No Political Downside

I deeply repsect Juan Cole, but I think he's off base here:

John Edwards argues in his campaign commercials that the best response to Bush's veto of the supplemental spending bill on Iraq and the failure on Wednesday of Congress to overturn it, is to keep sending the same bill back to Bush.

It is satisfying to say so, but it probably isn't good political tactics. When Newt Gingrich played politics with the budget under Clinton and even shut down DC, it was Congress that took the hit in the polls. Just being obstreperous isn't very attractive.

I think the two situations are completely different. 60% of the American people weren't clamoring for Republicans to shut down the government in 1995. But they do want to see Congress take the lead on Iraq. I really don't think there's any political downside to standing strong on this. This is not just a base strategy. It's a strategy that tells the American people on which side each party stands.

Now, if Edwards wanted to sign on to Feingold-Reid, as Chris Dodd recommends, I would say that's a good thing as well. Dodd's taking a shot at Edwards to get some attention, but ultimately they're not that far off as far as priorities on Iraq are concerned, and I'd be happy to see them continue to advocate which one is more against the war. But like I said, I don't think that sending the same bill to the President would be an automatically bad thing.