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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: willcousa who wrote (765250)	9/17/2007 6:15:35 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 769670

yes, it is early. But there has not been an election quite like this in a long time. The last time there was a President leaving office with this kind of popularity numbers was Truman and Ike and the Republicans knew how to run against an unpopular war. The democrats have a huge wedge issue in the war that they can run on until the cows come home, unless the republicans move off of the current strategy. By Spring of 2008 we can't continue the current surge according to our best pentagon estimates....even if the President begins to bring troops home because things are going better (which I doubt will be the case on eithe point - that he will voluntarily bring home large number of troops or do so winningly), the democrats will claim they forced him to do so. If Iraq collapses, they blame him. If the economy softens next year, he gets the blame for that. The democrats will run on: "Money for Iraq but not for Children's health care" and "money for Iraq but not for bridges and schools". The Republicans better decide what they can run on to win, and it is not Iraq. It's not family values (that is just a laugh line anymore), and it isn't fiscal responsibility (they had their chance there).

To: willcousa who wrote (765250)	9/17/2007 7:10:45 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Here's the Democratic battle plan in a nutshell...and it will work unless the Republicans change course. The silver lining behind Democratic capitulation on Iraq, to talk like a mathematician, is that it reduces the 2008 election to a problem previously solved. 2006 showed us that we can destroy the GOP in an election where public anger about the continuing Iraq War is the big issue, and in 2008 we'll be replaying that scenario with 7 more GOP Senators up for re-election than last time. Nobody seems to want to mention it because it's impolite, but I think this is almost certainly a factor in the congressional politics of Iraq. Not only are Democrats afraid of taking certain kinds of political risks to end the war, but they see no prospect of a political upside to ending it. There was a fairly overwhelming belief in Washington in mid-to-late November 2006 that Republicans would start moving to end the war in January. It didn't happen, but then came the belief that they would start to abandon ship in September 2007, which also didn't happen. But given that Republicans aren't doing what everyone expected them to do and reducing their political exposure on Iraq by winding the war down, Democrats are disinclined to go out on a limb to do it for them. matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com