One of Ours

...It seems neither logical nor fair that problems in Iraq should boost the president who sent U.S. troops there in the first place, while imperiling the challenger who voiced qualms about the invasion before it happened. But odd as this will sound, it's worth considering the possibility that failure in Iraq is helping Bush's reelection chances--and that immediate U.S. success in Iraq is Kerry's only chance to win...

...Few Democrats want to see the U.S. pull out of the country. It's worth remembering that even Howard Dean, the most vocal of the antiwar candidates, said last summer that he wanted to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Kerry's conundrum is that the politically coherent position of opposing the war both before and after the invasion is substantively unappealing. On a normal issue, if a challenger disagrees with an incumbent--and, moreover, if the incumbent's initiatives are both objectively failing and increasingly unpopular--then the challenger can simply advocate taking the opposite approach. But Iraq isn't a normal issue; there is no opposite approach (or, at least, no responsible opposite approach). There are also political considerations--Kerry is fighting a decades-old perception that the Democrats are soft on national security issues. So Kerry needs to find a way to oppose Bush on Iraq without advocating a pullout of U.S. troops...

...The senator's remaining option is to run to Bush's right by demanding that more U.S. troops and firepower be dispatched to Iraq...The senator has hinted at this position, but can't make it his full-throated battle cry without enraging segments of his Democratic base, something he can ill afford to do. Put simply: Kerry has no good political options on Iraq; it would be in his political interest for the entire situation to fade from the spotlight. The only way for that to happen is for the situation to improve...