Dems

The Boston Globe:

Democrats moving to the left on war

Define stance as GOP courts the party base

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff  | May 17, 2007

WASHINGTON -- All four Democratic senators running for president voted yesterday to advance a measure that would cut off funding for the Iraq war by March 2008, a reversal of the lawmakers' 2006 votes on the same issue and a sign of the growing polarization of GOP and Democratic presidential candidates on the war.

Leading Republican contenders have competed mightily to be the strongest supporter of the war, which they described as integral to fighting terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Democrats -- several of whom hedged their positions on the war last year and earlier this year -- are now burnishing their antiwar images with primary voters. While their effort yesterday failed, they are calling for scheduled troop withdrawals and taking other Democratic candidates to task , contending they are too weak on the issue.

"They're all playing to their party bases," said Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, who was among a group of GOP lawmakers who warned the president about public disfavor over the war. But both hard-line positions may get the candidates into trouble, Davis and others said. Several Republican candidates have crafted conditions for their support that would let them break with the Bush administration during the campaign if things fall apart completely in Iraq, but the GOP contenders have largely stood by the president.

Davis said Democrats, for their part, are likely to have "buyer's remorse" if they continue to push for a cut in funding or a forced troop withdrawal; many Americans will accuse them of not supporting the troops. But "there is no question the war is not going well," Davis added, and Republican presidential candidates must make sure their desire to support Bush does not alienate an increasingly antiwar electorate.