IN THE PROCESS, they demonstrated how risky it is to take on a popular president in a time of high anxiety and uncertainty.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry voted against the 1991 resolution that gave former President Bush the green light for the first gulf war. When the 100-hour rout of Iraqi forces from Kuwait was complete and the war judged a success, many Democrats wished they could take back those “no” votes. Kerry hasn’t disavowed his earlier stand, but he’s not about to make the same mistake again. He’s running for president, and he’s looking for a way to support this President Bush.
Kerry has the hair, the height and the money to qualify as a credible presidential contender. Until Al Gore stuck his toe in the Iraqi muck this week, Kerry was the only national Democrat to challenge Bush’s war policy, writing in a well-received opinion column that war should be a last resort, not the first option. He faults Bush for not working hard enough to achieve international consensus and rally American public opinion. Having fought honorably in Vietnam only to become disillusioned and, as a decorated veteran, become a leader in the antiwar movement, Kerry understands firsthand the danger of going to war without broad support. “Better to achieve it than to regret it later,” he says.
Still, in a breakfast meeting this week with reporters, Kerry accused Bush of “bad public diplomacy” but strongly hinted the president could ultimately count on his support. Democrats don’t want to be cast “as somehow unwilling to do what’s necessary,” he said. When a reporter pressed him on the propriety of deciding whether to back Bush based on “whether he handles the PR well,” Kerry squirmed a bit and said he was “inclined to hold Saddam accountable.”
Democrats like Kerry who are ambivalent about giving Bush authority to wage a preemptive strike in Iraq may be saved by Saddam, “a master of miscalculation,” says Kerry. Saddam misread the first Bush’s determination to expel him from Kuwait and is now making noises about blocking inspectors from his palaces, which would make a war resolution a no-brainer for Democrats.
On Capitol Hill the Democrats’ strategy of force-feeding the media sound bites about domestic issues while allowing almost no daylight between themselves and Bush on the war has proved unworkable. For months, Majority Leader Tom Daschle did a slow burn as Republican operatives compared him to Saddam Hussein and turned the Senate race in South Dakota into a Daschle-bashing free-for-all, even though it’s Sen. Tim Johnson, not Daschle, who is on the ballot in the state.
Johnson is the only U.S. senator with a son who served in Afghanistan, yet his Republican opponent managed to unearth a vote against a military appropriation Johnson cast years ago as a congressman and use it to question his patriotism. When Daschle read Bush’s comment in a newspaper report declaring the Democratic Senate “is not interested in the security of the American people,” the normally mild-mannered majority leader had finally had enough.
With decorated Democratic veteran Daniel Inouye of Hawaii visible behind him, Daschle said that when he visited Normandy and other military cemeteries, he saw stars of David and crosses, but never saw party affiliation on the tombstones. He demanded an apology from Bush.
Democrats cheered. It was about time, they said. Every Democrat and every Republican knows it’s not just the weather conditions in Iraq that make war favorable; it’s the political climate in the United States. Keeping the electorate focused on the war and not their 401(k)s serves the GOP. Bush spends several days a week traveling to states with tight races, boosting candidates and raising money. “He’s never in Washington, and when he is, he’s at the Capital Hilton at a Republican soft-money fund-raiser,” says a Democratic strategist. He notes that Bush’s approval ratings had declined over the summer “before Secretary of State Karl Rove devised this [Iraq] strategy.”
Calling Bush on politicizing the war may give Democrats a momentary rush, but it’s unclear whether their opposition will appeal to swing voters or doom their chances in November. A new Gallup poll shows the Democrats leapfrogging ahead of Republicans six points in congressional preference, but most other polls show the parties even. “Just being on this issue is bad for us,” says a Senate Democrat.
There is little affection among Democrats for Gore, who emerged this week to challenge his party on Iraq. In contrast to Daschle, who has supported Bush on Iraq, and Kerry, who wants to support Bush, Gore didn’t bother with the niceties. He issued a point-by-point rebuttal of Bush’s war policy. Gore, who set himself apart from his fellow Democrats a decade ago by supporting former President Bush on the gulf war, now stands starkly alone as this President Bush’s chief critic.
But Gore is not on the ballot. Democrats who must face the voters grumble about how Bush is playing politics with the war, but they can’t do much about it. Not only has Bush abandoned the economy as an issue, he’s also set aside the earlier, unfinished war on terrorism. We’re not talking about Osama or Omar or the Taliban or Al Qaeda, all still on the loose. The strategy is a new war in a new place, where we know who the enemy is and where he lives.
This war is one that the White House thinks Bush can win, quick and clean. A Democratic headcounter predicts the Senate will vote 92 or 93 in favor of the president, and that the House vote could reach 400 (out of 435). With margins like that, who’s to say which side is playing politics?
