"At a time when the Iraq war is draining President Bush's popularity, you might think that the Democrats would have a consensus plan of their own for ending the bloodshed and winning the peace.
But no such plan exists - because the party's liberal grassroots base and the cautious Washington establishment are too busy warring with each other.
The liberals, emboldened by growing antiwar sentiment in the polls, essentially want a timetable for pulling out the U.S. troops, but the centrists think that such a stance would enable Bush's spin team to once again paint the Democrats as national-security wimps.
Bush is politically vulnerable at the moment, but the fractious Democrats are ill-poised to take advantage. The liberal base is out of sync with the most visible contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination (Sens. Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, and John Kerry), all of whom voted for Bush's war, none of whom have embraced the calls for troop withdrawal.
This tension is being exacerbated by some of the newest players in the party: the Internet bloggers who enable grassroots liberals to network more easily and raise money without an OK from Washington. It's even possible that if the war drags on and top Democrats refuse to move leftward, the "net-roots" liberals might try to finance and champion their own presidential candidate - someone like Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, who on Wednesday called for the removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2006.
Indeed, "the Bidens, Clintons and Bayhs" were assailed Thursday on Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog: "We need to let them know that if they don't get on the right side of the Iraq debate, then we won't support their presidential ambitions."-from Dick Polman's column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Kudos to Sirotablog for the tip.
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