Moonage, a Conservative blogger, posts a recent letter that Hillary Clinton wrote to her constituents. Hillary goes into great detail about the excellent work she has done for the economy, veterans, and health care. Yet, she committed a major howler — she did not utter one peep about Iraq.
On the other hand, Russ Feingold once again showed true leadership in his recent speech in Los Angeles. He said that Bush administration officials now acknowledge that Iraq has become a training ground for terrorists and that they export their gospel of hatred elsewhere.
Russ Feingold is a true leader because he has the guts to address difficult issues that other Democrats will not touch. Him and Wesley Clark are the only two Democrats to demand that the President produce an exit strategy for Iraq.
Hillary Clinton has done a fine job in representing the people for New York. But she does not have the leadership skills to be President because she will not address the tough issues that more and more Americans are concerned about.
Feingold versus Clinton is a clear example of courage versus cowardice. Feingold has the courage to address the Iraq War issues head-on and to call out the rest of the Democratic Party if necessary. He noted that the Democrats in Congress are scared of Bush and thus will not address the issues involving Iraq.
On the other hand, Hillary’s stance on the Iraq War is a stance of moral cowardice. She is trapped in the past and running in the 1990’s, when Bill was President and we didn’t even worry about terrorism. Her letter would have been a perfect campaign piece for, say, the 2000 election or either one of her husband’s campaigns.
The polls show that Hillary, in fleeing to the shelter of the 1990’s, has gotten grossly out of touch with the American people. A recent poll shows that 80% of Americans either give the Plame story high importance or some importance. By implication, a similar number would believe that Iraq was of great or some importance as well.
Feingold, on the other hand, is willing to talk about Iraq percisely because his constituents bring it up all the time.
There is no conceivable way the Republicans can beat Feingold if he gets nominated. That is because he is in touch with the will of the American people on the issues and can make an emotional connection with them. On the other hand, there are several scenarios in which a Hillary candidacy could be beaten:
- Hagel runs and wins the GOP nomination (unlikely, because the right hates his guts).
- Hagel runs as a third party and siphons off millions of angry Democratic voters angry at Hillary’s pro-war stance.
- A moderate (in the public’s eyes) like Guliani or McCain gets nominated, and Democrats yawn and stay home because there is no clear choice between Hillary and the GOP candidate.
The Left Coaster develops this point even further:
Sure, what worries the Democrats about taking such a position is the fear that the Mighty Wurlitzer will start the “blame the Democrats for losing Iraq” smears, attacks that are already starting in the right wing blogosphere and punditocracy spewed by people who never wore a uniform and are only to happy to keep their own kids home while they urge other parents to send their kids to die for the PNAC wet dream. Democrats will be attacked no matter what, and we are way past the time when timidity outweighs the safety of our soldiers fighting an ill-conceived war trapped in a botched occupation, an occupation and foreign policy that was hatched not amongst Democrats but squarely within the GOP.
So, big deal. Karl Rove would attack Jesus Christ if he came back and ran for President. And running ads of yourself shaking hands with George Bush is a sure recipe for defeat, as Tom Daschle and Martin Frost found out the hard way. Jean Carnahan and Max Clelland, who both voted for the War, were also ousted.
On the other hand, Wellstone was well on his way to victory when he was killed in a plane crash. Dick Durbin won with 60% of the vote as opposed to 54% in 1996, when he opposed the war. Russ Feingold won with 56% of the vote over a Karl Rove hand-picked candidate as opposed to John Kerry, who waffled on the war. Barbara Boxer won by over 2 million votes against a wingnut opponent. And as Ben Masel likes to point out, nobody who has voted against the Patriot Act has lost an election, yet.
It is clear that voting for an antiwar candidate is not only the morally right thing to do, it is also the winning strategy for the next election.
