I tried to follow the campaign of Paul Hackett who ran in the heavily GOP patch of Cincinnati who battled long odds and came up a little short but now we are looking at six Democrats who are in the mix for next year. The interesting theme is that there is a lot of criticism about the bungled plan (if there really was a plan) for the war and the failure of policies by the Bush team. As long as they don't fold in a Kerry-Swiftboat way, they could be tough to beat. The GOP has had a strong following for years about how Vietnam was botched by the Democrats and we might be seeing the beginning of a Democratic movement that will hammer away at the failures of the GOP.
"Some guys don't think it's time to question our government, but the fact is I love my country," said Murphy, 31, who fought with the 82nd Airborne Division. "We need to have an exit strategy now."
There's no reason to "Monday morning quarterback the decision," said Ashe, 36, who is trying to unseat first-term Republican Rep. Thelma Drake in Virginia's 2nd District. "I would say we're in the right position to succeed. Whether or not we're going to get that success remains to be seen."
"They really want to help the Iraqi people and see the mission through, and they think we're losing because of stupid mistakes made at the senior leadership level," Sheehan-Miles said.
"The war on terror is going to be with us for a long time and Congress is going to grapple with the war on terror," Taylor said. "We need policy-makers who know what it means to make war."
"I'm not anti-war, I'm anti-failure," Lentz said. "We need to define what victory is and we need to set a plan to get there. You cannot stay the course if you do not set a course."
