• Remember four months ago when Rove talked his party into running with “Stay the Course” versus “Cut and Run”? It was classic Rove, taking a perceived weakness and rather than hide from it or try to change the subject, go on the offensive with it. Even in the summer people were restless about Iraq, yet Rove decided to put it front and center in the battle for Congress.

  Do you also remember how Democrats looked at each other nervously as the “cut and run” b.s. spread? You could sense them try to suddenly change the subject to health care or jobs or whatever, abandoning its most salient issue out of fear of Rove’s brilliance. Those of us on the sidelines screamed bloody murder as jittery Dems couldn’t decide on how to proceed. Like abused puppies, they ran with their tails between their legs at the very sight of Rove’s shadow.

  Yet despite all of that, Rove’s gambit has failed.

  Four months ago, the White House offered a set of clear political directions to Republicans heading into the midterm elections: embrace the war in Iraq as critical to the antiterrorism fight and belittle Democrats as advocates of a “cut and run” policy of weakness.

  With three weeks until Election Day, Republican candidates are barely mentioning Iraq on the campaign trail and in their television advertisements.

  Even President Bush, continuing to attack Democrats for opposing the war, has largely dropped his call of “stay the course” and replaced it with a more nuanced promise of flexibility.

  It is the Democrats who have seized on Iraq as a central issue. In debates and in speeches, candidates are pummeling Republicans with accusations of a failed war.

  Rather than avoiding confrontation on Iraq as they did in 2002 and 2004, they are spotlighting their opposition in new television advertisements that feature mayhem and violence in Iraq, denounce Republicans for supporting Mr. Bush and, in at least one case, demand the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

  “I support our troops and I voted for the war, but we shouldn’t stay the course, as Mr. Corker wants,” Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Democratic candidate for Senate in Tennessee, says in one advertisement.

  Mr. Ford’s Republican opponent, Bob Corker, is shown against a backdrop of wartime scenes, saying, “We should stay the course,” a phrase that Republicans once described as a rallying cry for the campaign.

  Dems could’ve made gains in 2004 on this issue, but they listened to the dying remnants of the DLC and timid inside-the-beltway consultants who thought “doing the right thing in Iraq” translated to “Dem weakness”.

  Democratic weakness came from the inability and refusal of Democrats to stand tall for what they believe in. From their inability to do the right thing. Scenes like this one (in December 2005) played time and time again over the last four years:

  Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders’ rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress next year.

  Several Democrats joined President Bush yesterday in rebuking Dean’s declaration to a San Antonio radio station Monday that “the idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.”

  The critics said that comment could reinforce popular perceptions that the party is weak on military matters and divert attention from the president’s growing political problems on the war and other issues. “Dean’s take on Iraq makes even less sense than the scream in Iowa: Both are uninformed and unhelpful,” said Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), recalling Dean’s famous election-night roar after stumbling in Iowa during his 2004 presidential bid.

  Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), the second-ranking House Democratic leader, have told colleagues that Pelosi’s recent endorsement of a speedy withdrawal, combined with her claim that more than half of House Democrats support her position, could backfire on the party, congressional sources said.

  These sources said the two leaders have expressed worry that Pelosi is playing into Bush’s hands by suggesting Democrats are the party of a quick pullout — an unpopular position in many of the most competitive House races.

  So how much is it backfiring? Can you imagine this race if Rahm and Hoyer had won the day on this debate? Let’s thank our lucky stars that we had enough Democrats grow some cojones to buck the DC conventional wisdom and call for the US to do the right thing in Iraq — bring our men and women in uniform home.

  

  
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