Until recently, Democrats were oblivious to the bug. The presumptive ‘04 front runners–Sens. Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards and Rep. Dick Gephardt–voted for a congressional resolution essentially giving President George W. Bush a blank check to go to war when he saw fit. It looked, at the time, like a safe political move. It also looked wise, given the president’s popularity, public support for antiterror measures and the party’s history. In 1972, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Democrats nominated an antiwar candidate, George McGovern. He won only one state and left the Democrats with an image of skittishness about the use of military force.
But that was a generation ago. And in the long run-up to war, the president has not allayed most voters’ fears about launching a costly, risky conflict without U.N. support and in the face of massive protests in world capitals. Among Democrats–especially likely primary voters–there is intense skepticism about a war and Bush’s motives for waging it.
The result: a nascent Democratic race with some real friction and a dovish trajectory. Strong emotions were on display last weekend at the party’s national meeting in Washington. Gephardt, Lieberman and Edwards ignored scattered boos, catcalls and barely respectful silences as they gingerly reiterated their support for war without U.N. backing, if it comes to that. (Kerry didn’t have to do the same, but only because he was home, convalescing after prostate surgery.) “I know a lot of you here don’t agree with me,” said Edwards, who hopes to attract moderate voters in his native South, “but I believe we must do whatever it takes to disarm Saddam Hussein.”
So far, the boat rising fastest on the antiwar tide belongs to Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont. A doctor, he didn’t enter the race last year intending to become the peace candidate; Dean’s agenda was national health care and balancing the budget. Dean is no pacifist–and he has a gun-rights record to prove it. But by Christmas it became apparent that he also had a powerful claim. Dean was the only candidate (there were a mere five at the time) who hadn’t supported the war resolution.
Now opposition to “unilateral war” is the centerpiece of a campaign that has developed some early grass-roots momentum. “What I want to know,” he told party officials, “is why in the world the Democratic Party is supporting the president’s unilateral attack on Iraq… I’m Howard Dean, and I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” The line got the best applause of the event. Dean is garnering some fund-raising credibility in liberal circles that had viewed him as unelectable. Hollywood’s Rob Reiner has signed on; so has yogurt magnate Gary Hirshberg, whose Stonyfield Farm is conveniently (for Dean) located in New Hampshire.
The first to see a growing market niche, Dean is now fighting for shelf space on the left with a host of late-starting candidates whose common theme is peacemongering. The new contenders–the Rev. Al Sharpton, former senator Carol Moseley Braun and Rep. Dennis Kucinich–won spirited applause for their antiwar sound bites. Still, their presence might actually help Dean, by making him appear more mainstream.
And there are more peace-and-caution candidates on the way. One may be former senator Gary Hart, who masterminded McGovern’s campaign. Hart’s appearance on the scene is an eerie echo. No one–least of all the Democrats–wants history to repeat itself. The Vietnam era is a nightmare no one wants to relive. But that depends on whether Tom Andrews’s “virus” takes over the party and, more important, on what happens if and when the missiles fall on Iraq.
