Raven Brooks

Last night President Obama made a speech from the oval office, officially announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq. But it’s been out there since Rachel Maddow broke the news of the last combat units leaving Iraq around the middle of the month. That’s when I wrote this piece.

To date we’ve had the obligatory traditional coverage in the media when the President breaks news. But we still haven’t had much reaction from netroots sources, either blogs or institutions. What we have had is mostly the same negativity, frustration and outrage we’ve seen for months on any issue, take your pick.

Granted there are still 50,000 troops there and despite not having the label of “combat troops” they will inevitably find themselves in harms way. But Obama also said those troops would be out by the end of 2011. To date the administration has not given us any evidence to support the view that won’t happen.

So where does that leave us from a movement and electoral perspective? Well, by any objective measure Obama has fulfilled one of the major promises he made during his campaign. And let’s be crystal clear here. If President McCain were in office we would not be leaving Iraq. Further, this is an issue that lead to a ton of activism and built whole organizations over a period of years during the Bush administration. For example, a significant percentage of MoveOn’s members came from this period of activism (and to be fair they did send an email about this, photos here). And movements need to celebrate victories, however incremental. No one likes being on a losing team. It’s how you keep people motivated. You can keep moving the goal posts, and say now we need to end the conflict in Afghanistan for example. But you’ve got to stop and acknowledge what you’ve accomplished.

The tricky part is with a subject like Iraq “victory” doesn’t really belong in the same sentence, but there are ways to do it.

One of the major challenges we’re all facing this November is the democratic base isn’t feeling motivated because they believe that we haven’t done enough towards the change they voted for. Some portion of that blame lies with Congress and the Obama administration. But bloggers and the traditional media share some of it as well because for the most part the good things that have been accomplished have been ignored. The focus has always been on pushing for more, what could have been done better, etc. And there has been an unprecedented look at the process of lawmaking, which as it turns out isn’t pretty. And when you know what you could have had, justifiably you often aren’t satisfied with what you get.

The Iraq issue should provide a clear contrast with the Republican party and a way that everyone can say that voting does matter and it’ll matter even more this November. And to do that you don’t have to claim that the Obama administration has the best foreign policy, you just have to focus on a big fulfilled campaign promise and trot out that clip of John McCain from the election.

But that’s clearly not happening.

Everyone is a little too wrapped up in punditry and training their fire on what Democrats are or aren’t doing legislatively or in the administration. I’m not suggesting that be excused or overlooked. But if we really don’t want to see Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell this fall then a little more time needs to be devoted to trying to motivate Democratic base voters. That doesn’t mean feeding everyone a bunch of bullshit, it means working hard for candidates that are worth defending or are running important challenges. Focus people on that and knocking on doors, making calls, and donating what they can in support of candidates that echo their values.

Then once we’re past November 2nd we get back to working for change with whatever the landscape happens to be. Blue Dogs can twist in the wind. I’m not lifting a finger to help them. But people like Barbara Boxer or new candidates like Jack Conway are important. Right now I’m not sure there is any valid theory of change around criticism and stoking people’s frustrations with Democrats. I can guarantee one thing, if we don’t work on the election a little bit now, there’s going to be close to zero potential for getting anything done after November. And to make matters worse everyone will likely be fighting off investigations and “special prosecutors.”

Tagged as Barack Obama, Election 2010, Iraq, Organizing + Categorized as Politics