TNR’s Michael Crowley made an argument yesterday that I’ve seen more than a few times in recent months: Barack Obama shouldn’t pick a running mate who supported the war in Iraq in 2002.
Increasingly, the wise guys are predicting that Obama will choose Bayh or Biden as his running mate. Maybe, but neither one makes much sense to me. Obama’s entire candidacy has been organized around his initial opposition to the Iraq war, and his condemnation of the “Washington thinking” and “Washington judgment” that led us into it — which in the primaries, at least, was implicitly more an attack on supposedly weak-kneed Democrats than Republicans. For him to choose someone who, like Hillary Clinton, backed the war resolution and took a cautious line about withdrawal just seems to make a mockery of all that.
Scott Lemieux made a similar argument in June, noting
, “I could see a case for Joe Biden if he hadn’t been in favor of the war.”
And Matt Yglesias argued in April, in relation to Biden joining an Obama ticket, “[P]utting someone who voted for the war, even someone who did so half-heartedly and after making a quasi-promising effort to restrain Bush, seems to muddy way too much of the argument Obama is making.”
I’m relatively agnostic at this point about who would be Obama’s best choice for the ticket, but I’m not sure if a litmus test on the war in Iraq from six years ago is the way to go. (I heartily endorse a litmus test on a potential candidate’s current position on the war, though.)
First, on Biden, Yglesias noted in April some of the important caveats. Biden voted for the AUMF, but he did so grudgingly — much more so than nearly every other Dem who backed the measure — and even at the time, pushed an effort to limit the president’s war-time authority. Biden was also among the very first to start condemning Bush’s handling of the conflict. I would have obviously much preferred if Biden voted against it, but the context puts him in a far better light on the issue than, say, Evan Bayh.
Second, I’m not at all sure if every Dem who got this wrong six years ago necessarily has to be rejected by the party now.
To be sure, this was a devastating mistake, and the Dem lawmakers who voted for the war were wrong. If Hillary Clinton had voted the other way in 2002, I have little doubt that she’d be the Democratic nominee now.
But when considering possible running mates, some good Dems were on the wrong side of this issue six years ago, including senators I genuinely respect like Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle, Tom Harkin, and John Kerry. Indeed, a whole lot of us heartily endorsed the Democratic ticket in 2004, and it featured two candidates who were both wrong about their 2002 vote on Iraq.
Now, I appreciate the broader context here. Obama got Iraq completely right from the start, a fact that gave him an important edge in the Democratic primaries. He doesn’t want to just change U.S. foreign policy, he wants to change the mindset that got us into this mess in the first place. Would it be great for Obama to pick a running mate whose judgment six years ago was as good as his? Sure.
But I’m not sure if this should be a disqualifying factor for those Dems who failed to show Obama’s judgment. In 2002, a whole lot of congressional Dems got it wrong. All they are persona non grata? Even if they’ve since come around? Or are they tainted forever?
Kevin warned a while back of Obama “insisting that he’ll associate only with the pure of heart who opposed the war from the beginning.” That sounds about right. If Obama’s running mate endorses Obama’s policy, considers the war in Iraq a terrible mistake, and is prepared to help end this war that never should have been fought in the first place, that’s good enough for me.
How about you?