With Congressional approval ratings at an historic low, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be facing a primary challenge from anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan next June.  Why are ratings so low?  Its simple, the Democratic majority is failing its promise to deliver our troops and tax dollars out of Iraq. 

Not withstanding the political grandstanding that was immigration reform.

Yes, they put up a few ceremonial, non-binding resolutions that are meaningless in the view of the president.  But even the public doesn’t respect them.  They did manage to sneak in a few benchmarks into an Iraq appropriations bill in which the first report is due at the end of this week. 

But I can give you the details of the report right now: we just started the surge, we don’t know if it’s working yet and by the way, our enemies are spiking violence right now because we must deliver this report.

All of that will mean nothing to a nation that voted for a new direction in national policy; a direction that leads us right out of Iraq.  The Democratic leadership, their few think tanks and respected media elites seem to have run out of ideas.  But I have a few.

First, we must specify that the Democratic majority in Congress is not very progressive, despite its San Franciscan Speaker. 

Take freshman Senator Jim Webb of Virginia for example, elected in November 2006, he has quickly worked his way up the ranks as a power broker because he is a moderate democrat who voted republican on numerous occasions in the past decade.  He beat a conservative do-nothing who was too focused on becoming the conservative answer to the exiting George W. Bush in 2008.

There are many more freshman members just like him who are not prepared to walk away from the brewing civil war overseas.  They want a new strategy but are only prepared to debate one that is proposed by the President, not their own.

Second, given the constitutional reality that Bush holds veto power until January 19, 2009, the stubborn Texan isn’t likely to bend until you can drive a wedge into his base support, who still support this fools errand by the way.

As a community organizer, you are taught to campaign around issues that are winnable, given limited resources.  The ability to win is defined by your capacity, potential allies, likely opposition, the politics of the decision makers and the challenges you must overcome.

Applying this same rubric, this humble organizer would advise Speaker Nancy Pelosi to avoid a tough primary challenge from Sheehan and losing the Blue majority by tasking Bush on winnable measures.

Forget about pulling troops out of Iraq, the public is not ready to support the perceived abandonment of a mess we started.  Benchmarks or silly non-binding resolutions achieve nothing and therefore are not worth fighting for. 

You can win if you go after war-profiteering by prohibiting the outsourcing of various security tasks and support operations.  The privatization of military functions in an unpopular war can prove difficult for the president’s party to defend.  I’d love to hear Cheney’s speech for why his old company is so vital to the success of the mission in Iraq. 

As you peel the president’s base over an issue the public supports, his veto is less likely and his willingness to negotiate is more likely.  You become more powerful and he becomes less powerful.

The immigration debacle proves as much.  Bush put everything into his immigration proposal, but could never satisfy his own base.  He lost without an up or down vote, despite the support of the democratic majority in both chambers of Congress.  He is now, officially lame duck.

Next, you move to prohibit permanent military bases in the Iraq region.  This policy, popular in Russia, Europe and the Middle East directly handcuffs operations in Iraq and indirectly protracts the long-term expansion of Bush policy in the volatile region.

Moreover, nationalistic Americans are not that interested in establishing permanent bases in places we don’t need them.  It’d be risky for a weakened President to instigate a political showdown and the Republican Party facing grim prospects in 2008 may be in a position to run from anything reminiscent of Iraq.

Both proposals ignite and inspire the anti-war base of the party as well as most liberals who have never bought into the senseless war. 

Applying a basic political analysis of these proposed winnable measures, you have political majorities in both chambers.  Even allies like Webb can find this to be safe politics in conservative Virginia which features many military bases up and down its coast. 

Your opponents would have to be pretty creative to justify record-profits for Halliburton and Blackwater as our nation’s best young men and women are caught in the middle of an Iraqi civil war.  The American public associates U.S. troops as critical to the mission in Iraq, not Blackwater mercenaries. 

Furthermore, you change policy without the appearance of being weak against the war on terror.  It’s a nuance with far-reaching affect. 

And lastly, I believe that if you crush one of the pillars of neo-conservative philosophy, which is a light-flexible military aided by unaccountable private paramilitary forces and operations support, you crush their political strategy and send them back to the drawing board.

If you dissipate their political ability, you diminish their motivation to stay, fight and waste lives.

But I’m just a lowly community organizer, not a high-paid Washington political operative out of touch with a frustrated nation.

© E.D. Petty

While an estimated 12 million plus undocumented workers contribute to our culture, economy the Senate is closing in on approving a cloture motion to end debate on immigration reform and send some type of legislation to conference with the House version passed earlier this year.

Unfortunately the House version known as HR 4437 is strictly border enforcement with penalties for employers and does nothing to address the moral question of what to do with the people who have come to our gifted land for the economic opportunities and freedom we so often take for granted.

For weeks now, the Senate has bickered incessantly about the definition of amnesty, social security entitlement and affirming the King’s English as our native tongue.

Yesterday they shut down Senator Feinstein’s attempt to establish an orange card which would be granted to all non-citizens living in the United States. Unclear if that was blanket amnesty the American way or legal status Nazi Germany’s way. It would have solved nothing at best and could be despicable at worst.

The McCain-Kennedy comprehensive proposal is so convoluted it would create unintended consequences that would exacerbate the government’s inability to have good reform, although it does contain very good provisions including the adjustment to the number of visas granted and by which formula are they given.

Republican Senator Mel Martinez, a former Bush administration official from perennial swing state Florida has a proposal that appears to open the door for new American citizens as far as the eye can see. It’s also dead on arrival.

So now comes along, Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. A self described, “Christian, Conservative and Republican; in that order” with a proposal that seeks to find some middle ground between the competing border enforcement only and amnesty crowds.

Oddly enough, Pence is chair of the House Study Committee, otherwise known as the House conservative right-wing cook committee.

His proposal calls for tough border enforcement including physical, virtual walls; tougher penalties for employers; a guest worker program with technological identification process and all the 12 million currently here have to do is go home and touch base. There they can tag (like baseball) and advance forward back to USA by receiving health screening and criminal background check.

No proof of work or rent receipts required. No costly or undoable deportation. Employers would have to participate in a single system supported by the work of private firms. Similar to the current but unenforced agricultural visa system.

That means no new government agency with an unfunded mandate which is what we see currently. Obviously, Mike Pence’s version could use some tweaking such as civil rights for the workers, especially in the workplace, but it’s the best idea to reach the light of day in this ultra emotional debate.

This is the kind of reform that will bring about a new day on our border. Instead of “coyotes,” drug-runners and the US military ruling the border and the corporate political interests that maintain lax control to ensure exploitation of workers, god-fearing human beings who want better for their families can emerge from the shadows.

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