Last week, I made the point on a CBS Evening News story that as much as Bush’s political standing is suffering from his disastrous Iraq policy, we Democrats aren’t fully going to reap the rewards in the November congressional elections unless we put together a cohesive policy of our own.

Today’s Washington Post highlights the problems congressional candidates are having in formulating such a policy:

…the decision by many Democrats to refrain from advocating a specific plan for withdrawal complicates their leaders’ efforts to convince voters that they offer a clear new direction for the increasingly unpopular war.

The Democratic Party’s confusion reflects the lack of consensus among the voting public:

In many ways, Democratic candidates’ reluctance to call for the withdrawal of troops reflects the public’s uncertainty over how best to proceed.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan polling organization, found this month that the public is evenly split over pulling out U.S. troops, with 48 percent in favor of keeping troops in Iraq and 46 percent in favor of withdrawal. Yet even among those who favor bringing U.S. troops home, only a third support doing so immediately. Asked another way, 52 percent of those polled said they would favor setting a timetable for getting out, while 41 percent would oppose that.

Still, that’s no excuse. As Sandra Hughes of CBS News reported:

[San Marino (Calif.) “Security Mom” Julee] Floyd wants to hear a plan for withdrawal from Iraq - from someone - during the campaign for this November’s mid-term elections.

“We’ve got to do it right,” says Floyd, talking about withdrawal from Iraq. “But what ‘right’ is, I don’t know.”

She says so far, no one has mentioned a plan that sounds right. But she’s still listening – and waiting.

And right now, either party could win her vote.

Heaven forbid we Democrats show some leadership and give Mrs. Floyd a plan.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 27th, 2006 at 11:53 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.