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Posted on Sunday 23 March 2008


Democrats Are Still Weak on Security
By KARL ROVE

One out of five is not a majority. Democrats should keep that simple fact of political life in mind as they pursue the White House. For a party whose presidential candidates pledge they’ll remove U.S. troops from Iraq immediately upon taking office — without regard to conditions on the ground or the consequences to America’s security — a late February Gallup Poll was bad news. The Obama/Clinton vow to pull out of Iraq immediately appears to be the position of less than one-fifth of the voters.

Only 18% of those surveyed by Gallup agreed U.S. troops should be withdrawn "on a timetable as soon as possible." And only 20% felt the surge was making things worse in Iraq. Twice as many respondents felt the surge was making conditions better.

It gets worse for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Nearly two out of every three Americans surveyed (65%) believe "the United States has an obligation to establish a reasonable level of stability and security in Iraq before withdrawing all of its troops." The reason is self-interest. Almost the same number of Americans (63%) believe al Qaeda "would be more likely to use Iraq as a base for its terrorist operations" if the U.S. withdraws.
…
When asked whom they agree with, Americans side with Messrs. McConnell and Mukasey over Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi by a 54%-37% margin. And this is without describing why House Democrats are fighting this battle: campaign donations from wealthy trial lawyers. The more this issue is discussed, the more Americans will come to see Democrats have put their campaign donors — an unsavory group of lawyers, some of whom have been in the headlines recently with guilty pleas in fraud and bribery attempts — above the country’s security.

Elections are rarely decided over just one issue; to win, candidates don’t need to have a majority of Americans agreeing with them on every big issue. But when it comes to choosing a president, Americans take seriously the candidates’ views and experience on national security. Voters instinctively understand a president’s principal constitutional responsibility is protecting the country.

The Democrats have two candidates with less national security experience and fewer credentials than the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. And they are compounding these difficulties with positions on Iraq and terrorist surveillance that are shared by a shrinking minority of Americans.
Here it comes. "The Surge worked. The Democrats want to quit just when there’s finally an end in sight. al Qaeda will take over Iraq and use it as a base to attack us if we don’t stay the course. Reid , Pelosi, Obama, and Clinton are all out of step with the American people. Look at the polls [those same polls we choose to chronically ignore]. et cetera, et cetera." While the background from Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter keep up the ad hominem attacks, and Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Lieberman beat the drums of war harder. They "run on their weakness." Except for the real "dirty tricks," we can now see the strategy laid out in bas relief. Notice, McCain himself is something of a cardboard figure in all of this. He’s a former P.O.W. and by definition, a military man. He’s 73 years old, and obviously past his prime, maybe getting senile. He’s not out in front of his own candidacy. It’s being run by the old guard. The less they let him show, the better for their team. I expect it’s going to be nasty for a longer period than we know. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them ratchet up their anti-Obama campaign. They really want to run against the Clintons. They think that if they can keep the economy from visibly tanking, have a vulnerable candidate to run against, and prevent Iraq from visibly falling into chaos, they might pull it off once again. A big part of that strategy is in this article by Karl Rove, something like, "we used to be behind the eight ball with this Iraq War thing, but look at how we turned it around with the brilliant surge" [the emphasis being on "look at how we turned it around" rather than "we used to be behind the eight ball"].

And there’s a phenomenon from a graph that has to be kept in mind…

In the 2004 election, somehow, they were able to pump up Bush’s Approval ratings [starting about now] to get him re-elected before the ratings resumed their downward plunge. It’s Karl Rove’s mastery that we think did it, and he’s obviously still in the game. One thing that is to be counted on absolutely, they use the same ploys that they used in 2004 – ad hominem attacks, dirty tricks, electioneering, and a heavy dose of fear mongering. The only way to counter this strategy is to be on top of it always, exposing it wherever possible, and mostly not getting derailed. They need to run against George W. Bush’s record, but against the person named John McCain…

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