It’s long been known that Democrats face a very difficult situation if the situation in Iraq improves. From Reid’s declaration of “the war is lost” to Representative James Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) telling the Washington Post that good news from Petraeus would be a “real big problem for us”. Over the last few days, it’s becoming evident that parts of the Left are beginning to worry. TNR’s Michael Crowley writes:
It hasn’t become much of a campaign issue–yet–but for the first time in a long while the news from Iraq isn’t unrelentingly ghastly. Some previously hard-to-imagine glimmers of hope are now emerging…
Which raises all sorts of secondary but fascinating political questions: What do the Democrats do if–yes: if, if, if–the surge appears to have succeeded? (Or at least seems, to voters, to have succeeded: I realize the tribal shift in Anbar, for instance, wasn’t imposed by US troops–although my correspondent friend said surge forces did enable us to exploit Sunni tribal cooperation and root out al Qaeda.) Indeed, if Iraq somehow stabilizes and even incrementally improves, doesn’t that affect the presidential campaign in important and unpredictable ways?..
I’m not arguing that the surge has “worked,” or that Iraq is hunky-dory and the whole nightmare is about to be redeemed. Lord knows there have been plenty of illusory moments of hope in the past. I’m just suggesting that beneath all the current clamor about Hillary’s honesty and gender, a tectonic shift might be quietly developing. And I wonder whether the Democrats have been preparing for that possibility–and what their contingency plans are if the Iraq debate tacks substantially back the GOP’s way.
So, prepare for the possibility that we win in Iraq, because that could damage Democratic chances in 2008? Lovely. H/t Instapundit.
UPDATE: Hot Air’s Bryan posts, too.
by Stephan Tawney on Tue, Nov 6, 2007