Iraq: the Beginning of a Democratic Defeat

Iraq: the Beginning of a Democratic Defeat
By Daniel G. Jennings
Once again, the Democratic Party, and its sponsors in the media elite, have figured out a means of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
By making opposition to the Iraq War the center of their strategy the Democrats are killing what looks like an excellent opportunity to make a big electoral comeback in 2006. With their noisy, sensational and obnoxious attacks on the war the Democrats are playing right into Karl Rove’s hands.
Basically the Democrats are showing themselves as the party of the left, the peace movement and the intellectual and media elite, in other words all the groups that the public despises and fears. Instead of appearing as moderates standing up to the extremist neconservative policies of George W. Bush or the religious right, the Democrats appear to be loud and obnoxious extremists out to push their agenda on America just like the Republicans.
Despite the media elite’s attempt to make it that way the war in Iraq is not a big deal for most Americans. It’s a colonial war, with a low number of casualties compared to past conflicts like Vietnam, waged by a professional military. The war doesn’t impact the lives of average Americans in the way Vietnam did.
By focusing on it the Democrats will get a lot of attention from the media elite and hurt their electoral chances. Attention that they don’t need at this time for all the attention will do is expose the elements of the Democratic Party average Americans loathe; the peace movement, the far left, the intellectual elite, to the media spotlight. This will turn many likely Democratic voters off and keep them away from the polls.
So what should Democrats do? Follow the lead of their most pragmatic star, Hillary Clinton. Keep a low profile don’t publicly support the Iraq War, but don’t criticize it either. That way if the war goes badly they can come back to it next year during the elections or in 2008 and say see we were right. That way Bush will be the only politician associated with the unpopular war. If we win they can simply claim victory by saying we backed Mr. Bush and his successful war. Or if Iraq peters out and attracts little attention the Democrats can move onto other issues.
Instead of ranting and raving about Iraq, the Democrats should concentrate on other issues, the economy, trade, immigration, healthcare, Social Security, tax reform, transportation, energy, the deficit, the environment, etc. etc. Talk about something that really makes Americans mad this confusing new Medicare drug benefit program. Or all the wasteful spending coming out of the Republican Congress.
Instead of looking like an effective opposition party the Democrats look like a bunch of publicity hounds saying and doing whatever it takes to attract the attention of the TV cameras and the praise of the talking heads. The Democrats are letting the media elite set their agenda and that is a recipe for disaster.
This is happening because the Democratic leadership in Congress is now completely divorced from the American reality. They spend all their time in Washington, D.C., in the fishbowl of media attention. Their constituency is no longer the voters but the reporters, editors, commentators and producers at big media outlets. Making those people happy is their primary goal. Since the media elite has decided Iraq is the major issue, Iraq is the major issue even though it isn’t appear on most Americans’ radar.
This policy of talking about nothing about Iraq will cost the Democrats victory in next year’s congressional election. It will also make Hillary, America’s most popular Democrat because she is not associated with the noisy crowd ranting and raving about Iraq and Scooter Libby