Big Sky Cairn

Seventh-choice Jim Hunt (who, according to MT Democrats won’t win the 2008 election until 2010) isn’t getting any national press - but “his” borrowed plan for defeat withdrawal in Iraq is. 42 candidates (a “candidate” is even less important than the least powerful members in the 535 voting members of Congress) have jumped off the cliff together which makes it newsworthy - a bit like lemmings are newsworthy when they jump off cliffs.

A few problems. For example:

The starkest difference between the group’s proposal, dubbed a “Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq,” and those embraced by many senior Democrats and the party’s presidential candidates is that it rejects the idea of leaving U.S. troops on the ground to train Iraqi security forces or engage in anti-terrorism operations. The group instead calls for a dramatic increase in regional diplomacy and the deployment of international peacekeeping forces, if necessary.

Now, I’m not an expert, but I do know that seniority is rather important in Congress. Leadership - especially in the House of Representatives - calls the shots and freshman pay their dues by voting how leadership tells them. So a group of freshmen hatching a plan that even their own Party’s leadership thinks goes too far is naive at best at best and outright disingenuous at worst.

Of course, Democratic Leadership would never be party to a lie for political gain, so they’re careful to qualify the Responsible Plan for defeat withdrawal with this bit of tactical brilliance:

“Democrats are united in our need to bring change in Iraq,” said Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s up to the individual candidates to determine how to best do that for their district.”

Someone please explain to me what a 435 part district-by-district Iraqi strategy looks like. Last I checked this was a national policy that could - by definition - never be addressed by any individual district.

Unless Thornell let slip a Freudian truth. Thornell isn’t worried about the battle in Iraq - which doesn’t have any district-by-district aspects at all - and is actually talking about the political battle in the voters booth this November - which is about nothing but district-by-district tactics. Thornell could just have easily said, “Democrats are united in our need to [preserve or increase our majority],” said Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s up to the individual candidates to determine how to best do that for their district.”

It makes a lot more sense that way, doesn’t it?