FORGET KABUL; WE'LL BOOST YOUR COLA:

House Democrats Grapple With Iraq (Ethan Wallison, September 16, 2002 , Roll Call)

With Congress facing imminent debate on whether to attack Iraq, House Democrats find themselves confounded by the massive new variable that has imposed itself on the issue landscape, and with a strong impulse to change the subject as the party totters at the threshold of a majority in the chamber.

Inside the Caucus, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) is urging Democrats to "let the Iraq debate take care of itself," in the words of one source who listened to Gephardt at a meeting of the party's whip operation on Thursday morning.

Gephardt told Members in the room that Democrats will launch an intensive four-week effort - set to begin today - to move the debate back to issues that play to the party's presumed strengths, and called for the Members to show discipline in sticking to the game plan. The blitz will cover, in sequence, prescription drugs, pension reform, corporate responsibility and Social Security, sources said.

But Democrats are wary. Many privately doubt their issues will get a fair hearing in the clamor over Iraq, but also suggest the debate is too volatile at this point to project an impact this November.

"It has the potential of drowning out the issues that should be under debate," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a chief deputy whip, acknowledged.

But, she added, the debate could just as easily set those issues in stark relief, by underscoring that the costs of war could have "a potentially adverse impact" on such things as the economy and the future viability of Social Security.

That's an entirely legitimate argument and one which, if they believe in, they should take to the American people in that form: "Republicans think Social Security is secondary to National Security, but we Democrats will ignore Iraq and focus on your IRA." Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2002 5:05 PM