| It did not take long for Rep. Nancy Boyda, a freshman Democrat from Kansas, to learn the price of defying her party's liberal base. After she said she would support President Bush if he proposed an increase in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, antiwar bloggers fumed and MoveOn.org, the liberal advocacy group, considered running a television ad attacking her.
"If a member of Congress is wrong on Iraq, that is not what we voted for," said Tom Matzzie, MoveOn's Washington director. "There will be people watching to make sure they do the right thing."
That kind of political pressure is already being applied, not just to junior lawmakers, but also to Democratic leaders. It prodded them into making Iraq more central to their first 100 hours in control of Capitol Hill than they had planned. And it is creating tension between many Democrats and the liberal activists who will be increasingly important as the 2008 presidential campaign gets into gear.
Antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, demanding a troop withdrawal, disrupted House Democratic leaders at their first-day news conference on ethics. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada was deluged with complaints when he appeared to be open to a troop increase and posted a notice on a liberal blog to explain that he was misunderstood. Dozens of demonstrators rallied outside a Washington think tank when Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) spoke in support of a troop escalation.
Antiwar activists, who believe that Democrats owe their 2006 election victories to voter discontent with the Iraq war, are thrilled that most congressional Democrats oppose Bush's proposed troop increase. But lawmakers are divided over how far to go in fighting the plan, and activists worry that the party will not have the political stamina to block the escalation and, beyond that, force a withdrawal of all troops... http://tinyurl.com/y73f8z [Open in new window] *
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