Obama talks Iraq

Cross-blogged from Lincoln's Logs

I know a lot of attention is being paid to the Gidwitz/Rauschenberger merger that took place today, but this story caught my eye, and seems to have gone unnoticed.

Jeff Zeleny and Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune (subscription required) filed this story on Monday regarding Sen. Barack Obama's belief that Democrats were unlikely to find a unified strategy when talking about the war in Iraq.

Sen. Barack Obama said Monday that the Democratic Party was unlikely to reconcile its differences and reach a unified strategy for Iraq, conceding: "The politics and the policy of this may not match perfectly."

As Democrats work to win control of Congress in the 2006 elections, Obama (D-Ill.) said a cacophony of views over the Iraq war threatens to divide the party once again.

"It is arguable that the best politics going into '06 would be a clear succinct message: `Let's bring our troops home,' " Obama said. "It's certainly easier to communicate and I think would probably have some pretty strong resonance with the American people right now, but whether that's the best policy right now, I don't feel comfortable saying it is."

In an interview with the Tribune's editorial board, Obama renewed his opposition to immediately pulling troops from Iraq. A growing number of Democrats and liberal groups have called for a troop withdrawal, while party leaders such as Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have dismissed such efforts as dangerously misguided.

"It's a little too early to tell how coherent the Democratic message is," Obama said.

There's a lot of talk about how 2006 could be to Democrats what 1994 was to Republicans. However, if the Democrats don't have a clear message on Iraq, what are their chances of regaining the majority in Congress?