War Highlights Rifts Among Democrats
Antiwar Faction Poses a Dilemma for Those Seeking to Unseat Bush in 2004
washingtonpost.com
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 6, 2003; Page A05
The war in Iraq has divided and largely silenced the Democrats, leaving many of their leaders as bystanders to the conflict and their presidential candidates contending with a resurgent antiwar constituency that could drive the party farther to the left.
The war has underscored the absence of consensus among Democrats on foreign policy and national security and highlighted concern among some Democrats that, to date, no one has emerged with the experience, political stature or credibility to pull the party together to challenge President Bush on issues that will be central to the 2004 election.
Instead, the party has become a chorus of conflicting voices. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) summed up, perhaps unintentionally, the immobilized state of the party in a recent interview on CNBC's "Capital Report." Asked where the Democrats were on the war in Iraq, she replied, "The Democrats are where they are. One at a time, one at a time. This is a vote of conscience, as war is for everyone."
The strength of the antiwar left has boosted the presidential candidacy of former Vermont governor Howard Dean, a vociferous critic of going to war before it started, and it has forced candidates who supported going to war to find other ways to appeal to the party's liberal activists to prevent the once-dismissed Dean from gaining even more ground.
Whether the antiwar constituency will outlast the war in Iraq and how it may shape the battle for the Democratic nomination have become topics of vigorous debate and disagreement within the party, for the longer the left maintains its cohesion and passion, the more it presents a dilemma for the party's presidential candidates.
Those opposed to the war have muffled their views, while rallying behind U.S. forces fighting in the Persian Gulf. Those who supported going to war have been reluctant to back Bush too loudly, fearing a backlash from liberal activists. Some who have spoken out for the war -- among them Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) -- have drawn the wrath of Democratic audiences.
"This is the largest antiwar demonstration of opinion and of mobilization globally in history," said Robert Borosage of the liberal Campaign for America's Future. "All of the presidential candidates are feeling its effects, and the political pros are worried about it -- whether it is too far out of line with public opinion. But if you're running a campaign in Iowa, you feel it."
<n>Optimists say the party is far more united than it appears, largely around the goal of denying Bush a second term. They argue that once the war ends, Democrats will find common ground challenging the president's overall approach to foreign policy, which they contend has damaged U.S. prestige and relations around the world, and particularly on the economy, where Bush remains highly vulnerable. "I think when the war is over, the war over the war will be over," said Bruce Reed of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
But some party figures say the current differences over foreign policy point to a deeper problem, which is the party's failure to develop security policies for fighting a war against terrorism that are credible with the public. They fear the party's liberal wing will continue to thwart efforts to create a robust foreign policy that represents a clear alternative to Bush's.
"The ghosts are coming home to roost about the absence of core convictions that appeal to the broader national security interests of the American people," said a foreign policy adviser from the Clinton administration. "The Democrats have got to get beyond looking at George Bush as the excuse to shy away from developing a core series of beliefs about how to defend this country and its global interests that require at times more than merely good intentions and allies."
Republicans are eager to create the perception that the antiwar left has captured the Democratic Party, and whenever a Democrat raises his head to question the president on the war, they aggressively try to paint that person as unpatriotic or out of the political mainstream.
A sign of the GOP strategy came last week, when Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) repeated a stock line he had used before the war, calling for "regime change in the United States." Kerry immediately was blasted by Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).
Kerry, a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, accused the GOP of trying to make "a phony issue of patriotism" and told the Associated Press, "I refuse to have my patriotism or right to speak out questioned. I fought for and earned the right to express my views in this country."
Kerry advisers deny that their candidate was seeking to undercut Dean's appeal among antiwar activists, although other Democrats believe that has been part of his motivation. Kerry remains critical of Bush despite having voted for the congressional resolution to go to war.
"That's absolutely untrue," said campaign manager Jim Jordan. "John Kerry's very vocal criticism of this administration's international policy began when Howard Dean was still an absolutely unknown governor. This was not at all a reactive thing. . . . We understand that every word that comes out of his mouth will be viewed as political gamesmanship, but that's simply not true. What he said [in New Hampshire], he's said many, many times."
Still, his advisers know there is no better way to energize the party's base than to pick a fight with the president.
Jordan acknowledged that the antiwar left is "the most energized and noisiest segment" of the Democratic Party this spring. Inside the party, there is widespread agreement that Dean has gained most by appealing directly to those activists. "He wouldn't be where he is today if he weren't more vigorously antiwar than the other candidates," said Ruy Teixeira, co-author of several books about the Democratic Party.
Dean not only has attacked the president for going to war without establishing that Iraq represented an imminent threat to the United States, but also has criticized those Democrats who voted for the congressional resolution authorizing war. At party gatherings, Democratic activists have consistently given Dean their most enthusiastic applause.
Many Democrats predict that Dean's candidacy will suffer once the war ends, arguing that antiwar activists will begin to look beyond Iraq to other issues as they weigh their choices for the nomination. They also contend that the desire to defeat Bush will force the antiwar left to weigh who has the best chance of doing that.
"Right now he gets a lot of energy and a lot of support from people who are antiwar," one Democratic operative said. "It's not clear whether or not that group will stay with Dean or look to other major '04 candidates after the war in Iraq."
Dean advisers say his candidacy transcends opposition to the war and will prosper whether or not the antiwar left remains cohesive. Others say the more Dean continues to be a significant force in the nomination battle after the war, the bigger the danger for the party.
"If the war turns out to be a success, enough savvy Democratic operatives, contributors and activists will do their best to make sure the party does not nominate a Howard Dean candidate," said William Mayer of Northeastern University in Boston. "They will find somebody who will plausibly look strong enough on defense not to doom the party."
Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution said suggestions of deep divisions within the party are significantly overstated. "It's awkward now, but can you imagine anything else?" he said of the Democrats' silence. "It would be quite inappropriate to attack the president." He added that "we make too much of Dean's finding traction now relative to the other major candidates as the sign of a real fracture in the party."
GOP strategists, however, see the Democrats caught between conflicting forces that offer no easy way out. "Where their base stands on not only Bush but also this war is so far off of where Republicans and swing voters are," said one strategist. The Democratic candidates must try to appeal to those liberal activists because of their significance in next year's primaries and caucuses, he said, "but every time they do that, they're on the opposite side of the rest of the public."
David Winston, a Republican pollster, said that Democrats face an unhappy choice between being perceived as negative or divided. Their mistake in 2002, he said, was in attacking Bush without offering an alternative to his policies, and Winston questioned their assumption that, once the war ends, Democrats can quickly reunite by challenging the president's approach, both domestically and internationally.
"By trying to focus on Bush, the presidential candidates reinforce that negative image," he said. "But the moment they draw distinctions with each other, they will look like a party in disarray."
Democrats believe that after the war they will unite around criticism of Bush's diplomatic missteps and the administration's plans for the reconstruction of Iraq. Democrats, they argue, will have no trouble sketching out an appealing Democratic alternative. But the struggle to enunciate a policy on the war may foreshadow a continuing struggle between the party's centrist and liberal wings long after the shooting stops in Iraq.
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