WHAT THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD HAVE DONE: The House just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the war resolution. The Senate is expected to follow suit. The upshot of this is that the Democrats have angered their core NPR/Nation constituency by supporting the war, but done so slowly enough that (1) they look unpatriotic after shows like those put on by Reps. Bonior, McDermott and Thompson; and (2) they’ve let the campaign season turn on Iraq-related issues. This seems to be hurting them in a number of ways.

This problem probably could have been avoided had Daschle and Gephardt said in August that they didn’t think Congress needed to do anything. “We believe the President has authority under previous resolutions.” This would also facilitate weaselly second-guessing if the war goes badly. (That will happen anyway, of course, should circumstances allow, but it’ll be made more difficult for those who voted in favor of the war).

So why didn’t they do this? Beats me. There are several possibilities. One is that they favored a vote because they believed that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to address important issues like this. Another is that they were bluffing, and Bush called their bluff by going to Congress. Still another is that they lacked the party discipline to pursue the foreclosure strategy, since important Democrats (especially in the Senate) would make that impossible anyway. I’m guessing the reason is number two. But I think that Daschle and Gephardt will wish that they had made this go away in August.

UPDATE: This poll tends to explain why the vote is going this way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader thinks I shouldn’t be lumping Daschle and Gephardt together, and he’s right:

Daschle has obviously been acting with a view to politics first and policy a very distant second. That, I think, has become obvious to voters (look at his lousy favs/unfavs in national polls). His great skill as Democratic Leader has been to keep his Caucus together. On this issue, on which his Caucus is divided down the middle, he has played caucus politics with little regard to the national

interest.

A pretty pathetic performance. The best way to handle things, when your caucus is divided, is to play it straight, as Gephardt has done. To try to bounce things around to achieve the best partisan result, as Daschle has done, is to lose all around.

Yes, I think that Gephardt has been motivated by what he sees as the national interest. Daschle, I agree, seems more opportunistic.