Senate Candidates Ahead of Their Party on Iraq

As most know, Senate Democrats still do not have a unified message on Iraq, despite the courageous efforts of people like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to demand answers from the Bush administration. What's interesting, however, is that some of the party's big-name Senate candidates in 2006 have a message of their own.

Today, Montana Senate candidate Jon Tester (D) announced his strong support for a serious exit strategy from Iraq that would bring our troops home (In full disclosure - I am not officially taking sides in this primary, but nontheless this is clearly a good/smart/courageous move). The timing is particulary good: a new poll here in Montana shows President Bush's 51 percent of folks disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job. Those are extraordinarily bad numbers for a Republican incumbent in a red state like Montana. Meanwhile, Montanans support for the current Iraq War policy continues to plummet.

Tester, of course, is only the latest Senate candidate to come out with this clear position. For instance, Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is running for the Senate in Ohio, has long led the fight in Congress to prevent the war, and get our troops home. There is also Paul Hackett (D-OH), who is running against Brown in the primary, and who the LA Times noted "opposed a timetable for withdrawal" in his recent House race but who now has reversed himself and "embraced the idea [of withdrawal] as he faces off" against Brown. And Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown (D), who is also running for the Senate, has also demanded an exit strategy.

What should this tell us? Simple - that the candidates who actually have to deal with voters out in the real world, and who aren't cloistered in the Washington bubble, know there is a palpable anger at the establishment for its refusal to seriously reevaluate what's going on in Iraq. The sooner the Democratic Party as a whole understands this and makes demanding an exit strategy from Iraq one of the party's central issues, the sooner we will have a Democratic majority in Congress.

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