My representative is 5-termer Democrat Diana DeGette. She's a Chief Deputy Minority Whip in the House, and is in a safe district.
She voted against the initial Resolution of Force, but has since voted to fund the war, and refuses to sign on to H. Con. Res. 197, which says the US will not establish permanent military bases in Iraq. Yet, she's signed on to 2 other resolutions on Iraq, which call for the same thing. Her positions are consistently inconsistent, as I'll explain below. The question is - what advice do Kossacks have for turning her into an anti-war advocate, from being a stay-the-course, `I voted against the war before I voted for it' Democrat?
Here's the story.
In November 2005, she granted two other Greens and me a meeting to discuss Iraq. I wanted the meeting because I was dissatisfied with her stance on the war. Up to that point, she was echoing Bush's talking points - `that the US could stand down as the Iraqis stand up.' I guess I expected better from liberal Denver's Rep., one of the Party leaders in a safe seat (I know, my naivete is showing).
She talked about her initial anti-invasion vote, but then said, now that we were there, she felt a great responsibility to the Iraqi people to set their country right before we leave. OK. She said she had signed on to co-sponsor Rep. Price and Miller's H. Res. 70, which orders the president to submit a plan: to begin withdrawing US forces, `to transfer to Iraqi security forces all bases now used by the United States' and `to prosecute without quarter a war on terrorist organizations and networks around the world'. I asked her to consider sponsoring H. Con. Res. 197, which simply says the US will not establish permanent bases in Iraq. After my follow-up emails went unanswered for 3 months, yesterday I got a letter from her saying that she would not co-sponsor Ms. Lee's resolution, even though that same provision is in the resolution she HAS sponsored.
Her letter says, in part:
Despite the mismanagement of President Bush and his Administration, Iraq has now held elections for a new government under its new constitution. Such is the hallmark of an independent nation...Because we in Congress cannot predict with certainty how long this withdrawal will take or how it should be accomplished, I am hesitant to support any specific prohibition on military bases...
So, she voted against the war, but then she's voted to fund it twice (and probably will again); she supports turning the US bases over to Iraqis, but won't prohibit the US from having permanent bases there; she has called for the US `to begin withdrawing US Armed Forces from Iraq' (Price's Resolution) and terminating `the deployment of US forces in Iraq...at the earliest practicable date' (Murtha's resolution), but cannot say `how long this withdrawal will take or how it should be accomplished.'
I feel like I've fallen through Alice's Looking Glass here.
Since I met with Rep. DeGette last fall, I've quit the Green Party (after being a state party officer with them for 6 years, co-founder of the Denver Green Party, and delegate to the Greens' 2000 convention) when the Greens refused to post an account of the meeting on their web site - a certain Green elected official didn't want to be seen criticizing Democrats!
I'm beginning to work now with democrats.com and Progressive Democrats of America in their congressional district protests. I'm offering this diary because Ms. DeGette's position is not that unusual among Democrats, and because advice offered to me here could maybe apply elsewhere.
So, what do we do to turn her around? She won't hold town meetings. As she told us, they tend to get out of control. Well, yeah, when you cling to a position not held by your constituents! She has no primary challengers; she will be opposed by a Green, who was at the meeting and who is a Vietnam-war vet who will speak against DeGette's brain-dead strategy of Iraqification, since he saw its equivalent fail in Vietnam, but he'll get excluded from the debates and from press coverage, so his campaign will unfortunately be of limited usefulness in getting her to be more anti-war.
What do we do?