Democrats Snipe Over Iraq War Vote
In a sign of things to come, a dose of negativity has entered the Democratic presidential campaign.
During her travels, Hillary Clinton is being quizzed by antiwar voters about her refusal to admit that her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq was a mistake. Clinton's response is that she never intended for Bush to launch a pre-emptive war, and she wouldn't have invaded Iraq if she had been commander in chief.
Clinton doesn't want to look like she is flip-flopping, but she is facing rising concern among antiwar Democrats, who are very important constituencies in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early caucus and primary states, that she isn't dovish enough. Former Sen. John Edwards has already said that his prowar vote in 2002 was an error. Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning in Iowa over the weekend, reminded voters that he opposed the war from the start (though he wasn't in the Senate at the time of the '02 vote). This was a zinger thrown at both Clinton and Edwards.
Referring specifically to Clinton, Obama said he wasn't sure how the New York Democrat would reduce U.S. forces in Iraq. For her part, Clinton turned her attention to Edwards, who declined to run for re-election to the Senate from North Carolina and is now moving to the left in the Democratic field.
"I'm still in the arena," she said in New Hampshire last weekend. "I'm still fighting to get those 60 votes" needed to cut off a filibuster in the Senate, which would clear the way for a number of Democratic proposals, including antiwar resolutions.
Up until now, the major Democratic candidates hadn't been sniping much at each other. That period of playing nice apparently has ended.
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