Sunday, February 18, 2007

Clinton refuses to apologize for her '02 Iraq war vote

This is a fascinating New York Times article detailing a major internal fight within the Hillary Clinton campaign:

One of the most important decisions that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made about her bid for the presidency came late last year when she ended a debate in her camp over whether she should repudiate her 2002 vote authorizing military action in Iraq.

Several advisers, friends and donors said in interviews that they had urged her to call her vote a mistake in order to appease antiwar Democrats, who play a critical role in the nominating process. Yet Mrs. Clinton herself, backed by another faction, never wanted to apologize — even if she viewed the war as a mistake — arguing that an apology would be a gimmick.

In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry’s when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry, she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force.

Yet antiwar anger has festered, and yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).

At the same time, the level of Democratic anger has surprised some of her allies and advisers, and her campaign is worried about how long it will last and how much damage it might cause her.

“Some of her many advisers think she should’ve uttered the three magic words — ‘I was wrong’ — but she believes it’s self-evident that the Senate Iraq resolution was based on false intelligence and never should’ve come to a vote,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United Nations ambassador and an adviser to Mrs. Clinton on foreign policy.

Hillary Clinton is stuck in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. In order to become president, she needs to win the Democratic nomination. However to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton needs to reach out for support from the more liberal, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party--and that anti-war wing is demanding that Clinton to repudiate her 2002 decision to go to war in Iraq. The Times story reports that Clinton believes any apology on the Iraq war will open her campaign to accusations of flip-flopping that damaged both John Kerry's 2004 campaign, Al Gore's 2000 campaign, and even her husband Bill Clinton's presidency. Therefore, she is refusing to budge on any talk of apology from either her campaign staff, or the liberal, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. And that is pissing off the liberal wing of the Democratic Party--there have been plenty of diary posts published on The Daily Kos regarding Clinton that have both supported and attacked her. So there is a strong debate within the netroots society, and blogosphere regarding Clinton, and much of this debate is certainly focused on Iraq. It is sifting up into the Clinton campaign, causing the Clinton campaign to debate internally on the issue, as the NY Times reports:

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers have been split for some time about whether she would be better off if she apologized for the vote. Mark Penn, her chief strategist, who was also Mr. Clinton’s pollster, carries considerable influence within the campaign, and he agrees with her that she should keep the “mistake” onus on Mr. Bush and turn her attention to finding “the right end” to the war, as she says.

Foreign policy advisers say they have made similar arguments: look to the future, not the past, and stand by a vote that was based on military intelligence that was widely accepted at the time.

The campaign faction that was more comfortable with an apology included advisers with war-room instincts who wanted to deal proactively with the attacks that would come. Yet they were torn, too. They argued that she should talk about the future, yet also deal decisively with her 2002 vote — either by saying it was wrong, or acknowledging that others saw it as wrong, or making a speech on Iraq.

The internal campaign debate concluded in December when Mrs. Clinton decided not to apologize or give a speech. Instead, she went on the “Today” show and, in a little-noticed remark, simply said she would not vote for the Senate Iraq resolution again.

By comparison, to the annoyance of Clinton advisers, Mr. Edwards has proved able to short-circuit questions about his own Senate vote for military action in 2002 by repeatedly calling it a mistake. He took a hard line against Iraq in 2002, then veered sharply in 2005 when he said he was wrong on the vote, and he has not suffered much politically.

If you look on the Daily Kos site, you'll find even more postings by diarists supporting Edwards, rather than opposing him. Granted, these Daily Kos search results are not the most scientific, but it does show an interesting range of opinions and arguments regarding the candidates.

Clinton is trying to reach out to the more liberal, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party, but she is doing it in a rather circular route. According to the Times story:

A leading Republican candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, has defended the current war plan with language that could appeal to primary voters but perhaps hurt him in a general election. Mrs. Clinton is running, in part, a general-election strategy — taking positions on Iraq that might appeal to independents and some Republicans.

This is the key to the problem with the Clinton campaign--she is running a general-election strategy during the primary season. Clinton is trying to entice votes from both the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and the more moderate and independent wings of both the Democratic Party and the voters in general. In order to play this general-election strategy, she has to both act tough in refusing to apologize to the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on her Iraq vote in order to entice the moderate and independent voters, while also submitting legislation to block troop increases and withdrawal plans to appease the same anti-war wing. What I find really ironic here is that Clinton is receiving anger and criticism from the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party as a result of her general-election strategy during the primary, while McCain is receiving criticism from moderates and independents on his courting the hard-lined conservative base, Religious Right, and his support for the Bush war. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain are playing short-term tactical games to win their political party nominations at the expense of a potential long-term political shift in the voting mood of the American public.

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