Earlier today, I noticed for the first time that a clear anti-Hillary narrative - weakness on the war - had taken hold. It's a very damaging narrative for her, because it's an effective criticism that is not personality-based and won't raise an instinct that Democratic primary voters have to rally around those attacked by the right. It suggests character flaws - stubbornness, weakness, caution, triangulation, arrogance - but it's a substantive criticism, not a Fox News-ified hysteria-induced creepy insult.
There is one possible response that Clinton could use to effectively defuse this narrative. She can't at this point admit fault on the war, because that would be a craven concession to primary voters, a pander that would be tough to trust. She also can't triangulate and argue that her vote suggests she is strong on national security, because that's no longer the world we're living in. No, the only way to turn this around would be to take a really public and aggressive leadership role in beating back Bush's plan to invade Iran.
I don't know how this would work, since I don't understand the strategies involved. But part of it for Hillary Clinton would have to be a very high-profile attack on Bush for baiting Iranian forces, and a call for Bush to remove carrier groups from the gulf. Taking a leading role against an attack on Iran would allow Senator Clinton to argue that she is looking forward, not backward, and it would show that she is serious about doing so. It would neutralize Obama's antiwar credentials, since she would be a leader against a new war, and it would sideswipe Edwards completely since he's poorly positioned on Iran.
It would be very hard to argue that Clinton was weak on Iraq, and it would be easier to trust her assertion that she wants to end the war. If she actually took a leading role - and I don't mean a Senatorial role - against an attack on Iran, a lot of skeptics would have a hard time sustaining their skepticism. The incentives that progressives would have to attack her candidacy would instantly be removed, since we wouldn't want to undercut her leadership on such a crucial issue as preventing a war with Iran.
I doubt this will happen, but that's the only way I can see Clinton neutralizing the emerging narrative on Iraq.
UPDATE: This New York Times article confirms everything I wrote about the anti-Clinton narrative. It's the war, primary voters don't like her on the war, she reminds them of John Kerry in 2004, and rivals are going after her on the war. And this narrative is in the New York Times. Triangle closed. There are two new pieces of information in the article - local officials are endorsing her rivals because of the war, and Mark Penn is driving the 'let's focus on domestic issues' strategy. Yglesias calls this 'slightly insane'. I think it's bad polling. Regardless, she's feeling a lot of pressure, and this Iran strategy will work.
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