Cross-posted from AlterNet's blog, PEEK
I have the utmost respect for Chris Bowers; unlike me, he's very good at predicting the outcome of elections.
But I think his "Disaster Scenario" is unlikely:
At this point, the most likely -- but hardly guaranteed -- outcome to the 2008 elections is John McCain winning the Presidency over Hillary Clinton, while Democrats make decent gains of 10-15 seats in the House and 3-5 seats in the Senate.
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The central cause of this scenario is timidity on Iraq. John McCain would not be the Republican nominee, and neither Clinton nor Obama would be losing to him, if Iraq had not been taken off the table and if the "escalation is working" narrative had not taken hold.
Chris makes a detailed case (as he's wont to do) before setting up this thesis, so be sure to read the whole thing.
I have a few problems here, but first and foremost is the implication that because the "surge is working" narrative has taken root so far, it will continue to hold sway in November.
Chris is great at reading the domestic political winds, but his scenario assumes that it's as likely that the situation in Iraq will stay the same or improve as it is to decline, exposing the failure of the symbolic troop escalation on which McCain has hung his entire campaign. I think that assumption's problematic.
The "surge is working" narrative's not reality-based, and when it comes to Iraq, we've seen the spin give way to the ugly facts time and time again. The addition of 21,000 combat troops not only didn't cause the decline in violence, it didn't even correlate with it chronologically.
There's been no move towards political consensus on any of the Iraqi political class's most divisive issues, and there's been no reconciliation of ethnic and sectarian tensions in the streets. Dissatisfaction with the Iraqi leadership will continue to increase. Tensions in the South between Shia nationalists and separatists have been on a straight upward line since the Brits pulled back, and there's little reason to be hopeful of that changing. Mosul is ready to blow. The referendum for the future of Kirkuk has been delayed because it's too explosive. Every day, the stress on Moqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire continues; it's unlikely that it will hold through November, or at least not to the degree it has so far (There have already been a number of instances in which Mehdi Army units have gone freelance; if the ceasefire holds, that number will no doubt increase). Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government are at odds over oil contracts. The country's infrastructure is still in the shitter, and there are still 4 million displaced Iraqis. If the 2 million or so who are refugees in other countries return, nobody knows what to do with them; inadequate food supplies will be further strained. If they try to return to neighborhoods that have been successfully "cleansed," a new wave of violence is likely to ensue. A terrible drought is decimating Iraqi agriculture. Public health officials say that while the Cholera epidemic is under control now, they expect it to return with a vengeance as the temperature rises this summer. I could go on -- Iraq is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
The media can talk about the "surge" working all they want, but as the shit keeps hitting the fan, month after month, it's not likely to be sustainable. Predicting when a more realistic storyline might emerge is impossible, of course, but this is an exercise in probability, and while I'm confident that Petraeus can be counted on to say that he just needs a few more months to turn Iraq into Switzerland, I've always been skeptical of the Bushies' -- and the Maliki regime's -- ability to keep up the "surge" BS through Election Day.
Remember that the troop escalation is scheduled to end in July, three months before Americans go to the polls. At that point, even a docile media is going to have to either report that violence -- and the all-important U.S. casualty rate -- is on the rise again, or they'll be forced to examine the escalation's success or failure in terms of political progress as well as the level of violence. Either storyline shifts the debate significantly (as would a cancellation of the long-planned summer draw-down).
Those of us in the reality-based community have said all along, consistently, that the whole exercise was a delaying tactic -- a case of kicking the ball down the road. Nothing has happened in Iraq to suggest we revise that view. Yes, external factors have offered the dimmer bulbs in our country a hat on which to hang their 'the war's going great!' hat, but the reality remains: we are looking at a lull in violence, and there's little reason to believe it's more permanent than that.
In other words, I would find Bowers' Disaster Scenario more likely if his analysis had been done in October rather than in February.
Another thing to consider is this: while there's ample evidence that a Clinton presidency would not bring an end to the occupation of Iraq, only those who follow these debates closely are aware of that fact, as her primary wins among those who say Iraq is their top priority suggest. Perception is everything, and in a country with an abundance of low-information voters, I like the chances of the candidate who says they want to end the "war" -- regardless of his or her sincerity -- over John "1 Million Years Is Fine By Me" McCain. According to the Jan. 18-22 LA Times Bloomberg Poll (PDF), 66 percent of independents agree with the close to 90 percent of Dems who say the U.S. should withdrawal within a year.
A few more quick points (I've been incapable of short posts lately -- very annoying, I know).
* The focus on Iraq doesn't account for the fact that the economy appears to be the number one issue in this election, and McCain has nothing to say about it except that he'll make Bush's "Paris Hilton" tax cuts permanent. I think it's a good bet that the security situation in Iraq will get worse between now and November, and also that the economy will get worse. If that comes to pass, Iraq is way "over there" and aside from the several hundred thousand who have a personal stake in the conflict, the economy will be the higher priority. Someone smarter than me once said that the economy is always issue #1 and people just tell pollsters that other things are more important when it's going relatively well.
* Most people still haven't had a chance to see and hear from these candidates at length, and none have seen them in head-to-head debates with the other side. McCain's been showing his age throughout the primaries, and we still have a long and exhausting slog ahead of us. How many more speeches will McCain make with a wooden delivery while staring at his notes? How many incidents of "confusion" -- like when he said in Iowa that
Vladimir Putin is the president of Germany -- will voters hear about between now and Election Day? This is going to be a high-stakes contest, and while we all decry the fact that so many people make political decisions based on the candidates' mannerisms or appearances rather than on the issues, I can't help but believe that the appearance war is going to be won handily by either potential Dem nominee against a cranky, old-looking and somewhat out-of-it McCain.
* Finally, I think the Disaster Scenario under-estimates the structural advantages the Democratic candidate is likely to have (a point which Chris addresses). The Dems are
"crushing" their GOP rivals in terms of fund-raising, we're seeing record turn-outs in primary after primary, and while some people would no doubt be motivated to vote against Clinton, there would also be a lot of other people who want to elect the first woman to the Oval Office and take part in history. Add to that the desire of partisan Dems to take out the Republican trash after 8 long years of war and Bushenomics. At the same time, conventional wisdom says that while most on the right will hold their noses and vote for McCain, some -- anti-immigrant hardliners, Christianists -- will simply stay home. That doesn't need to be a very large number in some of those swing states to make a crucial difference. It's conventional wisdom, so who knows, but I don't see anything glaringly wrong with it.
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PS: I edit AlterNet's Iraq coverage, and send out a free weekly newsletter with loads of good content. You can sign up for it here.