It's been the practice of Democratic presidential aspirants to campaign on the far left in primary season, then swing back to the center for the general election. It's one of the reasons Democratic presidents are so rare a commodity. Hillary Clinton's vote against funding the Iraq war is a case in point. It's her appeal for votes from MoveOn.org and the Daily Kos crowd. But can she get back to the center from that far left?
The vote marks the end of Mrs. Clinton's post-9/11 positioning as a national security hawk. Her 2002 speech supporting war in Iraq was among the most forceful in the Senate, and for a while she admirably stuck with that conviction. But as the antiwar furies have built in her party, she has bent with them and now says and does whatever it takes to deny Mr. Obama or John Edwards any running room to her left. Perhaps this will win her the Democratic nomination, but it will complicate her Presidency if she ever does make it to the Oval Office. The Iranians, among others, will have seen that she can be turned when the going gets tough.
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