of the past associated with the impeachment of Bill. So if you just do the math, Hillary loses to McCain.

   Obama, on the other hand, neutralizes McCain's cross-over appeal with his own cross-over appeal. This has been borne out in the contests thus far in which he is beating Hillary decisively among independents and Republicans even though he is more progressive than Hillary based on his voting record. And unlike Hillary, Obama doesn't have the polarizing partisan baggage that would motivate Republicans to turn out in record numbers to oppose him.

   And on the war, Obama strikes gold in a race with McCain, as 70% of all voters STILL oppose the war in Iraq and want us to bring our troops home. Obama has the stronger stance in this regard since he opposed the war from the start.

   Hillary is pulling our leg on this "economy is my strong-suit" nonsense. She did not do anything from a public policy point of view to help the economy in the 90s, and is counting on "ignorant and uneducated voters" who don't understand that the Clintons simply rode the normal economic recovery cycle after a recession in the late 80s.

   And "unfunded mandates" are usually a Republican thing, so for Hillary to claim her healthcare plan is stronger because it mandates unaffordable healthcare is a serious error.

   Posted by Metteyya at 02/12/2008 @ 3:00pm

5. IMHO, this excerpt from the Madison, Wisconsin newspaper, "The Capital Times" illustrates the "kill-hope" campaign that Mrs. Clinton is running.

   Excerpt:

   Last month, Clinton and Obama sparred about this new politics.

   Clinton said, "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."

   Obama said, "This whole notion of false hopes bothers me. There is no such thing as false hopes."

   Something tells us that Lincoln would have preferred Obama's response.

   Source: The Capital Times' Editorial [madison.com]

   Posted by oraibi1952 at 02/12/2008 @ 3:06pm

6. Come November if its two Hawk vying for who is more Hawkish this Anti war voter will Stay home.

   Democrats should be satisfying Democrats NOT trying to look like republicans thats why the loose. THey shouldnt be saying I'm better at National Security because I'm more hawkish they should say we need to change the way we look at National Security. Its not just about war this is the 21st century. Who's going to be the candidate that fights for peace.

   As far as what HIllary said about being able to take on the Republican machine I tend to disagree. Obama is liked and respected by a lot of people even by people who are not supporters the republicans have to tread carefuly with him or they turn off voters. Hillary is hated by a large group of people its anything goes with her and since the Clintons live and breathe scandals there will be one that the republicans will find.

   Carol

   Posted by harriscrl3 at 02/12/2008 @ 3:36pm

7. Battle of the Aris?

   CLINTON RUNNING LIKE IT'S 2002...Posted by Ari Berman at 02/12/2008 @ 1:56pm?!?!?!

   But Mr Melber is right about the Clinton campaign and their "knows the Republican attack machine better than anyone"

   the spin is "She can't be hurt by any GOP attack, there have been so many over the last 16 years"....what they don't say is...she already HAS been hurt by it.

   She polls at FORTY-SEVEN PERCENT for "Would NEVER vote for her". And that's her STARTING POINT! I'd say the Repubs did the job well and she hasn't countered it one damn bit!

   Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 3:49pm

8. Posted by MASK 02/12/2008 @ 3:49pm | ignore this person

   but but but...she's got the most experience...dealing with being attacked...uh...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2008 @ 3:53pm

9. The GOP Attack Machine Will Redefine the Democratic Candidate; Hillary Has Withstood That Process.

   Does withstood mean she still has a base of support while both the left and right can't stand her? Not likely much will change there? I'm not thinking that's a big plus.

   Sen. McCain Will Run on National Security; Hillary Wins That Argument.

   Curious, how does Hillary "win" that argument? The only way to win on national security is to define it differently, which will be hard to do with someone that basically has the same policies as the competition.

   Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In.

   The old, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't argument. Given how tired people are of the status quo, I think Obama is proving that people are ready for the devil they don't know.

   The Resiliency of Sen. Obama's Coalition Will Be Tested; Hillary's Coalition Is Stronger.

   The first part is true. The state of the Clinton campaign at the moment is proof positive that her campaign isn't "stronger".

   Current Poll Numbers Don't Tell the Story of What Will Happen: Sen. Obama Routinely Underperforms While Hillary Overperforms.

   Is going from the inevitable candidate to almost being out of the race called "overperformance" these days? Let me go check my dictionary. Or going from, "Is this guy serious?" to contender, underperformance?

   Posted by srjenkins at 02/12/2008 @ 3:53pm

10. so what? har har! what a useless point!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2008 @ 3:54pm

11. not you, SR...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2008 @ 3:54pm

12. clinton, btw, missed the FISA vote today. obama voted "no". Posted by DARLADOON 02/12/2008 @ 2:35pm

    At last, solid substance. If there's a progressive Dem still in doubt, this should settle it.

    Whenever it comes down to the people or themselves, count on Billary to always pick Billary.

    Posted by sloper at 02/12/2008 @ 4:02pm

13. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2008 @ 3:53pm

    Yeah, experience at getting high negatives...and keeping them.

    BTW, FRANKGRITS is back, over at Mr. Berman's thread. Just popping in to tell us that he wants Obama to drop out so that the super-delegates don't have to pick the nominee because if they do it will cause a "civil war in the Party"....

    but if they do, it's fine, because that's what they SHOULD do....

    oh...but she'll win big in Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania....

    but if she still needs them she'll use the supers and MI and FL....

    but that's okay, because that's what they're there for...

    but Obama should drop out so that she doesn't have to...

    (Okay, head spinning...need to sit a moment!...heheh)

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 4:24pm

14. Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In. ----Posted by SRJENKINS 02/12/2008 @ 3:53pm

    Yeah, I love that one, SRJ. Obama has negatives of maybe 15%, his double (doubtful, but let's say) and it's 30%.

    Hillary's is at 47%...she adds just 4 percent, and it's a majority!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 4:26pm

15. Here's some prognosticating for good ole Mark Penn.

    1. The Republicans will eventually unite behind McCain...including the Dobson's (Dobson just about said so on Glen Beck's radio show when asked about the fear of a "nightmare Obama or Hillary picked Supreme Court")and the Religious Right. They won't turnout like they did in '00 and '04, but, they will turnout. This will not bode well for Hillary, since she will likely depress turnout in her own party and give the independents/crossovers to McCain. McCain would win 51-49.

    2. HRC is running scared. The firewall strategy seems like a retreat to states that are not in her typical demo strengths, with the exception of Tx. Hardly a postition of security. Obama wins 9+ states in a row, Ohio and Pennsylvania start trending his way and then we'll see what kind of firewall HRC has setup.

    3. Obama, after his (assumed) trifecta in the Chesapeake followed up by Wisconsin and Hawaii, will get even more contributions than HRC which, with his considerable $$ advantage, will allow him to look ahead to Tx, Oh and Penn by setting up a solid organization, taking out considerable ad buys and making plenty of appearances in those states. Obama's numbers seem to move up the longer he is in a state.

    4. Edwards lends his support to Obama, which will cut into HRC's white-blue collar-rural numbers (Union Workers). Leaving her with older white women and hispanics as the primary support.

    5. Fl and Mi redo their primaries before the convention. HRC wins Fl and Obama wins Mi.

    6. The republican machine will come after Obama just as hard as they always do. But the general electorate has gotten smarter and learns to see right through the attempted "Swift Boating".

    Everything I wrote above is just as worthless as the Mark Penn memo. Just a bunch of bullshit guesswork and opinion that means absolutely nothing. Just thought I'd give it a try and see if someone wants to pay me $5 mil for some worthless dribble.

    Posted by BizarroRio at 02/12/2008 @ 4:33pm

16. Posted by BIZARRORIO 02/12/2008 @ 4:33pm

    It's a sweet job...political consultant, that is.

    Bob Shrum lost election after election (starting with John Lindsey's primary run to Ed Muskie to McGovern)...and Kerry STILL hired him on his campaign.

    30 years of failures...and he kept getting paid!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 4:42pm

17. Posted by MASK 02/12/2008 @ 4:26pm | ignore this person

    Speaking of Frank and his insanity...

    I live in Va, 8 staunch Republicans have just left my office with the express purpose of voting for Hillary!!! None of them wants to face Obama in the general.

    One of them is a party organizer for Prince William County (Wash DC suburb)Republican Party, he is the leader of this particular voting group. Not a conspiracy theory, just reinforces how Frank is so full of shit.

    "Obama only wins in caucases and open primaries because Republicans can vote for him because they are afraid of Queen Hillary" Frankgrits, circa 2008

    Posted by BizarroRio at 02/12/2008 @ 4:43pm

18. Mask,

    Should have referenced your 4:24 pm post about Franks illogical arguments for Queen Akasha.

    Posted by BizarroRio at 02/12/2008 @ 4:46pm

19. Posted by MASK 02/12/2008 @ 4:42pm | ignore this person

    Shrum has NEVER be involved with a winning Presidential Election. He has worked on 8 Pres. Campaigns (5 nomination failures, 3 general election failures). McGovern '68?, Ted Kennedy '80, Dick Gephardt '88, Dukakis '88, Bob Kerrey '92, Al Gore '00, John Edwards '04 and John Kerry '04. He is the real reason for the Bush/Clinton dynasty!!

    Posted by BizarroRio at 02/12/2008 @ 4:56pm

20. I would have loved, loved, to have watched my rightwing acquaintances in Alexandria vote for Billary today. They HATE them. But there's one thing they hate & fear more ... in one CPAC member's words, "it's a nigger with the badge." Bottom line, for that hard core (& well heeled crowd), in the privacy of the home & the voting booth, racism tops sexism every time.

    Posted by sloper at 02/12/2008 @ 4:57pm

21. Posted by BIZARRORIO 02/12/2008 @ 4:46pm

    Well, thank the Spaghetti Monster, FRANK will either get his "last laugh" or run away and never return...in just two months....I hope.

    Obama wins Ohio (Texas tough), there goes 1/3 of her "firewall".

    That SHOULD be enough to push up his numbers in Pennsylvania and FRANK's "last firewall" of Pennsylvania.

    If she wins them all, she's the nominee and FG gets to do a BIG FAT "told ya so" and "You guys better support her, she WOULD have supported Obama" (a lie)

    if she falters, even a little (to quote Galadriel)...Obama wins and Dean and Obama tell the supers to vote like their states or else McCain will definitely win.

    Meanwhile Her Nibs and Bill start to sabotage Obama...so that she can make her last run in 2012.

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 4:58pm

22. Posted by BIZARRORIO 02/12/2008 @ 4:56pm

    That's the mark of a GREAT salesman. Keep selling crap and people keep coming back to you for DIFFERENT crap.

    I admire Shrum...that's cockroach survival!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2008 @ 4:59pm

23. Posted by SLOPER 02/12/2008 @ 4:57pm | ignore this person

    The rumor, from the same PW County organizer (I live in Ashburn, grew up in Alexandria) is that Northern Va might go Hillary. Dunno, worth watching.

    Posted by BizarroRio at 02/12/2008 @ 5:00pm

24. Is Hillary Clinton, a la George W. Bush, using fear as a campaign tool?

    Instead of fear of terrorists, she wishes Democrats to fear Republicans.

    Posted by oraibi1952 at 02/12/2008 @ 5:15pm

25. The below excerpt from The Atlantic.com highlights the real problem with Mrs. Clinton.

    Excerpt:

    Rather than punish Solis Doyle or raise questions about her fitness to lead, Clinton chose her to manage the presidential campaign for reasons that should now be obvious: above all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else. This suggests to me that for all the emphasis Clinton has placed on executive leadership in this campaign, her own approach is a lot closer to the current president's than her supporters might like to admit.

    End excerpt.

    Click on following link to read entire article.

    Inside the Clinton Shake-up [theatlantic.com]

    Posted by oraibi1952 at 02/12/2008 @ 5:54pm

26. if obama is so anti-war, which he claims to be, i want to see him pull the troops ASAP if he is elected. and i want him to say that he's going to do that.

    ~Darla Doon @ 2:34pm

    Bingo.

    As soon as the race is clarified, and it is verging on that right now, we will see the battle-lines, trenches and revetments quickly spring into existence.

    The subterfuge is well underway with the nattily dressed, slimy, surreptitious AIPAC apparatchik, David Brooks, already attempting to shape the storyline.

    Excerpt from today's NY Times:

    The first big rift would involve Iraq. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have seductively hinted that they would withdraw almost all U.S. troops within 12 to 16 months. But if either of them actually did that, he or she would instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency.

    There would be private but powerful opposition from Arab leaders, who would fear a return to 2006 chaos. There would be irate opposition from important sections of the military, who would feel that the U.S. was squandering the gains of the previous year. A Democratic president with few military credentials would confront outraged and highly photogenic colonels screaming betrayal.

    There would be important criticism from nonpartisan military experts. In his latest report, the much-cited Anthony Cordesman describes an improving Iraqi security situation that still requires "strategic patience" and another five years to become self-sustaining.

    There would be furious opposition from Republicans and many independents. They would argue that you can't evacuate troops just as Iraqis are about to hold national elections and tensions are at their highest. They would point out that it's insanity to end local reconstruction and Iraqi training efforts just when they are producing results. They would accuse the new administration of reverse-Rumsfeldism, of ignoring postsurge realities and of imposing an ideological solution on a complex situation....

    As William J. Stuntz of Harvard Law School wrote in The Weekly Standard, the Democrats have conducted their race amid unconstrained "Yes We Can!" unreality. Because the Democratic candidates appear to agree on so much, they've never tested each other's policy proposals or exposed each other's assumptions. But governing means choosing, and reality will be unkind. The artificial unity between the Democratic center and the Democratic left would be smashed by the harsh choices of 2009. My guess? The centrists would win.

    Although I dislike Brooks' --who's marketed as the conservative that liberals can love-- sneaky attempts to soften the edges and put a metro-sexual face on warmongering and waste in Washington, he makes an occasional on target toss.

    The Dems better be tough and on message when they come out of the gates in January '09 or they will be at great risk of humiliation. It's up to us progs and Nationheads to help shape that message between now and then.

    P.S. This was a very fine post by Ari Melber by the way. Thanks.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/12/2008 @ 7:57pm

27. Addendum:

    The "on target toss" in the above was Brooks' statement in his final paragraph that there will be a struggle between the center-right and the progressives in the Democratic Party.

    If Obama can shape a reasonably progressive message and ferry into the legislature a coattail riding legion, we will have at least a shot at an unprecedentedly transformative White House.

    The work must begin now.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/12/2008 @ 8:05pm

28. Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In.

    LOL

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/12/2008 @ 10:40pm

29. Hillary's current rationale for voting for the war was subverted at the point Bush ordered the inspectors out, and, weeks later, Iraq was attacked. Now, did she then state she had been deceived?

    Why didn't she shout from the rooftop?

    McCain, to win a close national campaign against the Democratic nominee on national security issues, will have to pull 10-15% from their 'Bush exhaustion,' soft anti-Iraq war, positions to re-embrace the 'Victory is the only option' banality.

    The question is, as I see it, how do you hold McCain's feet really really close to the fire of (his) perpetual war chasing the moving target of 'victory'?

    It's fascinating to note that McCain has put an iron in the fire by suggesting that as long as casualties can be kept low, the citizenry of the U.S. will support the never-ending war against jihadism. It seems such a cynical idea might draw some pushing back. Today.

    Posted by drpuck at 02/13/2008 @ 11:45am

30. I still trust Obama more to get us out of Iraq the reason is he is not going to be swayed by what is popular. He is going to make the decision he believes is right even if he knows in the short term his popularity may suffer. I cannot make the same conclusion about Hillary.

    I will say this we are NOT going to solve the problems in Iraq by keeping this war going and setting up bases. The continued occupation of Iraq makes the entire middle east more volatile NOT safer. American cant solve the problems of the world by going to war. Its a bad strategy. It was a bad strategy with Iraq and that hasn't changed. In order to make the situation in the Middle East less volitile they need to get out of Iraq. There is a civil war going on in Iraq its a bad idea to get in the middle of a civil war militarily. It becomes a quagmire that goes on and on without an exit in sight. Its time to get out and not let pride stubborness and the need to not have America surrender or show America is strong is only going to make it worse. You dont show strenght by staying in a country for 5 years a country already weakened by sanctions it shows weakness and it boggles my mind that some think its showing toughness if we remain there and battle it out.

    Carol

    Posted by harriscrl3 at 02/14/2008 @ 11:11am