Hillary Wrestles With Iraq
At a liberal gathering, her refusal to call for a troop withdrawal draws boos. The cheers were reserved for -- hold onto your campaign hats -- John Kerry
By PERRY BACON JR.
Hillary Clinton does not have many friends in the liberal wing of the Democratic party these days. They find her tactics in the Senate, from co-sponsoring numerous bills with Republicans to supporting a law to ban flag-burning, all part of a shameless attempt to move toward the political center for a possible presidential run. Her consistent support for the Iraq War has them positively apoplectic. In a May survey of 14,000 readers on the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, the New York Senator finished fifth among potential presidential contenders, earning only 2% of the vote; first was Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who has opposed the war from the beginning, with 44%.
So when Clinton showed up Tuesday for a speech at the "Take Back America" conference, put on by a liberal group called the Campaign for America's future, it was like "stepping into the lion's den," as one attendee put it. For most of her 25-minute speech, the former First Lady impressed the more than 300 people in a D.C. hotel ballroom with a deft mix of Bush-bashing, proposals for Democrats and a little humor. "I've lived long enough to know that things happen, and things you’d never expect," she said and then paused, as the members of audience began to laugh nervously. "But we ought to reverse the mean-spirited bankruptcy bill." She got loud applause during a riff on fiscal responsibility, one of her husband’s favorite issues but not one many in her party found very exciting. "People say, well, is fiscal responsibility a progressive issue?" Clinton said. "Well, if the strategy on the other side is to bankrupt the government so that it can't do anything like enforce election laws, like have a functioning FEMA, like take care of people's most basic needs, they're doing a good job of it. Fiscal responsibility gives us an opportunity to promote a progressive agenda. What do you think we were doing in the 1990s?"
But then she came to Iraq. "I do not think it is a smart strategy," she said, "either for the President to continue with his open-ended commitment, which I think does not put enough pressure on the new Iraqi government, nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain." Members of the crowd yelled, "Why Not?" There was loud booing. It was almost impossible to hear Clinton as she spoke over the crowd to declare, "I do not agree that that is in the best interest of our troops or our country." After her speech, as Clinton was walking along the stage and shaking hands with attendees who had rushed to meet her, more than a dozen members of the crowd stood and started chanting "Bring the Troops Home! Bring the Troops Home."
The reaction was strikingly different an hour later, as John Kerry delivered a forceful address that showed none of the hair-splitting that defined his presidential campaign. Almost the entire 35-minute speech was about Iraq, and he was interrupted by a half dozen standing ovations as he compared Iraq to Vietnam, arguing that both wars were framed as parts of larger global conflicts (the war on terror and communism), but were prolonged and extended by political leaders who couldn't admit their policies had failed. "They are the two most failed policy choices in American history," Kerry said. He called for setting a date for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, and took a thinly veiled swipe at Clinton. "It's not enough to argue with the logistics or to argue about the details. It is essential to acknowledge the war was a mistake," Kerry said. "It was wrong and I was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution." A man in the crowd shouted, "Tell Hillary that!" Kerry may continue to make the Iraq issue difficult for Clinton. He and Feingold are pushing Senate Democrats to support a resolution calling for a firm date for troop withdrawal in Iraq.
But by almost any measure other than this conference, Clinton is far ahead of Kerry in the early positioning for the 2008 nomination. Not only has she raised millions for her 2006 reelection effort that she could transfer to a presidential campaign fund, but she is still beloved by many in her party. In a Gallup poll earlier this month, 36% of registered Democratic voters said they would support her in a presidential campaign, compared to 11% for Kerry. (John Edwards got 12% and Al Gore 16%.) What's more, national polls show her problem with most voters is that they find her too liberal, so her tack on Iraq may be politically shrewd. Meanwhile, even though the liberal crowd clearly preferred Kerry's speech to Clinton's, they were hardly excited about seeing the Massachusetts Senator run again. Even as an anti-war candidate, he may be found wanting. Edwards, his former running mate, declared that his war vote was a mistake way back in November, months before Kerry's turnabout. A Des Moines Register poll this week found that 30% of prospective voters in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa said they preferred Edwards, compared with 26% for Clinton — and just 12% for Kerry.
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