As State 38 writes:
Democrat Will Shafroth, one of three donkeys running for congress in CD-2 (along with Joan Fitz-Gerald and Jared Polis, announced yesterday that he was calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq. Shafroth is the first of the three candidates to take a public stand on the Iraq war issue like this, to which I say: What the hell took you so long?
I don’t mean this from a policy perspective, but from a purely political angle. I’d been amazed to this point that none of the candidates had yet to stick a flag in the ground and make the Iraq war their issue. Troop withdrawal is a popular issue among Democratic voters, and CD-2 will be decided in a Democratic primary. This isn’t rocket surgery – the candidate who voters think is “the troop withdrawal candidate” is going to get a significant boost. So how come nobody figured this out until now?
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“as I wrote on this other blog” Come on, isn’t a little full disclosure warranted?
Are you the only one who writes for Squarestate?
But everyone at Squarestate writes under their own blogname, not some nebulous editorial board-like name. Whether Bane or someone else is logged in right now as ‘ColoradoPols’ doesn’t matter. It still looks bad to pimp another site when one of the editors of this site wrote that article without disclosing it.
What johne said. If it’s always just going to be “CoPols,” then “CoPols” should be clear about its relationship to State38–“CoPols” also blogs there.
Or you could use real names, like at squarestate.
CO Pols would never do that. When we know who they are we’d know for sure that they don’t know what they are talking about in all the big line rankings and some of us might stop coming to the site.
Rocket surgery sounds dangerous
Maybe I mis-heard Joan and Jared back a few weeks ago when they all (including Will) spoke at the Clear Creek Dems picnic. Joan’s been an outspoken war critic for some time and has not been shy about calling for withdrawal. But maybe I’m delusional and Will really is out in front on this one.
I have to say, this is not going to do much. All the candidates are taking immediate withdrawal positions, the polling demands it. This race will be decided on ground game, sufficient fundraising to compete with JP, solid Internet strategy and issues probably last. Oh, don’t let me forget personality, there will be a lot of interfacing with candidates and that too will be critical.
Please point to where either of the other candidates have taken a immediate withdrawal position.
They almost certainly will. And it doesn’t really matter who does it first. Primary voters aren’t paying attention yet, and by the time they start to care, all three candidates will be singing off the same song sheet when it comes to Iraq. I seriously doubt any real fissures will open up on any key issues with these candidates.
From a press release on Joan’s website (and I’ve heard her make this statement personally…):
From Jared’s issues page:
Admittedly, Jared’s statement isn’t quite as strong as the other two, especially considering the bullet points following that first one that I quoted, but it’s still a statement that he believes our military goal should be defined in terms of withdrawal.
Nothing you posted shows either of them calling for an immediate withdrawal, or even one in this decade. Joan seems to be calling for a change in course in Iraq and Jared seems to be calling for a withdrawal at some point. Maybe I’m just splitting hairs, but I think the difference between getting out of Iraq today and getting out of Iraq in a few years is a big one.
But please, lets not confuse a candidate being the first to relaese a press statement as leading the pack on the issue.
We had to revisit Joan and Jared’s websites and parse some meaning out of their statements in order to see where (we think) they are on this. Schafroth made it clear, simple, and public. Hopefully a similar statement from the other two is forthcoming.
Joan talks about the funding vote everywhere she goes, and in more detail including just what it means to the strategy. You’re saying Shafroth wins because he made a press release using two words?
I didn’t need to “revisit” Joan’s website and parse meaning to see where she was on it – I’ve heard it from her multiple times at multiple events.
Perhaps Schafroth just succeeded in elevating it to a primary part of his platform. I try to pay attention, but I had never heard a clear statement from Joan F-G on this.
And she called me two weeks ago at home, and we chatted for ten minutes, and somehow I left it mostly at small talk. My bad. We talked about Roan Plateau and some mutual friends instead. You can ridicule me now.
(For the record, I was and am supporting Joan Fitz-Gerald with my vote.)
“For the record, I was and am supporting Joan Fitz-Gerald with my vote.”
With that statement, I have to ask. Is the misspelling of his name intentional? You do it every time even when everyone else in the thread gets it right.
Isn’t pulling funding for the war pretty much the same thing?
BTW: we can’t get out of Iraq today. If we left a lot of our equipment behind (not a good idea…) we *might* be able to get completely out in 6 months, unless you just want to leave the troops completely open to attack as they withdraw. If we want to take the equipment with us, it’ll probably take a year. Troop deployment isn’t done with magical teleporters.
it will take at least a year. We brought our troops back quickly from Iraq I, and it cost us plenty (west nile was likely brought over from that).
A proper withdrawal will involve decontaminating equipment, staging it to Europe or some friendly location, and once we reach a certain level of troops and support, moving the rest to a friendly (or simply friendlier) location (Sandia Arabia or even Afghanistan). Leaving equipment behind would be a major mistake. It will be used by those who have the most to gain; Al Qaeda.
http://www.washingto…
Yes, and Shaffroth is on the wrong side of the issue. Won’t the majority favor a more well-thought approach? Something like:
Controlled withdrawal of U.S. forces that minimizes U.S. casualties and equipment losses
That was Polis’ position from which you drew the distinction.
It’s the parts of Polis’s policy that follow that first bullet-point which bother me about the strength of his desire to leave Iraq. I pulled up the other two quotes because they represent basically the same sentiment as Shafroth’s supposedly bold announcement…