Despite the persistent intensity and the episodic acrimony of the presidential nominating contests, we can generally agree that this has not been a campaign about issues. The policy differences between the candidates, particularly on the Democratic side where things have gotten nastiest, are negligible to the point of being nonexistent.
But submerged beneath is an important policy question that may yet come to be the defining one of the campaign season: Where were you on the war in Iraq when it mattered? This, in the end, may define the difference between Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party and Barack Obama's.
I understand the urge to move on, to get past Iraq, but with Mr. Iraq himself, John McCain, having emerged as the GOP nominee and with the most significant difference between Clinton and Obama being their early positions on the war, Iraq will inevitably return to its rightful place at the center of this presidential debate.
And already we see Iraq playing itself out in various down-ticket races. When voters in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia go to the polls tomorrow, the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will share the stage with an equally intense primary in Maryland's 4th Congressional District, where eight-term incumbent Al Wynn is in a dogfight for re-election against a formidable challenger, Donna Edwards.
Edwards has attracted a lot of support from progressives inside and outside the district in part because of a series of controversial votes by Wynn. In 2005 he voted yes on a bankruptcy reform bill that was a clear giveaway to the banks and the credit-card companies at the expense of consumers, particularly the marginal ones in debt or bankruptcy. And he has voted for one of the GOP's favorite tax cuts, the repeal of the estate tax, which affects only a small percentage of the wealthiest Americans. But it was his vote in 2002 to authorize the war that could topple him on Tuesday.
The Tuesday match up is a rematch of the 2006 primary that shocked the incumbent into trying to shore up his progressive bona fides. Wynn survived that contest, winning 49.7 percent of the vote to Edwards' 46.4 percent. Since then, he has repeatedly declared himself against the war, and has even called for the impeachment of the vice president for his role in the war planning.
This time around, however, Edwards has become a cause celebre among progressives, and the race has taken on the frame of the old guard versus the new, the establishment versus insurgents.
Wynn has the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer as well as the endorsements of NARAL and the AFL-CIO; Edwards has the backing of the maverick Service Employees International Union and the liberal blogosphere, including Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga.
Edwards has raised more money and spent less of it than Wynn so far, and the lawyer and former domestic abuse advocate is riding a wave of anti-Wynn 527 money-more than $1 million so far-pouring into the race. SEIU and the League of Conservation Voters have weighed in on her behalf with television ads and direct-mail pieces aimed at burying Wynn.
Maryland's 4th District is hardly the place you'd expect a big primary fight; it's not a swing district by any definition. Sitting right outside Washington, D.C., it's so overwhelmingly Democratic that Tuesday's primary is the de facto general election. And the Democrats here are as homogenous as they come: They are largely black, and they work for the government.
The district is comprised of a big chunk of Prince George's County and some of rural Montgomery County. It is the most affluent black community in the country. Prince George's County is about 63 percent black, and the congressional district had a median household income of $57,727 in 2006 compared with the national median of $48,201. It is the kind of district that would be solidly for Hillary Clinton were Obama not in the race. It is the kind of district that has been solidly behind Wynn in the past (he won with 81 percent of the vote in the 2006 general election), but he may fall victim to the same the disdain for political calculation that is fueling the Obama campaign.
"We do a good job holding Republicans accountable during general elections, but we need to do a better job holding Democrats accountable, too," Terry Cavanagh, executive director of the SEIU Maryland State Council told The Washington Post. "That's what this is about."
Despite all the happy talk about the success of the surge and the improvements in Iraq, the country is now fairly decided that the war was a mistake, and it was a mistake built on massive lapses in judgment by the president and those who sided with him.
At the height of the fighting in Iraq, it was difficult and sometimes unseemly to dredge through the politics of what started the war. It was fair to argue that we should focus on winning and getting out rather than quibbling about "the past."
But that night in October 2002, the country lumbered into the greatest public-policy disaster of our generation, and eventually there will have to be an accounting for it. Clinton has effectively managed to move the debate beyond her vote to authorize the war; Obama has capitalized on an urgency among young people to look forward.
But those days in October 2002, when the Congress had a choice that could have maybe saved us from the resulting debacle in Iraq, lurk over our choices now.
Tuesday's elections may not decide the Democratic presidential nomination, but if Al Wynn goes down, it will be because of Iraq, and that may offer some clue about how the presidential contest will be decided in the end.
