To Be Announced...

Sometimes I wonder about the laziness of reporters. Mike Glover of the AP in Des Moines is one of them. Someone should update his rolodex...

Iraq Is Main Issue for Iowa, N.H. Voters

Among rank-and-file Democrats in early voting states like New Hampshire and Iowa, anti-war passion is so strong that it's difficult for their party's presidential candidates to oppose the war too forcefully. On the other hand, candidates don't want to go too far and risk losing swing voters critical to winning the general election.

"If the situation remains the same, you better not be against the war, you better be really against it," said former Iowa Democratic Chairman Dave Nagle.

But Michael Mahaffey, a former Iowa GOP chairman, said, "Most Republicans want the president to succeed, they want this surge (Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq) to succeed."

I'm sorry I don't know my history as well as Glover, but I don't remember Dave Nagle ever being the former chairman of the Iowa Democrat party. I searched and searched and could find no previous reference to his being Chairman. I found a few drunk driving arrests and the reference to his current status as "alive" but nothing beyond that. Am I wrong?

Michael Mahaffey was in-fact a former chairman of the Iowa GOP...but even still - for only two years in 1987-89.

The article goes on to make good on the promise of the headline...which makes me think the headline was written first - then the article.

In New Hampshire, 92 percent of Democrats said going to war against Iraq for regime change was not worth it, and 78 percent said they favored a drawdown of troops before 2010, the year the Pentagon has set for maintaining its current troop levels. In Iowa, 86 percent of Democrats said the war wasn't worth it and 76 percent favored a drawdown.

Over the weekend another candidate, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, went even further than his rivals, calling for Congress to cut off funds for the war.

Democrats who supported the war in the past will be forgiven if they make their current positions clear, Nagle said. But he warned that equivocation will be fatal.

"Anybody who raises a real banner against it is going to do well," said Nagle. "Anybody who tries to toe-step around it is going to have a real problem."

We'll just see how long Vilsack will last with his radical stance taken over the weekend. As I said, I predict he'll be out by August. It helps to have a "fall back" and he's got two already. He seems to already be setting himself up for failure:

Former Gov. Tom Vilsack has signed on to advise MidAmerica Energy Holdings Company on renewable energy and environmental issues

Vilsack has signed on as a visiting professor at the Drake University Law School


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Labels: vilsack