Must Dems Keep the War on the Front Page to Win in November?

What would happen in November 2008 if the war in Iraq were resolved today and our troops came home?

It's certainly a nice to sit back for a second and think about how great it would be if the war COULD be resolved in such a way that the troops could come back right away and not leave a destabilized country ripe for exploitation by Iran. We're not going to pull out in that fashion, because it's not in the U.S.'s, or Iraq's, or the region's, or the world's best interests to let that happen. Even the more pragmatic Democrats on the national front seem to recognize that on the first day of their first term (if elected), the election rhetoric will have long since been over, many grand plans and speeches will have been given, but little will have changed and will not change that quickly, simply due to the practical necessities. Read more about this issue here and here. Only the Dem Congress continues to put up pointless resolutions, bills and amendments calling for complete withdrawl, when they know that such a measure is only a political stunt to try to salve their leftist base and MoveOn, who somehow seem baffled that their heroes they have sent to Congress in a new majority haven't already ended the war.

The end of the war in such a complete fashion is quite unlikely by November 2008, but there seem to be many signs that strategy in Iraq appears to be showing results, and things are getting better, perhaps even much better.

That's a problem for the Dems. Polls show that among Dem voters, the war is of primary concern, followed by health care, social security and other issues. For Republicans, it's illegal immigration, the economy and such.

But if the war improves significantly, the anti-war issue, which unquestionably drove the last election, may well be a nullity for the Dems. Many Dem candidates and strategists seem to largely misunderstand that George W. Bush will not be on the November 2008 ticket. Yes, they want to kow tow to the Dem base and beat each other up over who can best villify the decision to go to war and the mistakes made thereafter. But, pretty much all that can be said on that score has been said already. The Dems will continue to get more desperate to look for differentiation on that score--witness Joe Biden's recent statement now second-guessing GWB's reaction to 9/11, where Biden says he would have convened an international meeting in Switzerland days after 9/11 to figure out how to deal with the problem (and people ask why everyone thinks Dems are soft on terrorism). Is this John Kerry on redux? Did we need to ask France for permission on how to respond when 3,000 people are killed on our own soil in an unprovoked attack? But, as usual, I digress.

Less sophisticated Dems, such as the Lake County lot, think they can still hide the truth from the voters by downplaying or ignoring the postive news about the war. The local Dems must have had a fit when the News-Sun recently had a huge headline "Bean sees less violence in Iraq," with a fairly balanced story about 8th District Congresswoman Melissa Bean's recent experience in Iraq (the Dems have always had mixed feeling about Bean anyway). Interestingly, the online version (link above, but also here) has a different headline, but I saved the print version from last Friday. The local Dem party website, which has a pretty decent news recap page, ignored this article in the News-Sun in favor of a much smaller Daily Herald article the same day that was buried on page 21, but which focused on Bean's position that she was not ready to embrace the stay-the-course policy quite yet. Interestingly, they did provide a link to another News-Sun article that covered yet another war protest in Waukegan last week, that this time drew only 10 protesters, an ever-dwindling number, it seems, and always the same core group of faces. Is the anti-war crowd running out of steam, perhaps?

In any event, even if the locals think that the good news in Iraq can be hidden from the electorate, it seems that the national Dems have already figured out that the war is not likely to be the Number One issue for November 2008, once we really get close to the election. As noted in a recent article I found, Dem strategists are saying “They’ve run millions of dollars of ads and had untold rallies and protests, but they’re actually losing approval” on the war, said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “How’s it going to look when troops start coming home next year and, while most people are holding a ‘Welcome Home’ sign, they’re left holding a MoveOn.org ad or Code Pink banner?”

So, if the war essentially becomes a non-issue, or at least a greatly reduced one, where does that leave the battleground at the national and local levels? Are all of those Democrats that rode the wave of national dissatisfaction and anti-war movement going to be in trouble when their districts swing back to their traditional Republican bent? Or has the Republican party suffered too much damage to be completely healed in the short term?

Most interestingly from our local perspective, where does this leave heavy anti-war leftists like Dan Seals and Jay Footlik stacking up against domestic champion Mark Kirk?

UPDATED: Here's a new AP story about sectarian violence in Baghdad being "closed." It's optimistic, but I have reservations about any pronouncement that says any violence is over, ever since the left skewered Bush with the 'mission accomplished' end to "major combat operations" statement.