Obama's "consensus" strategy
by kos
Mon May 14, 2007 at 08:05:42 AM PDT
The Note:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) used the first Sunday-morning interview of his candidacy to cling to middle ground on ABC's "This Week," touting his ability to "build consensus around hard problems." That extends to Iraq, where he's resisting pressure from former sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) to rule out compromise, despite the fact that Obama urged Congress to vote against war funding as a Senate candidate in 2003. Instead, Obama is intensifying his push to get Republican senators to support a troop withdrawal with a new Web campaign. "We can do it in a way that doesn't play games with our troops on the ground," Obama said.
Obama is either going to look really good -- if he manages the impossible and actually gets Republicans to sign on to a troop withdrawal, or he's going to look like a patsy -- for thinking that Republicans would abandon the president on the issue and "compromise" on anything at all, much less Iraq.
We'll know in short while which it is.
Update: And Obama, who exactly do you think is playing games with troops on the ground?
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